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REACHING OUT
Year:
January 2024 - April 2025
Title:
Moving Soundscapes
A visual and sonic experience of movement
for mixed groups of adolescents,
with or without forms of visual or hearing disability, alongside the empowerment and training
of their educators.
01
Moving Soundscapes is an artistic educational program designed for adolescents with or without visual or hearing disabilities, as well as to educators working in inclusive and non-inclusive educational contexts, that took place in the framework of Greek National Opera’s Educational Programs.
02
It explores questions such as:
- What shape does sound have?
- How might a circle sound compared to a square?
- Can an everyday object carry rhythm?
- How many different ways can the same story be told?
03
Embodied and experiential learning strengthens expressivity, facilitating the perception, processing, and composition of stimuli regardless of participants’ different sensory abilities.
04
The structure, texture, colour, sound, and shape of materials become starting points for the creation of movement patterns that activate spatial plasticity and use architecture itself as a choreographic tool. Participants discover diverse ways in which meaning and sensory stimuli can be perceived and are encouraged to approach physicality as a space for encounter, communication, and dialogue.
05
The program has multiple objectives: encouraging the participation of adolescents with disabilities in artistic practices • empowering the agency of young people with and without disabilities • supporting inclusive education through non-verbal communication • cultivating collective practices within and beyond the school environment • transmitting inclusive learning methodologies • strengthening educators working in both special and mainstream education and • raising awareness around disability and the arts.
06
From one session to the next, the complexity of activities increases, ultimately leading participants toward the composition of artistic material ready for presentation. Participants developed communication tools that enable connection and shared artistic experience, an inclusive, embodied practice that does not necessarily require sign language interpretation or audio description.
07
More specifically, the tools employed included embodied/multisensory experience, circular and horizontal modes of interaction, silent and sounding movement (body percussion), materials and craft practices, pulse and rhythm. From rhythmic body beats and vocal sounds to representing movement through tactile exploration of bodies or materials, participants investigated multiple ways of perceiving stimuli and discovered physicality as a powerful medium of communication and dialogue.
08
The workshops began in January 2024 and in March 2025, we organised joint school meetings held in the ballet studios of the Greek National Opera. Through this process, participating groups become familiar with an expanded repertoire of exercises that they can further explore beyond the workshop framework. At the same time, they gain insight into how an educational tool evolves into an artistic work, bringing the benefits of artistic practice directly into the classroom.
09
The program expanded young people’s social horizons of coexistence, contributing to the formation of future adults who will act within , and advocate for, a multicultural and inclusive society free from exclusion.
10
Teachers acted as active witnesses and participants both in schools and in sessions at the Opera, engaging experientially with the programme’s accessible and inclusive tools, feedback processes and theoretical reflection on the tools applied.
11
20241216_121615.jpg
The second cycle of Moving Soundscapes began in December 2024 with an intensive two-day workshop for accompanying teachers and educators. In doing so, they became sources of inspiration for their students within a framework of equal collaboration, challenging the traditional one-directional teacher–student relationship and supporting students throughout subsequent meetings.
12
Βαλέρια Ισάεβα (4).jpg
It concluded with an open presentation at the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Cultural Center (SNFCC), where participating teenagers presented choreographic material they had composed through simple prompts, each in their own unique way.
13
The presentation took place across the Park and the Dome of the SNFCC. Audiences experienced a sound-movement promenade beginning at the Southern Paths and ending at the Dome.
14
Βαλέρια Ισάεβα (11).jpg
A multisensory performative walk moving through the landscape to encounter mixed groups of students presented as “activated sculptures,” sharing practices developed during the program.
15
Βαλέρια Ισάεβα (1).jpg
The audience and students then gathered in the Dome to experience a visual installation combining sound and image as documentation of the participants’ journey. The presentation concluded with a choreographic section coordinated by the students themselves.
16
Through lived experience rather than didactic instruction, students came to understand the value of collaboration within mixed groups, supporting and complementing one another while celebrating difference through an accessible artistic experience capable of overcoming barriers to communication and coexistence, even in the absence of a shared language.
17
The continuation and development of the programme for a second consecutive year played a significant role in strengthening group cohesion among participants, allowing those who first met briefly the previous year to deepen their communication and empathy skills through embodied practice and collective creative processes.
18
01
Moving Soundscapes is an artistic educational program designed for adolescents with or without visual or hearing disabilities, as well as to educators working in inclusive and non-inclusive educational contexts, that took place in the framework of Greek National Opera’s Educational Programs.
02
It explores questions such as:
- What shape does sound have?
- How might a circle sound compared to a square?
- Can an everyday object carry rhythm?
- How many different ways can the same story be told?
