The Visions of Simone Machard - Year 13 Drama

We have been working steadily on "The Visions of Simone Machard" all term, and it is hard yakka.

However, dealing with Brecht has it's own rewards, and now that the end is nigh, it's starting to make sense.  In terms of Epic Theatre and in terms of Political theatre.

International Juggling Festival

A while back a group of Drama students took the day off school to run away to the circus.  Mary spent the day with them as they juggled, flew through the air on aerial hoops, spun plates.  They took part in workshops and more importantly, they taught some as well.  It was a good time had by all.

Amber in the hoop

Lilly in the hoop

The group: Lilly, Amber, Ryan, Nicki-Marie, Hayden and Rama (inverted)

Term 1 2015

Time really flies by so quickly, and with that, another term comes to an end.

Last year we farewelled Ms Lewis from the Dance Department, and this year we welcomed Ms Melchior into the whanau as her replacement.  So Dance has been ahum with changes and new directions for the last few months.

We started the year with a bang, being involved in the Greytown Arts Festival.  Nicki-Marie Campbell and Nicky Carlisle used their Circus skills to busk in the town centre, the musicians opened for "Tunes of I" and the Drama Department put on a 25 minute Flash-mob Shakespeare performance in the park, a combination of love scenes from 5 Shakespearean plays.

Keziah Stonnell as the Fool

The Cast of "Loves Labours Won"

Connor Fenwick and Nicki-Marie Campbell from "Taming of the Shrew"

Connor Taumoepeau as the Duke from "Twelfth Night"

Amber Spicer and Thor Elley as "Anthony and Cleopatra"

Then we were straight into the Sheillah Winn Festival of Shakespeare in Schools.  We rehearsed and performed "Henry VI, Pt 1", the Joan of Arc story from Shakespeare.  Though this was unplaced, we did win the 5 minute section with "Richard III" so we will be off to the national competition in June with Egan Tearle and Zoe Thurston performing.

The cast of "Henry VI, pt 1" led by Natalie Bennett as Joan of Arc

Term 2 brings more action with the Production getting underway, which will hopefully be "South Pacific"... we are just waiting on the rehearsal scripts.  Rockquest will again be a big thing, and the Music classes are getting their bands sorted.  In a few weeks we will be having the Junior Show Offs event which will showcase the skill in the Junior school.

"High School Magical"

I know... another post beginning with how busy we have been!  But... it is so true!

Anyway, in the middle of all the rest of everything else that is going on.... we have one last night on stage with "High School Magical" and we are getting rave reviews from the crowd!

The show starts at 7:00pm in the auditorium, doors open at 6:30 and there is even a coffee cart and eftpos! 

The show stars Zoe Renor as Cinderella, and Civic Cruz as Harry Prince.  As they try to negotiate through High School, magical forces keep them apart.  The Villian is played by Marlon Moala-Knox who is intent on stopping Cinderella from getting together with Harry.  Camille Healy is the Fairy Godmother who works to keep them together.

The main characters are supported by a bevy of interesting characters, from the flirtacious Step Mother (Gianna Pohl) and her pool boy Reynaldo (Mitchell Harman), to the ugly step sisters, the popular Britney (Sarah Philip), the nerdy Gertrude (Izabelle Brown) and the vampire Bella (Alessandra Giorgioni). 

Some of the more interesting characters enrolled in High School Magical include the less-than-brilliant Bruce the Jock (Finn Shepherd), the moves-like-Jagger Smooth Stu (Travis Brown), the beautiful soulful voice of Skux Simon (Oliver Healy), the hog-tying antics of Cowboy Chet (Dan Carlisle) and of course, a vegetarian zombie (Nick Smith).  While trying to fit in with the Cool Chicks (Kate Philip, Natalia Austin, Moana Braithwaite and Giorgia Giorgioni), Cinderella ends up as the butt of all the jokes in school.

The show is hilarious if I do say so myself.  If the antics aren't enough, the Pantomime horse (Joel Charters and Joe Garratt) and the 4 cupids help to take the humour to a whole new level.

If you are free, and have $5 burning in your pocket, come along for an amazing night of music, laughter, entertainment and short-shorts.

The poster, designed by Civic Cruz

Finn Shepherd, Travis Brown and Oliver Healy

The Cool Chicks: Kate Philip, Natalia Austin, Moana Braithwaite and Giorgia Giorgioni

The Step Sisters: Sarah Philip, Izabelle Brown, Alessandra Giorgioni

Sugarlumps and Bruce: Joel Charters and Finn Shepherd

A couple of Cupids: Oliver Healy and Mitchell Harman

Marlon Moala-Knox and Camille Healy

Finn as Bruce with Civic Cruz as Harry Prince

Walter Barber recites for the Nerds

Bruce gets a prom date - Sarah Philip and Finn Shepherd

Oliver Healy singing... afterall, he is in the band with No Direction

Gianna Pohl waits for her Pool Boy, Reynaldo

That time we met with Gandalf

This year we performed "King Lear".  2 years ago, Finn was told he was too short to be in "The Hobbit".  This last weekend, our luck was in, and we met with the man who links both parts- Sir Ian McKellan.

