#INFLUENCERDRIVE. Drusilla Harris talks music, teaching, dance, tech, aesthetics and inspiration.

Here we go, as part of the influencer series on inspirational women. 

DRUSILLA HARRIS: A name to watch. A talent to observe. A creative drive to learn from! 

1:  Musician, composer, dancer, choreographer, teacher: rank those in order of enjoyment, priority and fulfilment. Also, how does one intersect with and drive the other? 

 

The musician and the dancer developed together as a child. My parents were musicians and the whole family had to practice every day. I had weekly dance lessons - ballet from 3 and then tap and jazz as a teen- but I also used to find music to play and dance to as my number one leisure activity from as young as 5, when my Grandma gave me and my younger sister our first tiny little transistor radios. 

We would get up early, go down to the basement, find the same station on each radio so it was louder and felt fuller, and dance away together before anyone else was up. We would always dress up for this. Basically, I danced every day of my life and still do. I just did not see it as a practice until I was an adult. 

 

Growing up, I adopted my parents’ attitude that music was serious and dance was fun. But when I danced, I felt like I was effortlessly in the music, whereas playing music well was often a long and difficult journey. I was also always improvising with the dancing, though I would sometimes fix on a particular sequence and go over and over it.  There were also times when I would lie on the floor face down with the music loud and imagine how and what I would dance if I had the sort of body that would do what I wanted it to do. Choreographing in my head. So, I became a choreographer of sorts before I tried to compose music, because I was freer and more immediately creative with my body than on my instruments. Not so many judges around. 

 

Looking back, I think whilst growing and developing, dancing kept me in touch with what I was trying to achieve as a musician and with what I loved about the music, even if I was unaware of it at the time.

 

I started at the Junior Academy at the age of 8 and a year or so later, started having composing lessons in a small group with a woman called Melanie Deakin. I think she was meant to be giving us Aural training, but she was passionate about composition and so it was all about composing. She was wildly eccentric in her dress and her manner and I found her fascinating and used to have to try not to stare too hard. 

But she also simply expected us to be able to create music, and so we did. I remember my first piece was for solo violin, exactly one page of manuscript paper long and a little bit too difficult for me to play, which I found annoying. Sadly, I had a different Aural teacher the following year, who actually taught us Aural. But I always remember that one year with Melanie as planting a seed. And from that point, I used to try and improvise on both instruments when I practised, though it had to be furtive, as it was considered messing around by my parents.

 

My father started to teach me 18th century harmony and 16th century counterpoint when I was about 10. I found it a dry, difficult, and frustrating process, though when I had 'got it right' and followed all the rules correctly, it was satisfying to hear it working so well. This did mean that when I was harmonising chorales and writing variations for O' and A' level music (both of which used to be a lot more arduous and difficult than they are now), I felt I had a head-start. I did not really feel that any of this was composing, though. It was more like technique practice. I did not feel I was composing freely and creatively for many more years

 

At the end of my third year at music college (RNCM)- at the behest of a friend, who insisted I would like it -  I wandered into a Dalcroze Eurhythmics lesson one Monday evening. (yes, Annie Lennox did it too at her music college) This is a complex and rigorous philosophy of teaching that incorporates movement training, aural training and improvisation. 

The combination means that both composition and choreography are developed as a natural extension of this three-legged foundation, and as such are part of the requirements for examination at all levels. In that class, with Karin Greenhead, I felt lights being switched on everywhere. I came out with the certainty that this was precisely how music should be taught. It was the only way it made any sense. So the interest in teaching was born. I have continued to seek personal training in Dalcroze Eurhythmics at regular intervals all my life - because I love to continue to learn, but also because it is just so much fun to do. When I teach, it always comes from these Dalcroze principles.