03
Embodied and experiential learning strengthens expressivity, facilitating the perception, processing, and composition of stimuli regardless of participants’ different sensory abilities.
04
The structure, texture, colour, sound, and shape of materials become starting points for the creation of movement patterns that activate spatial plasticity and use architecture itself as a choreographic tool. Participants discover diverse ways in which meaning and sensory stimuli can be perceived and are encouraged to approach physicality as a space for encounter, communication, and dialogue.
05
The program has multiple objectives: encouraging the participation of adolescents with disabilities in artistic practices • empowering the agency of young people with and without disabilities • supporting inclusive education through non-verbal communication • cultivating collective practices within and beyond the school environment • transmitting inclusive learning methodologies • strengthening educators working in both special and mainstream education and • raising awareness around disability and the arts.
06
From one session to the next, the complexity of activities increases, ultimately leading participants toward the composition of artistic material ready for presentation. Participants developed communication tools that enable connection and shared artistic experience, an inclusive, embodied practice that does not necessarily require sign language interpretation or audio description.
07
More specifically, the tools employed included embodied/multisensory experience, circular and horizontal modes of interaction, silent and sounding movement (body percussion), materials and craft practices, pulse and rhythm. From rhythmic body beats and vocal sounds to representing movement through tactile exploration of bodies or materials, participants investigated multiple ways of perceiving stimuli and discovered physicality as a powerful medium of communication and dialogue.
08
The workshops began in January 2024 and in March 2025, we organised joint school meetings held in the ballet studios of the Greek National Opera. Through this process, participating groups become familiar with an expanded repertoire of exercises that they can further explore beyond the workshop framework. At the same time, they gain insight into how an educational tool evolves into an artistic work, bringing the benefits of artistic practice directly into the classroom.
09
The program expanded young people’s social horizons of coexistence, contributing to the formation of future adults who will act within , and advocate for, a multicultural and inclusive society free from exclusion.
10
Teachers acted as active witnesses and participants both in schools and in sessions at the Opera, engaging experientially with the programme’s accessible and inclusive tools, feedback processes and theoretical reflection on the tools applied.
11
20241216_121615.jpg
The second cycle of Moving Soundscapes began in December 2024 with an intensive two-day workshop for accompanying teachers and educators. In doing so, they became sources of inspiration for their students within a framework of equal collaboration, challenging the traditional one-directional teacher–student relationship and supporting students throughout subsequent meetings.
12
Βαλέρια Ισάεβα (4).jpg
It concluded with an open presentation at the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Cultural Center (SNFCC), where participating teenagers presented choreographic material they had composed through simple prompts, each in their own unique way.
13
The presentation took place across the Park and the Dome of the SNFCC. Audiences experienced a sound-movement promenade beginning at the Southern Paths and ending at the Dome.
14
Βαλέρια Ισάεβα (11).jpg
A multisensory performative walk moving through the landscape to encounter mixed groups of students presented as “activated sculptures,” sharing practices developed during the program.
15
Βαλέρια Ισάεβα (1).jpg
The audience and students then gathered in the Dome to experience a visual installation combining sound and image as documentation of the participants’ journey. The presentation concluded with a choreographic section coordinated by the students themselves.
16
Through lived experience rather than didactic instruction, students came to understand the value of collaboration within mixed groups, supporting and complementing one another while celebrating difference through an accessible artistic experience capable of overcoming barriers to communication and coexistence, even in the absence of a shared language.
17
The continuation and development of the programme for a second consecutive year played a significant role in strengthening group cohesion among participants, allowing those who first met briefly the previous year to deepen their communication and empathy skills through embodied practice and collective creative processes.
18
photos © Valeria Isaeva
tESTIMONIALS
Vicky, Deaf teacher
“For me, today’s meeting was a great surprise. I felt very proud of all the students who participated, I could hardly recognize the differences between them. You see, only when someone truly understands what disability means, instead of relying on misinformation or imagination, can they begin to think clearly. What happened here today was a real connection and synthesis. How could prejudice survive when one person touches another? I felt that we broke the barrier of shame, and that is the first step toward inclusion. Only in this way can the transition into the ‘outside world’ truly succeed.”
Aphrodite, 1st Grade
“I come from a home where we all make fun of people who use sign language. We think they are strange, funny, that they make odd facial expressions. But now I know I was wrong and that I have been unfair to them. I say this openly. And when I go back home, I will tell my parents that they are wrong too.”
Koralia, 2nd Grade
“…I was wondering how we would communicate with deaf and hard-of-hearing students. But as soon as we entered the room, I stopped thinking about it, because everything worked out really well. In the end, there are so many ways to express what you want — through facial expressions, through movement; that is enough.I don’t like it when people talk about ‘difference.’ So what if we are not all the same? What matters is that we can collaborate.”
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