Arts Victoria The Perfect Moment File Name: Arts Victoria The Perfect Moment Duration: 00:03:22 Transcription 00:00:00 - 00:00:03 VIDEO Graphic on screen: Title: EXTENDED SCHOOL RESIDENCIES Australia Council for the Arts Logo & Arts Victoria Logo (music under) 00:00:03 - 00:00:06 VIDEO Graphic on screen: THE PERFECT MOMENT THE ARTISTIC CONCEPT Women's Circus and Elmore Primary School (music under) 00:00:06 - 00:00:33 VIDEO Tara Prowse talking to interviewer including documentation of students, artists and teachers in an Extended School Residency workshop and performance at Elmore Primary School. Graphic on screen: Tara Prowse Creative Producer Women's Circus AUDIO: (music under) The perfect moment was a project between the Women's Circus and a small rural primary school, Elmore Primary. We were looking at a concept that would hold the community, that would hold the project, but also that would hold myself as the producer and Jens as the artist in terms of our interest and our artistic inquiry and where we wanted to come from. 00:00:33 - 00:01:20 VIDEO Jens Altheimer talking to interviewer including documentation of students, artists and teachers in an Extended School Residency workshop and performance at Elmore Primary School. Graphic on screen: Jens Altheimer Theatre Creator Women's Circus AUDIO: (music under) I was interested to explore the concept of balance in different ways - first of all, balance in circus skills, where quite often we balance objects or have to balance ourselves on something. Also where balance is a concept in nature. We were interested in the dynamic balance of nature where eating and being eaten is part of a whole balance and then taking it from there to some more philosophical fields of where actually balance existing in my life, what can I do if an imbalance is happening? How can I re-adjust it because that's all about balance. It's a very short moment where everything is in balance and then we have to adjust again because we fall out of balance. 00:01:20 - 00:01:47 VIDEO Michelle Griffiths talking to interviewer including documentation of students, artists and teachers in Artist in Residence and Extended School Residence workshops in various schools. Graphic on screen: Michelle Griffiths Principal Elmore Primary School AUDIO: (music under) The concept of balance appealed to me because it was a wonderful topic in that sense, that we were able to look at the children as a wellbeing concept and then we were able to look at it academically as well. It covered the curriculum side of things in terms of science and mathematics. We could draw definite connections to curriculum and learning there, academic learning. I think that's also why it appealed to the broader community, because there were access points at lots of different levels. 00:01:47 - 00:02:27 VIDEO Tara Prowse talking to interviewer including documentation of students, artists and teachers in an Extended School Residency workshop and performance at Elmore Primary School. AUDIO: (music under) We worked with visual arts, we worked with performing arts, we worked with circus, we worked with built sculptures, we worked in environmental arts, we worked across lots of different forms and I guess the form of the art was less important itself than the concept, and the concept was kind of what underpinned and what brought all those different segments together, and it also enabled, I think, the teachers and the school and also the parents and community, who became very involved, to all find their own roads into the project, because there were so many elements to it that they were able to find their own niche and find their own way in. 00:02:27 - 00:02:54 VIDEO Jens Altheimer talking to interviewer including documentation of students, artists and teachers in an Extended School Residency workshop and performance at Elmore Primary School. AUDIO: (music under) What was really satisfying for me in the project, was to never give up, a certain artistic integrity that I had about it. I was never too interested in making kids do tricks and wave their arms and all their parents would clap and think they are lovely, especially their own kid, but I always wanted to keep the project with a tight artistic integrity around the concept of balance. 00:02:54 - 00:03:14 VIDEO Tara Prowse talking to interviewer including documentation of students, artists and teachers in an Extended School Residency workshop and performance at Elmore Primary School. AUDIO: (music under) It was a process of investigation as opposed to, you know, a hypothesis where your outcome is a yes or a no. It's kind of impossible to attain perfect balance, that it actually doesn't exist. So in that way, we were constantly kind of investigating and breaking down and opening up the concept. 00:03:14 - 00:03:22 VIDEO Graphic on screen: Arts Victoria Logo & Australia Council for the Arts Logo Credits: EXTENDED SCHOOL RESIDENCIES An Arts Victoria Program supported by the the Victorian Government and the Australian Government through the Australia Council, its arts funding and the advisory body. Thanks to: Elmore Primary School staff and students, Women's Circus, Jens Altheimer, Tara Prowse and Michelle Griffiths. For further information visit www.arts.vic.gov.au Video created by Singing Bowl Media