Singing – you’re crazy right?

We spent around 6 hours just discussing what we should do to kick off the morning of the second day. We knew people would be a little tired (hungover?), and it needed to be fun and still challenging. We also did not have a great deal of time. This activity had to do some heavy lifting in terms of moving the conference forward.

The solution was introduced by Dee Hennessy, a PhD student in Imagination and one of the key members of the organising committee. She recommended Dominic Sudbury a choir master from London.

After a further 2 meetings on this subject we arranged a Skype with Dominic.

The first positive thing was that he was a bit apprehensive about the challenge, but he was also up for it and presented us with a very plausible, innovative and interesting response to this challenge.

We were very happy with this but the reality far exceeded our expectations. Dominic drew us into singing in a very easy and natural way. Even people with an aversion to singing were comfortable and having fun (as the photos and slideshow here will attest).

This warming up led to a mini-performance of the 8 manifesto points developed from the panel the previous day. These performances ranged from Berstein style Sharks and Jets to rounds of beat poetry.

The aim of this was to get everyone energised but also talking and thinking about the 8 manifesto points and how they could be interpreted. Dominic achieved this both (apparently) effortlessly and with a great deal of elan – Brilliant.