 

So it was at this point that I started to consciously (rather than instinctively) be aware and to understand how playing music, dancing, composing, and choreography were intrinsically linked. That they all supported and fed each other. From that point, it was like an upward spiral of physical and mental understanding and development. It was as if I suddenly had permission to do things like train my body with real ambition, because it fed my music. Dance did not JUST have to be for fun. It could be a serious mission, too.

 

I studied Astanga Yoga for years because I could see how it gave me the strength and flexibility I needed to dance better - though speed, agility and creativity had to be trained elsewhere. In dance classes. Over the years I have been to Jazz, Argentine tango, Graham, Belly dancing, Humphrey, Ballet, Steet dance, Commercial. they all feed a growing vocabulary. Now it is usually ballet because it is so immensely challenging, I can do it whenever I want to at home - thanks to ENB online - and I feel the excellent training provided by the ENB is really working. I would like to go back to Street as it was a huge challenge and a lot of fun. Well, I would like to do them all, but I can't do everything at once, sadly. 

 

 

As a teacher (first working at the Purcell School and at Central School of Ballet) I first started to compose music for my Dalcroze lessons because I needed something that illustrated a precise point I wanted my students ot understand and it was easier and quicker to compose it that to find something. Dalcroze teachers often improvise on the piano for their students to move, sing, improvise with throughout a lesson, but it took me a good while to be a good enough improviser to just play for anything and for such sustained periods of time. The process of improvising for class is intensely focused and needs stamina! So, composing filled in gaps for me here, too.

 

I have so many, many compositions for exercises. All on manuscript paper. (Music tech came later for me). I also used to choreograph on my students as well as compose for them to choreograph. I created large choreographies for composed works like Pictures at an Exhibition and Appalachian Spring on my students at the Purcell School that were performed in public. 

This led to me being asked to do some professional work by a conductor parent - Nicholas Kraemer. So, we collaborated and I semi-staged an Oratorio and two Operas for him at The Sage in Gateshead. After the first one, Lesley Garrett, who was one of the singers I had worked with, suggested I should get work at ENO as an assistant director. She was going to put in a word. But I did not have the confidence to believe I could suddenly become an Opera director at the age of 29.

I did go on to stage 2 further Operas, though. Dido and Aneas and Theodora. Before children necessitated the sort of job with a regular salary and hours. It was brilliant fun. I loved every minute. 

 

Once I was participating in the development of plays and school productions where I am teaching now, at St John's, composition became its own focus. I wanted to create original soundtracks that were developed alongside and supported the stage action. Tailored to each play and providing inspiration for the children on stage to dance, move and act better.  I have choreographed dances with the children and then written the music for them as part of the action. I create underscoring for other parts of the play and for the transitions, which usually need to contain organised movement, if not actual dance.

 

This now is what I perhaps find the most fulfilling. This sort of composition requires me to be a musician, dancer, choreographer as well as a composer and witnessing the result on stage, with movement, lighting, storytelling is intensely satisfying. 

 

So in summing up and trying to actually answer the question properly - I cannot prioritise precisely. If I do not practice my instruments as a musician, I cannot improvise and explore well enough to compose what I want to hear. I still love being able to pick up my violin and play well. Perform. Or sit at the piano and improvise or read through some jazz. 

 

If I neglect my dancing and movement training - well first, I get sad. Dancing is what keeps me on an even keel. It is so joyful. Even if I start to do some simple plies to music, knowing I am going on to complete a class, I feel myself relax inside. Any external troubles start to become more transparent, seem less awful. Stretching, preparation means I dance better and keep strong and flexible. And rather like playing and composing: if I do not dance enough, well enough, choreography is more of a struggle.

 

Teaching does two things. It keeps me constantly questioning what on earth I am doing, what I really believe in and whether what I am doing is any good at all (children can be a very accurate mirror) - and it forces me to clarify everything precisely, so I can pass it on and see it continue to grow.

 

The musician and the dancer are so entwined and supportive of each other I cannot separate them. They find their ultimate expression through composing and choreography. Those are the highest forms, if you like - using the vocabulary and skills learned to create new work. 

