Tallin, Estonia- Madeleine Jefferson

Hello. As you may have noticed (doesn’t matter if you didn’t) I am not Tammie, my name is Madeleine, hi. Like Tammie I am also on my Erasmus year abroad, however unlike Tammie I am not bathing in the sun of Malta but living with the snow in Lithuania.

Earlier this year I had the great opportunity afforded to me by my new-found status as a dance student at the Lithuanian Academy of Music and Theatre (LMTA) to travel to the beautiful city of Tallinn in Estonia. I did this to take part in a week-long workshop organised BY THE NORDPLUS ECA network. Let me start by saying as someone whom hails from an island country the concept of travelling to Estonia by bus was hard to wrap my brain around especially considering you must pass through Latvia to get there, and let me tell you 9+ hours on a bus is not good for ones back especially when about to take part in a week of workshops involving dance. I am happy to tell you however that besides the bumpy start the rest of the week was much more pleasurable.

For the first three days the workshops where split in two, first a morning class followed by workshops led by members of all the institutions in involved (both dance and musicians). I did not have to present till the third day so could just spent the first few days enjoying myself and trying to take in as much new information and ways of working from all the wonderful people involved .

The third day was a little more nerve-racking as myself and two other students from LMTA had to present our workshop however I believe it went well and it was a great opportunity to explore, new ideas with the participants and gave me a chance to gel and find common ground with my new class mates (at this point I had only known them three weeks). The rest of the week was taken up by a conference ‘Dancing technologies’ it was great to listen to different peoples’ perspectives and ideas and the whole conference gave me plenty of things to think about in terms of further research.

So, all and all in was a very insightful creative and fulfilling week and I was honoured to meet so many talented musicians and dancers. I can only hope the rest on my time is Lithuania is as productive and special.