Nominee for the Newfoundland & Labrador Arts Council's “Arts in Education Award” 2005

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TEACHING AND WORKSHOPS

For children, imagination, learning and the physical go hand in hand. Louise Moyes' workshops are the ideal vehicle for finding the link between that fact and curriculum at all levels in our schools. In Newfoundland, Moyes’ teaching methods have the dual effect of fulfilling teachers’ overall mandate since 2004 to develop students' awareness and knowledge of the French culture and language of our province as well as teaching English and Irish heritage.

She will come in to a school and tailor projects based on local history and school curriculum, working closely with teachers and students in French or English streams.
PRIMARY STUDENTS (K-4)

Storytelling
Moyes has developed a wonderful method of teaching storytelling with primary students that involves five steps: first hear a traditional story; then learn dance and mime elements that could illustrate the story; take the story home to read with your parents; next read the story aloud in class; finally get on your feet and do continuous dance/mime with the story. Teachers have found this an excellent method of developing reading and creative skills.

Dance
In dance she can teach modern, stepdancing, square dancing and some African.
ELEMENTARY, JUNIOR AND HIGH SCHOOL
  • Louise develops special projects in storytelling, dance, theatre, video, and/or radio for and with students and their teachers.
  • Through her own docu-dance stories and video work, Moyes teaches students about the history, sociology and geography of Newfoundland and Labrador and Quebec in hour-long cultural and history lessons tailored around specific geographic regions (South Coast, Port-au-Port etc). The oral histories of the people she has interviewed over the past 15 years also lead, through discussion, to students gaining an appreciation for the importance of oral histories of their own community.
  • As part of the projects she teaches documentary interviewing skills and sends students out into their community to interview family etc on their lives and on the histories of their area.
  • This is then followed by making their own project. Moyes gives the students movement and voice classes and together they develop theatre, dance, and/or video or radio projects, depending what’s available at the school.
  • These kind of performances are ideal for teaching ways of exploring and expressing their own culture. Students produce a show that they will be able to keep performing at school or community events. They gain tools to continue this kind of exploration on their own. Furthermore they learn about theatrical techniques, anatomy, language, artistic and technical skills and group dynamics.


  • Click here for article on a school project from Le Gaboteur.
  • Click here for more details of projects in schools (in English).
SCHOOL TOURS – available upon request

The Port-au-Port Story
In November 2005 the Arts and Culture Centres presented a provincial tour of The Port-au-Port Story/ L’Histoire du Port-au-Port directed by Louise Moyes. It was seen by over 1200 French first, French immersion and core French students in 15 communities and more than 25 schools. Teachers were thrilled for the opportunity to bring their students to a stage show that presented the Port-au-Port’s history, music, songs, dances and traditional story in such an engaging, lively format. With musicians Doug and Mattis Benoit and their cousin, Romano DiNillo, Moyes hosted, sang, danced and told a traditional tale as well as developed French and English versions of a study guide to help teachers to prepare students for the show. Commissioned by Sound Symposium, through a grant from the Government of Canada.

Study guide available upon request.

Click here for press from the show.
Les Plaisantins by Louise Moyes and Paul Rowe

The Plaisantins is a play in the commedia del’arte style, a physical, funny, and imaginative interpretation of the lives of fishermen, soldiers, clergy and historical figures from “Plaisance”, the original French colony now known as Placentia. A delightful and educational portrayal of the French history of the Avalon peninsula, which played all summer on Signal Hill and toured St. John’s schools in the fall of 2004. More information available upon request. Presented by the Francophone Association of St. John’s.
Endorsement - Andrée Thoms President, Association communautaire francophone de St-Jean

“With her 12 years experience working on the Port-au-Port peninsula, her work with the Association communautaire francophone de St-Jean (co-writing and directing Les Plaisantins, and co-directing theatrical bilingual walking tours of St. John’s in 2004-2005) and her knowledge of communities around our province, Louise Moyes is an ideal artist for our schools in French and in English.

Her storytelling and dance background have a way of lifting the word and history off the page for students and teachers alike, enlivening our classrooms and theatres and bringing new ideas to teachers that they can then implement throughout the year.

It is for her many accomplishments achieved in the last year that I nominate Louise Moyes for the Newfoundland and Labrador Arts Council’s Arts in Education award for 2005.”

Sincerely,

Andrée Thoms BA, BEd, LL.B
President, Association communautaire francophone de St-Jean
Professor of French (retired), Memorial University

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