Teaching has driven the need to keep creating, honing my own skills and learning new ones, a need to stay up to date, think on my feet. The act of teaching is both a performance and an improvisation. It keeps me able to communicate efficiently and I get instant and honest feedback from a class in a way I would not from a more formal critic.  

 

2: You are a busy bee! HOW on earth does one balance it all and somehow stay sane, focused, calm?

 

I am not sure I manage this. Though I have learned to look way, way ahead and to try and do as much as I can well in advance. The earlier I can start planning curriculum ideas in my head or collecting ideas and composing/choregraphing for a creative project, the better.

There is a termly cycle where I start at the beginning, well-planned and in control, I feel I can stay ahead of the demands of the job and balance this with my life. I give a lot of energy and creative thought to everything. New ideas come all the time as once I bounce ideas in a classroom, the children’s responses open up new possibilities, so there is a positive feedback loop of creative energy.

Then as term progresses, extra demands are added, admin duties – like report writing and parents’ evenings take up hours of time outside of the actual job allocation - things can get out of control. 

Unexpected events (pastoral issues that need immediate attention and have resulting paperwork to be completed, for example) can blow up in your face at any time and displace any to do list by hours, days, weeks. It can start to feel I am firefighting all over the place rather than steering from the back of the ship.

 

What is it I am doing? I teach a music curriculum I have devised to 240 children aged 9 to 13.

I also have devised and teach a dance curriculum to 7- to 9-year-olds.

So I see a total of roughly 300 children a week and am solely responsible for the content I teach in both music and dance. This has advantage of meaning I can modify it at any point, and I am constantly developing and readjusting. But the disadvantage of no one else being able to help me or take over if I am ill or have a crisis that takes me out of work.

On top of this, I run string ensembles for the more advanced players at the school, I teach the violin, I am involved in a great many music and drama performances each year, I compose music for plays, I choregraph dance for shows and plays and like every teacher, I have special pastoral responsibility for 8 children and their parents each year – I am their first port of call in a storm.  

 

Things that help me stay sane: Cycling to and from work feels like flying and even in the cold and drizzle, the 8 mile round trip lifts my mood at the start and the end of the day. I have come a cropper once and it was quite bad, so I feel that was my ‘be cautious’ lesson.  

When I get home at the end of a day, if I have even a modicum of energy I will get on my mat, stretch, roller my back out and then do an online ballet class. At times I am doing this 5 time a week, at times I only manage weekends. I always do longer at weekends.

Family chats at the end of the day. We tend to eat standing up, hand to mouth at supper time. Everyone in the family is independent and busy. (My two daughters walk or cycle everywhere and have after school music and dance commitments at different times, my husband works long days, out of town and also cycles) so most evenings, we will all get lots of bits and pieces out of the fridge and stand around the kitchen counter chatting and listening to music. 

Some days the girls need a bigger feed, so my husband or I will make them a big plate of pasta or omelette and chips.

We do more sophisticated cooking at the weekends when we all have more time.

On Fridays we used to all dance around madly in celebration of the end of the week. Friday night party. Now the girls are older, it tends to be just me. Though they might join in for the odd song out of – pity?

 

 

3: Teaching: it is a trade under scrutiny, stress and in transition. Is there a way to engender creative freedom among professionals, whilst still keeping quality control, without the micro-managerial culture? 

 

This is such an important question and one the people who could make a difference are not even genuinely asking, let alone trying to address. Government has long being interfering in a way which is causing distress and chaos. Their interference means teaching has become a political flag and so the whole nation is now telling teachers what to do.

There is no underlying respect for a profession when people who have had no experience of being in the profession think they know how to do the job better than the professionals.

• Teaching encompasses many things.
• At its most simple, teaching is a performance. As such, contact time in itself is very tiring.
• At its most complex, it is a series of relationships (with one’s pupils) based on a philosophy. As such, the job does not leave your head at any point, really.

