The Field Band Foundations’ (FBF) vision and goal are to create empowered, resilient, and self-confident young people who are opportunity-ready and who contribute towards creating a more inclusive society. All this is through the medium of music and dance.

When you stumble upon a Field band, you hear the magical African rhythms with percussion and marimbas and yet powerful brass instruments. If you’re having a closer look, you see the icing on the cake; the dancers. Delicate moves, smiling faces, and charisma out of this world.  With no dancers, there is no Field Band. 

For a long time, Field Band Education (FBE) and PULSE have facilitated a lot of tutor workshops. These have been much more accommodating for the music tutors, and the dance tutors have for a long time been standing on the side. That is why FBE and PULSE these last few years have organized workshops just for the dance tutors. We want to show them that they are appreciated and that they also should get a lot out of working for FBF. In week 43 we held a movement workshop where the dance tutors got a whole week working on choreography, different dance styles such as contemporary African dance and afro-fusion. At the end of the week, they were accredited with a certificate. 

Teboho Letele from the company “Moving into Dance” was the facilitator for the dancers. “Moving into Dance» is a professional dance institution established in 1978. A cultural activist called Sylvia Glasser started teaching racially integrated dance classes in the 1970’s. This was during the height of Apartheid. This led to the establishment of “Moving into Dance”. As you can see, this dance institution is a well-established company that has kept going for a long time, and we are very happy to work with them to educate and up-skill our dancers.

In addition to the movement sessions, we facilitated sessions about life skills, teaching skills, and work readiness. In these sessions, they were taught how to write CVs, motivational letter, and other skills which they also will receive feedback on. The main goal for FBF is to see that their employees and former employees are successful in pursuing their career opportunities and are successful in life. 

Moving forward, there will be annual movement workshops so that the tutors can continue developing and bringing back new ideas for the bands they are working in, sharing ideas, making new choreographies and moving the Field Bands to a new level. 

Written by: Hanna Bakke Negård

Pictures by: Sondre Aksnes Yggeseth and Hanna Bakke Negård