Scottish Opera's new primary schools tour production The Last Aliens coming to Turriff
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Scottish Opera’s newly commissioned primary schools tour production, The Last Aliens, begins its tour around Scotland this month with a stop planned for Turriff in May.
Scottish Opera’s education and outreach department has been working in primary schools for 50 years, and teachers from schools which have already taken part agree that the tour broadened the children’s cultural experiences, improved team work skills, increased cultural confidence as well as singing ability, and supported the aims of Curriculum For Excellence.
As the pandemic resulted in the company’s last primary school tour of Warriors! The Emperor’s Incredible Army coming to a halt in March 2020, with the education team instead offering an online children’s opera entitled Fever!, they are thrilled to be back in schools to offer in- person workshops once again.
The Last Aliens, composed by Alan Penman with lyrics by Ross Stenhouse, is an intergalactic adventure for primary five to seven pupils.
A funny and relevant story about saving Planet Earth, they learn five fantastic in their own classrooms, and then the Scottish Opera Teaching Artists team arrive at the school for a morning to teach movement and choreography to prepare for a 30 minute performance in front of fellow pupils, friends and family.
In a normal year, close to 9000 children across Scotland take part in these performances with many more thousands of friends and families coming to see them in action.
Teachers can sign up to access The Last Aliens online teaching resources to work through with their pupils.
This programme of activities includes audio and video teaching aids, as well as a series of practical tasks and exercises grouped into three categories: Watch The Earth, Explore The Science and Understand The Opera, covering subjects including recycling, safe internet use, basic electrics, listening and rhythm, as well as group working, self-analysis, empathy and more.
Director of education and outreach at Scottish Opera Jane Davidson said: "This is a completely new hybrid approach to our longest running project; the Primary Schools Opera tour - which we are incredibly proud to bring back to schools in this 50th anniversary year of Scottish Opera’s education programme.
"Through engaging directly with our artists – first online and then in ‘real life’, the pupils can experience the excitement of rehearsing and performing a meaningful and funny musical story as well as exploring this crucially important subject matter across a range of key areas in the core curriculum.
"As ever, our intention is to demonstrate what an effective learning and teaching tool the art form of opera is, with this unique blend of science, technology, literacy, communication skills and responsible citizenship - all connected by creativity."
All The Last Aliens introductory and teaching films feature members of the company’s primary schools team, in character as the crew of the SOE (Scottish Orbital Expedition) craft.
SOE has been tasked with monitoring the Earth’s Global Climate Change and gathering data on the impact this is having on the natural environment.
By completing all the tasks and activities, the pupils can contribute their new found knowledge towards helping to build the case for convincing world leaders that immediate action is required to reverse the damage.
The SOE team invite the pupils to join them in rehearsing and performing a brand new opera on the subject: The Last Aliens.
The opera tells the story of a spaceship arriving in orbit around Earth; the occupants have travelled all the way across the galaxy to convince everyone of the need to join together and take action to protect the planet for future generations.
Down on the planet’s surface, The Scientists and The Military are at complete loggerheads about what to do next and it all seems pretty bleak...until the visitors bring them a message that they can’t ignore.
The Last Aliens is supported by The Mickel Fund, Harbinson’s Charitable Trust, The Hayward Sanderson Trust and Scottish Opera's Education Angels, with thanks to the Educational Institute of Scotland for a donation towards the cost of the production.
For more details about The Last Aliens, you can visit www.scottishopera.org.uk.