 

Teaching requires both preparation and reflection and I find my brain forces me to do these things whether I have actual time to do them or not. So, I will be wide awake at 4am with my brain buzzing away if I have not had time in the day for the necessary thought.

Formal feedback for students (and parents) is expected and helpful for all.

 

A happy teacher would feel their skills are being nurtured and continuously developed. They would feel their employer valued their connection to their subject and supported them in keeping abreast with changing times. 

Both these considerations would be an intrinsic part of their job allocation. As would time to give adequate formal feedback to pupils and parents. (This is always an extra. 4 hours after school for one parents’ evening for example. Report writing happens during term time when the timetable is in full swing).

In addition, teachers would feel the true nature of the job was understood by those in control of their time, so their time was well managed and consequently their mental health protected.

Instead teachers often feel under-appreciated, over managed, over worked to the point of exhaustion, thanklessly taken advantage of, starved of inspirational experiences, misunderstood, and scapegoated.

 

Teachers are by their nature creative. Their quick fire day, their interaction with students, their ability to respond to the most basic demands of the job demands it. Creativity needs freedom, inspiration and space/time to thrive. 

By constant judging, measuring, controlling, picking away at administrative detail, cramming classes overfull, overloading everyone’s time with too many administrative tasks, natural creativity is compromised and the goodwill of the teacher is eroded as they do not feel trusted.

 

Since I was a student at school and college myself, there has been a shift of responsibility. Adults are required to listen to, document and report the expressed experiences and emotions of their students. Within a school, all adults in an institution are trained to safeguard children as well as filling their professional role.

This mandate comes from government policy and is policed. It is a part of the job every teacher I know takes extremely seriously and when I compare it to the educational atmosphere I experienced myself growing up, it is fantastic progress in the support and protection of children and young adults. It also is another strain on each teacher’s time and emotional resilience. We are trained to look out for the children very thoroughly, but not supported and trained in bearing the resulting emotional burden of this work.

 

The way teachers are treated and the attitude towards teaching needs a massive and fundamental overhaul. Education is the future. The pupils we are educating will be in control of our freedoms, lives – pensions... Making teachers miserable is not helpful. In fact, it is a huge mistake.  

 

I do wonder whether teaching is something we should expect most people to do at some point. Either full or part time, after working in a profession for some years, so they have experience of professional life to bring to the job. As a way of contributing to society, of giving something back, which would serve to mitigate the kinds of attitudes and expectations we now have to deal with as teachers.

 

4: How important is technology to your craft(s). What are the apps, for example, you could not live and work as well without? 

 

It used not to be at all important. I went round the world twice with a mat, manuscript paper and a violin and found employment as a musician and dancer in every country I visited.

Now, I use Logic pro extensively for my own composition. I taught myself to use it when my children were tiny and I needed something to get my teeth into as I could no longer do all the performing and professional work I had been doing before becoming a mother. I was going to write a hit pop song and make a fortune.

In the end, I wrote about 6 mediocre pop songs and got a full-time teaching job to pay the bills. (I now teach the children to use garage-band properly, as a composition tool rather than a cut and paste toy app, as part of their music curriculum.)

 

I discovered Note-flight during lockdown and now it is invaluable to me as a teaching tool. All my students have a free Note-flight account. I compose exercises for the children to sight sing or read rhythms from and they compose exercises designed to further their understanding of their pitched and rhythmic notation, harmony, and musical texture.

During lockdown I started to film myself for certain types of lesson. This has now become something I am much less scared of doing.

 

I also discovered the English National Ballet online during lockdown. It is a brilliant library of dance and movement training classes from absolute beginner up to advanced and even professional level. Not just ballet – contemporary, yoga, flamenco…

I always used to go out and find dance classes after work. I can now do them at home – as many as I like, whenever I like.  I do miss having a teacher to feedback to me, and there is no mirror to see myself in the room I dance in, but I film myself every now and again to check up on progress and technical blunders.

