in Schools
A project led by Music in the Round
in partnership with Ensemble 360 and Wayne Sables
Based on the book
by Giles Andreae and Guy Parker-Rees
with commissioned music by Paul Rissmann
Teachers’ Resources
With thanks to Andy Throssell
Commissioned by Music in the Round
with funding from the Andrew McEwan Fund, Lindsay Foundation,
and Mayfield Valley Arts Trust.
Music in the Round is funded by Arts Council England
Giraffes Can’t Dance
In 2013, Music in the Community commissioned their Children’s Composer in Residence, Paul Rissmann,
to write a new highly participatory piece of music based on the well-loved children’s book Giraffes Can’t
Dance written by Giles Andreae and illustrated by Guy Parker-Rees.
Written for Ensemble 360 musicians (oboe, cello and piano) and narrator Polly Ives, this piece was
premiered at the Crucible Studio, Sheffield, in October 2013. We are now taking the piece into four
Sheffield schools and for the first time working with a professional dancer, producer and film-maker, Wayne
Sables, to bring together music, literacy, and physical movement.
Music in the Round
Based at the Crucible Theatre, Music in the Round has gained an enviable reputation for its learning and
participation work with people of all ages and backgrounds around the UK. Music in the Round was
awarded the David Bedford Award by the PRS Foundation in 2013 for the education project Stan and
Mabel, and the Royal Philharmonic Society Award for Chamber Music and Song for ‘imaginative and
eclectic programming and excellence in performance’ in 2012. Children’s concerts are performed to soldout audiences each year in venues including the Wigmore Hall, London. MitR also leads projects in
nurseries, schools, the University of Sheffield, and Sheffield Children’s Hospital, and works in partnership
with Sheffield Music Hub to ensure a broad and dynamic approach city-wide. www.musicintheround.co.uk
You can contact us as follows: fraser@musicintheround.co.uk / 0114 281 4660 / @musicintheround
Paul Rissmann, composer
Paul Rissmann is a composer, presenter, and music educationalist working with orchestras and ensembles
around the world. He is Children’s Composer in Residence at Music in the Round and the Bournemouth
Symphony Orchestra, and Animateur with the London Symphony Orchestra.
Paul has written hugely popular pieces for Music in the Round which have reached well over 45,000 people
including Giddy Goat, The Lion Who Wanted to Love, Sir Scallywag and the Golden Underpants, Giraffes
Can’t Dance and The Chimpanzees of Happytown for which he won an award at the 2012 British Composer
Awards. He has also won a Royal Television Society Award.
Paul has worked with Microsoft, Philharmonia Orchestra, Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, Royal Scottish
National Orchestra, New York Philharmonic Orchestra and many others. Bamboozled, his interactive
composition for orchestra and audience, has been performed by over 50,000 people - from Daytona Beach,
Florida to Melbourne, Australia! In 2012 it was performed at an Olympic Torch relay in Leicester by the
Philharmonia Orchestra. He has also written a bespoke soundtrack to The Presents - a play for babies aged
6-18 months produced by Reeling and Writhing. Paul’s website is at www.rissmann.co.uk
Wayne Sables, dancer
Wayne graduated from Bretton Hall with a BA (Hons) in Contemporary Dance. In combination with his
work as a performer, Wayne is a teacher and facilitator in many different areas of dance and theatre. In 2003
he was the artist in residence at the VAE (Vermont Arts Exchange, USA). This involved working with all
aspects of the local community as well as training dancers from Benninton University. From here, Wayne
became the movement director for Red Ladders theatre piece ‘Freefalling’ in 2004. He also choreographed
several youth dance works for Yorkshire Dance Centre. In addition to this Wayne choreographed and
performed in a dance film piece entitled ‘Traffic’.
In 2005 he became the apprentice dancer for Vincent Dance Theatre’s ‘Broken Cords’ before devising and
touring with QDOS Dance Theatre’s ‘Under the Influence’. In 2006 the Wayne Sables Project was formed;
in 2007 he choreographed and performed in‘Insideout’, a short dance film as well as devising ‘Human
Condition’, a live dance theatre piece for three females. Wayne has also performed with Slung Low Theatre
Company. In March 2008 Wayne was commissioned by the New Dance Alliance, New York, USA to create
a solo based on his film‘Insideout’, which he performed at the Joyce Soho, NYC. Recently, Wayne directed
and performed in his all male piece ‘Is It Me’ and choreographed an all female piece ‘Only Human’, which
will be toured as a double bill in Spring/Autumn 2009. As well as choreographing, Wayne Sables Project
creates dance film for professional and community groups and companies. www.waynesablesproject.co.uk
Ensemble 360 and Polly Ives
Polly Ives enjoys a varied career as a concert narrator and presenter, workshop leader, trainer, teacher and
cellist, and she is Creative Producer at Music in the Round.
She has led numerous projects with Music in the Round over the last 12 years and has worked with
Wigmore Hall (and at present leads the Chamber Tots project), the Royal Opera House, Ensemble 360, The
Leonore Trio, the Elias and Sacconi string quartets, Philippe Graffin, Michael Collins, Trevor Pinnock, and
the European Brandenburg Ensemble. She has conducted children’s and youth orchestras including the
National Children’s Orchestra, adjudicated at music festivals, and performed live on BBC Radio 3’s In
Tune. Over the last 11 years she has involved over 30,000 children aged 2-7 in the pioneering Music Box
project.
Polly enjoys playing netball, entertaining her niece and nephew, and horseriding. Not many people know
that when she was growing up Polly had black East Indian ducks called Scott and Charlene!
Members of Music in the Round’s resident group, Ensemble 360, perform in Giraffes Can’t Dance.
