Dance and Drama

Inspire Festival

The London Borough of Barking and Dagenham have hosted a festival called Inspire since 2015. We have been lucky enough to participate and represent Beam each year that the festival has been running. Our Cultural Lead Miss Mason has worked very hard to build a great foundation for the dancers at Beam. With the help of Tomo Norimaki for the past few years, we have been able to step up to the plate and show the borough exactly what we at Beam are truly made of.

With our performances so far, we have followed the themes of:

• social change,
• Shakespeare,
• diversity.
• Fords - past and present (collaborative dance with Elutec

We continue to support the Inspire Festival with this year’s theme ‘Our Barking and Dagenham.’

Furthermore, we were delighted to be asked to perform at the London Assembly Hall  - it was truly amazing, a lifelong memory to build upon.

Royal Ballet Company Filming - 25th March 2018

On Sunday 25th March, a class of our Year 4, 5 and 6 students were invited to film for the Create and Dance Programme with the Royal Ballet Company. For our children, this was a fantastic experience as we had a tour of the Royal Opera House on arrival and they filmed with Karim Zeroual (CBBC presenter) and David Pickering and Liz Foster (Senior ROH practitioners).

Create and Dance is a programme that has been created to give Key Stage 2 pupils an introduction to dance. With strong curriculum links, the programme aims to give children a better understanding of dance, build their physical skill and unlock imagination and creativity.

The children filmed 5 projects that will be used nationwide to help introduce dance lessons. It was a fantastic experience and they all worked so hard. They were all very excited to be working alongside Karim as most of them have watched him on TV. We had to make sure that we got a photo with him before we left for home!

Mrs Ryan-Power, who organised the filming day wrote to us after and said “Their energy, enthusiasm and stamina was absolutely amazing! But not only that, they were so well-behaved and respectful during quite an intense filming process. They stayed focused and patient, which is quite impressive for children of their age. They were an absolute pleasure to work with and I cannot thank them enough – the crew were most impressed.”

We all had a wonderful day and we are very excited to see the finished production.

Performing at the Barbican

Beam County Primary School has been invited to select ten children to perform alongside professional and amateur actors at The Barbican Theatre this May. We will join with the Royal Shakespeare Company and The Tower Theatre Company on a very special Midsummer adventure with a unique production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

On a Midsummer’s night, four young lovers find themselves wrapped in the dream-like arms of an enchanted forest where sprites lurk and fairies rule. While a feuding Fairy King and Queen are at war, their paths are crossed by Bottom, Quince and their friends presenting a play within a play. Chief mischief-maker Puck is on-hand to ensure that the course of true love is anything but smooth, and games of fantasy, love and dreams ensue in Shakespeare’s most beguiling comedy.

Our ten Year 5 children have been extremely busy rehearsing their singing, dancing and acting for this once in a lifetime experience as part of Titania’s (the Fairy Queen) Fairy Train. They have enjoyed the rehearsal sessions led by the Royal Shakespeare Company and feel extremely proud to be part of this nationwide tour.