Spain Playshop – SEP 2017
Hello My Friends,
Pau Gimeno is our very successful Regional Organizer in Spain. He is a teacher at the University of Barcelona and also a music therapist who works with adults in different hospitals around the city. He has been keeping track of our Spanish Playshop graduates and supportively been “connecting the dots” for years. The result was we were ready for a Spain DrumAbout this year. As you could tell by my Spain DrumAbout report, it was quite a wonderful experience to ride with Pau and the DrumAbout team all over Spain before the Playshop in Barcelona.
Another positive result of Pau’s rhythm evangelism in Spain is that this year’s Playshop was the largest yet with half of the population being Basic first-time attendees and half returnee graduates who were coming for the Challenge course. The VMC graduate returnees played on the edge of their experience and knowledge. That kicked the Playshop into full speed very quickly and made for a very fun event for all involved.
Pau is one of the 16 TTT candidates (Train-The-Trainers) from around the world who will be attending the extended Village Music Circles Certification training. When certified, he will be organizing and teaching his own VMC 3-day Playshops in Spain and bringing me back to do a 6-day Playshop whenever the Spanish DCCommunity is ready.
In that regard, as part of our one-on-one Co-Facilitator training program, in preparation for the intensive Teachers Certification in Scotland, Pau was our lead trainer at this year’s 3-day Playshop and I was the “Color and Cover” man. My job was to monitor the progress of the 3-day Playshop Training Protocol that Pau was delivering, add some color to Pau’s delivery and “discreetly” cover any basic elements that he might of missed, which weren’t many. So I got to work less and play more. I had a ball.
I did this kind of ‘One-On-One’ Training all over Asia this spring with, Song in Korea, Tomtom in Japan, John Hagedorn in Malaysia, Roberto and Vasundhara in India, and Simon in Australia. Part of the objective of the One-On-One Co-Facilitation Trainings was to prepare them for the Scotland Intensive Certification process and to access their strengths and weaknesses which would help Jim Boneau and I design the Scotland Intensive Certification to meet their particular needs.
Now its Europe’s turn and Pau was first in the line up. He and I both did just great! It was not only a pleasure co-training with Pau, it was a lot of fun.
This year’s Spain Playshop was, once again, held at the music college “Escola Superior De Music de Catalunya.” We used one of their large practice rooms the first two days and then moved into their fantastic airy and well sunlit Symphony Practice/performance Hall for day 3 and the closing community drum circle.
Coralie Pearson was our passionate translator again. This year her challenge was that she had to translate Spanish to English, not just for me but for people who’s first language was not Spanish. That’s because we had a group of attendees from England, Switzerland, Germany, Scotland, France and Italy. This was truly an international Playshop Training.
There will also be a few non-English speaking Spanish participants at the Scotland 3-day Playshop this year and they are bringing Coralie to come as their interpreter. A big thank you to Coralee for being my evangelist voice in Spain for all these years.
GEWA is the REMO distributor for a large part of Europe. The kits of the different types and sizes of the REMO drums that GEWA gave Pau two years ago have been well used since then. Pau has made the drums available to the general community through his “Facilitator Family” organization. They have been doing a drum circle a month that has been co-facilitated by rotating members of this VMC Facilitator family. This type of co-op drum circle facilitation is facilitator community building and recreational drumming community building at it’s best.
Thanks to REMO’s financial support of my flights on this year’s Village Music Circles Playshop Tours. It helps us keep the price of the programs accessible to the community, and the world.
Our large family-friendly community drum circle held in the spacious symphony rehearsal hall was a total success. I can tell, just by the massive population that showed up for our closing drum circle, that Pau is doing an excellent job building rhythm community here in northern Spain.
The Playshop graduates left lots of group groove space in-between facilitation sequences. They followed the VMC DCFacilitation Protocol by doing appropriate interventions at the right time during the event. They created a full and complete rhythmical and musical experience for moms, dads, and the kids. So once again I did not have to do much facilitation work at this drum circle as my “Kids had it well in hand.”
Next on the program will be a Ireland DrumAbout….
The rest of my European Playshop tour schedule will be: My usual James Asher-Rhythmical/Musical Alchemy week in his studio in southern England. Then the final series of Co-Facilitated Playshops, including:
Mikel and Lars in Norway
Harshil in Italy
Benjamin in Germany
Dr. Jane Bentley and Paul Dear in Scotland
And last but not least, the Train-The-Trainers Certification program at the Wiston Lodge in Scotland.
And then a new era in Village Music Circle’s Rhythmical Evangelistic Mission will start, with an international team of VMC-Certified DCFacilitator Trainers on the loose.
Look Out World – Uncle Arthur {]]’;-)
Spain 2017 DCF Playshop Demographics:
16 School Teachers
12 Music Teachers
9 Drum Teachers
21 Music Therapist
14 Elderly-related Professionals
5 Adults at Risk Professionals
8 Kids at Risk Professionals
13 Special Needs Professionals
6 Corporate Facilitators
1 Psychotherapist
10 Infant-Toddler Facilitators
9 Medical related, Doctors, Nurses and Healthcare Professionals
11 School Rhythm Event Facilitators
10 Community Drum Circles Facilitators
2 Drum Makers
12 Professional Musicians
14 People connected to Nonprofit organizations
All Recreational Drummers
Arthur
Life is a dance