Creative South Downs College students bring The News to life - through medium of dance

These are just some of the topics that fill the pages of The News.

And now students from South Downs College in Waterlooville have brought to life the stories in the paper... through the medium of dance.

Teenagers studying their B-Tec extended diploma in dance pored over different copies of The News and highlighted the stories and words that intrigued them the most.

From there, the creative group of 16 to 18-year-olds were asked to come up with their own performances that reflected the nature of the articles.

The fun idea was the brainchild of dance teacher and salsa enthusiast Andreanna Poulaki.

Andreanna, who has been teaching at South Downs since November 2015, said the exercise was a huge success – and gave her students a better grip of current affairs.

She said: ‘The idea of using newspapers as a stimulus to create choreography was a chance for students to be able to read something real, instead of basing material on fiction.

‘Also, the newspaper is something that not all 16 to 18-year-olds read, so I thought it would be a great opportunity to use current affairs in the local community for the students to base their creations on.

‘I gave them a variety of newspapers and they chose which article was most interesting to them.

‘They read the article and highlighted words that they thought were descriptive or told a story of the report.

‘After highlighting these words, they were able to come up with material which was both highly imaginative and original.

‘The outcome was to try to stray away from their previous dance knowledge and to come up with something refreshing and out of the ordinary, of which they all did.

‘They were all very intrigued as to what local reports The News had to offer them as a stimulus, and although challenging because it was so different than anything they had ever done, they really enjoyed the task.

‘The lesson was a tremendous success and I plan to use similar tasks in the future using The News to stimulate wonderful creations of work.’