 

 

 

 

5: Which women inspire(d) you and where, in that same spirit, do you perhaps see yourself in the next 5-10 years?

 

My mother had a Masters in music and modern languages and was also a professional performer before she became a mother. She always worked around the demands of family. She would adjust what she could do to what fitted with our ages and needs. 

I am the eldest of four and I remember her teaching the piano with whichever baby was currently still a baby slung underneath our old Bechstein Boudoir Grand in a Moses basket. She also started teaching Carl Orff based classes for toddlers when we were still young enough to go to them. This initiative grew with us and the students into a huge Islington music school called Sumics. 

All of her four children were students, then worked and eventually taught there at some point. It happened mainly on Saturdays and at its largest, around 200 children were attending each Saturday. Tony Blair’s children went there, as did Mike Newell’s (the film director, not the football manager), Michael Nyman’s… We would sometimes see Tom Stoppard in the audience as his grand children were there… it was an Islington fixture for 30 years.

So, although I was not aware of it at the time, I think this attitude that you adapted to the circumstances and developed the skills you needed for what life threw at you formed a strong influence over my own life.

 

My first Dalcroze teacher – Karin Greenhead, was responsible for inspiring, encouraging and allowing me to join up the dots between all the things I loved and making music, dancing, composing and choreography parts of the same jigsaw of technical training and creative energy. With pedagogical philosophy being a crucial and linking part of this training.

 

 

I started reading the books of Alice Miller (psychologist and writer) when I was in my early 20s. Her books helped me to understand myself. They eventually helped me to trust that I could be a parent and not mess it up. They also taught me that understanding, love, care and empathy should be practised consciously, as a way of creating a better world – possibly eventually one without violence. And that just one person in a child’s life could make an enormous difference to their emotional landscape and therefore practical future.

The resulting shift in teaching from the child/student perspective rather than that of an agenda imposed by an adult world is a subtle one, but I noticed that my lessons started to meet their needs more consistently. I was more able to quickly shift track mid lesson, as I identified gaps in their understanding I had not planned for. 

I became less wedded to my own agenda and so a more flexible teacher. The children became more invested and interested in the processes rather than fixated on an outcome. The activities of the lesson would be more pertinent, joyful and engaging. 

Alice Miller reinforced my confidence in my conviction that the expressive Arts were a vital part of education. Her books gave me permission to trust that love and empathy were the vital ingredients in not just parenting but teaching relationships. Dedication to doing a great job ensures the necessary accompanying expertise and skills are developed.

 

There are so many women, past and present, who’s lives and work I find uplifting and inspiring. Crystal Pite, Sol Leon, Clara Schumann, Rachel Portman, Joan Tower, Josephine Baker, Precious Adams, Meredith Monk,

 

Men too: Jiri Kylian, Mark Morris, William Forsythe, Alvin Ailey, Quincy Jones, Leonard Bernstein,

 

In the next 5 to 10 years I will have done my stint as a full time school teacher. My own children will be in their 20s.

I hope to be able to use the composing, choreography, stage directing and people skills I have developed for more varied, involved personal projects. Perhaps reconnecting with the professional world of music and performance.

Teaching, or at least coaching and training will probably always form part of what I do. I like the feeling of being connected to what is happening next.

I would like to publish all the compositions I have created for plays to date as a series of resources for other teachers and directors to use.

I would also like to publish my 4-year music curriculum, together with the compositions that go with it as a proposition for a general music curriculum in schools which can take children up to GCSE level.

I would rather like to write a musical.

THANKS DRUSILLA! 

If interested in tech talking points beyond this focus on tomorrow's leaders in the arts? See the following: 

Sustainability Roadmap

And: City Maps

Or: Augmented World

And this company, right here, which I have come across in my research.

If you are still reading at this stage then also check out these two:

Airports

Locations