Ensemble 360 has gained an enviable reputation across the UK not only for the quality and integrity of the
members’ playing, but also for their ability to communicate the music to a range of different audiences.
Formed in 2005, eleven musicians of international standing came together to take up residency in Sheffield
with Music in the Round, establishing a versatile group comprising five string players, five wind players and
a pianist. They are also members of some of the greatest orchestras in the world, have recorded lots of CDs
and recorded music for film and TV including Pirates of the Caribbean and Love Actually! Most importantly
– they all love music, and love sharing it with the people they meet. www.ensemble360.co.uk
The piece
The children will learn and perform:
▪ Four group songs:
▪ Gerald Was a Tall Giraffe
▪ Everyone Come and Dance
▪ Giraffes Can’t Dance
▪ He’s the Best
▪ Instrumental pieces and group dances for the five dance sections:
▪ the Warthogs’ Waltz
▪ the Rhinos’ Rock ‘n’ Roll
▪ the Lions’ Tango
▪ the Chimps’ Cha-Cha-Cha, and
▪ the Baboons’ Scottish Reel
▪ Physical actions:
▪ grass swaying
▪ twinkling stars
▪ circling legs
▪ swishing tails
▪ take a bow
Links to the National Curriculum
Knowledge, skills, and understanding
1. Controlling sounds through singing and playing - performing skills
▪ Children will use their voices expressively by singing songs, speaking chants and rhymes and
making animal sounds
▪ They will play tuned and untuned instruments
▪ They will rehearse and perform with others including alongside professional musicians
2. Creating and developing musical ideas - composing skills
▪ Children will create their own musical patterns on their own, in small groups and large groups
▪ They will explore, choose and organise sounds and musical ideas.
3. Responding and reviewing - appraising skills
▪ Children will explore and express their ideas and feelings about music using movement, dance and
expressive and musical language
▪ And make improvements to their own work.
4. Listening, and applying knowledge and understanding
▪ Children will listen with concentration to professional musicians and internalise and recall sounds
▪ They will be taught how the combined musical elements of pitch, duration, dynamics, tempo,
timbre, texture and silence can be organised and used expressively within simple structures how
sounds can be made in different ways (vocalising, clapping, by musical instruments, in the
environment)*
▪ how music is used for particular purposes [e.g. dance, lullaby, carnival].
* Some definitions
'pitch' = higher/lower
'duration' = longer/shorter, steady pulse, beat, rhythm
'dynamics' = louder/quieter/silence
'tempo' = faster/slower
'timbre' = different types of sound
'texture' = different ways sounds are combined
'structure' = different ways sounds are organised
Dance
1. Acquiring and developing skills:
▪ Pupils will learn basic skills (travelling, being still, making shapes, jumping, turning and gesturing)
using different rhythms, speeds, levels and directions of their movements
▪ Dance on their own, in pairs, small and large groups
▪ Remember and repeat simple skills and actions with increasing control and coordination
▪The children will express and communicate ideas and feelings.
2. Selecting and applying skills, tactics and compositional ideas
▪ Children will use movement imaginatively and responding to characters and themes in the story
▪ They will create and perform dances using simple movement patterns, including those from
different times, cultures and events
3. Evaluating and improving performance
▪ Children will describe what they have done
▪ They will observe, describe and copy what others have done
▪ They will use what they have learnt to improve the quality and control of their work
Cross-curricular activities to explore before or after the project
You might use these ideas as the basis of further activities in class. Equally, please feel free to develop
your own projects and ideas around our suggestions. The Giraffes Can’t Dance project offers so many
starting points for further plans. We’ll be happy to help further if you would like to talk things through.
Literacy
▪ Find the rhyming words in the story, write them on separate cards, and use in a pairs-match
game. Or print out and display them with string attached to the matching pair
▪ The first page includes words that describe Gerald the Giraffe. Can you think of any more?
▪ When the cricket pays the violin, Gerald starts ‘shuffling’, ‘swaying’ and ‘swishing’. Can you
think of other words describing how he moves?
▪ ‘Warthogs’ and ‘Waltzing’ are examples of alliteration. Can you think of other alliterative
phrases that feature an animal doing something unusual ‘fish playing football’ or ‘hopping
hedgehogs’.
Maths
▪ How many animals can you see at the Jungle Dance?
▪ How many pairs of animals can you see?
▪ How tall are different animals, using estimation (standard and non-standard measures)? Draw a
picture of Gerald and the other animals at the Jungle Dance – how do they compare?
Science
▪ Adaptation – what are the main physical features of all the characters in the story…
How are they built? Why are they built that way?
What can the giraffe do that the warthogs can’t do?
Where do they live? How are they best suited to living there?
▪ Discuss the different characteristics of the professional musicians’ instruments (e.g. oboe; make
the sound by blowing air through it – air vibrations, small and thin = high notes, made of dark
wood with metal keys. Cello; large hollow instrument, sound made using a bow being drawn
across the metal strings which vibrate and the air vibrates in the body and comes out the ‘f’ holes
at the front. Bigger than a violin so it has a lower sound. Piano; large instrument with black and
white ‘keys’, hammers inside hit the strings and the air vibrates, high notes = shorter/ thinner
strings, low notes = longer/ thicker strings).
Design & technology
▪ Make your own giraffe cut out of card (using the template overleaf) and use split pins to make
the joints work
▪ Take photos or use stop animation to describe what is happening with each movement
PHSE
▪ How do you feel Gerald feels to be laughed at? What should the animals have done instead?
What would you have done? ▪ What is special about Gerald the Giraffe?
▪ What is special about you? ▪ Do the ‘I am like Gerald when I worry about…’ and ‘I am good
at…’ activity sheets – see overleaf