Ian was in Carterton raising money to rebuild the Royal Theatre in Christchurch.  We were not far behind because we love a chance to talk Shakespeare with a legend.  A group of 10 of us headed out to see him on Sunday, sitting in the front row.

The highlights were many, but when we all had a chance to join him on stage, we thought all our dreams had come true!  He was superb onstage, humble offstage, and incredibly generous with his time with us.

We had a blast, and gained a new appreciation for a legend of Stage and Screen.

With Sir Ian McKellan from left:  Travis Brown, Oliver Healy, Mr. Buckham, Juanita McLellan, Finn Shepherd, Chris Buckham and Izabelle Brown.

Theatresports 2012

Phew!  It has been an epicly busy week with Theatresports.

We entered 3 Junior teams, 2 Senior Novice teams and 3 Senior Open Grade teams.  All of the competitors worked hard leading up to their competitions learning the games and sharing the coaches.  Then we set for performance, and we did well.

The Junior teams each competed fairly and provided a great deal of fun for the audience.  The Senior Novice teams worked well together and amazed the crowd and our Open teams, including people who had never competed before, stood up to the standard required nicely.

We ended up with 3rd in the Senior Novice section and winning the Junior division this year.  Our Open grade teams all did well, with "Girls Just Want to Have Fun With Finn" making the finals.  Their ballet in performance achieved a nearly perfect score.

All in all, we had a great time and the kids went above and beyond the call of duty.  Oliver Healy worked the scoreboard all week, Zoe Renor and Dan Carlisle took turns time keeping.  Mary was brilliant, driving the school van and dropping our team home in the evenings.

We would also like to congratulate Chanel College on their win in the Theatresports competition.  This is the first time since the competition began in the early 90's that Chanel have won the overall trophy, and it was a well deserved win indeed.

Warming up backstage

"The FFG" performing for the first time - Connor, Cheryl-Kay, Jacob and Nadia.

The Year 9 team - "The International Chicken Unit"

Camille Healy and Moana Braithwaite in "Wordball" - Moana is of course a unicorn.

Finn Shepherd, Zoe Renor and Jasmine Turner performing "Gibberish Interpreter"

Ale Giorgioni (with Jasmine arms) and Travis Brown (with Finn arms) performing a riotous "Hands Interview" in the final.

The Overall Junior Champions - "The Milkshake Ninjas" in "Slow-Mo Commentary".  Connor Taumoepeau, Joe Garratt, Nicky Carlisle and Toyah Churton.

Wordless Wednesday: National Youth Drama School

One of our students, Zoe Renor, spent her Easter holidays at the National Youth Drama School in Hastings.  She had a great time, as you can tell in the pictures.  She is the one in the hat at the front of the triangle.

Private Peaceful

This post is long overdue.  Back in the International Arts Festival, we played host to the touring company, Scamp Theatre from the UK.  They set up shop in our auditorium for the day to perform "Private Peaceful" in the evening.  It was a packed crowd on a hot night, and the show was amazing!

Private Peaceful relives the life of Private Tommo Peaceful, a young First World War soldier awaiting the firing squad at dawn. During the night he looks back at his short but joyful past growing up in rural Devon: his exciting first days at school; the accident in the forest that killed his father; his adventures with Molly, the love of his life; and the battles and injustices of war that brought him to the front line.

During the show he used over 20 different accents to create all the characters- totally magical and compelling.  Our students had a great time interacting with the company during the day, and helping out in the evening.

National Certificates

Last year we had great success in the Arts Department.  The Dominion Post has all the NCEA results published in it today, which is timely.... but actually, we had more success than even we planned on. 

We offered a "Performing Arts" course last year- a programme focussing on the technical aspects of performance.  What we didn't realise was that students taking the course suddenly became able to attain National Certifications.

We had 3 very successful Performing Arts Students.  Zoe Renor, Alena-Rose Burt and Alexandra Fleming all gained the National Certificate in Drama, and Alena-Rose Burt also attained the National Certificate in the Performing Arts.

To gain the National Certificate in Drama, students needed to complete 30 credits in Drama and 10 credits in a supporting subfield, which was the Performing Arts course for all 3.

To gain the National Certificate in the Performing Arts, Alena had to complete 45 credits in 3 areas of Performance, which she did with Drama, Dance and Performing Arts standards.

Zoe Renor and Alena-Rose Burt

And here we go again....

Phew!  With another term rolling around to the close, an update seems LONG overdue!

It has just been CRAZY.

Chaedyn Dukes and Zoe Renor performing a scene from "Romeo and Juliet"

Drama have completed their first assessment performances, just last week.  All senior Drama students participated in a performance evening, performing their student directed Shakespearean scenes.  It was magical.  We saw boys eating pies, girls dancing as fairies, girls with swords, boys with swords, girls in love, boys in love, a teenage runaway and an army soldier carrying firewood.  Nothing less than you'd expect.

Next week the Dance and Drama seniors will have a performance evening, which will be amazing I am sure.

Stage Challenge is up and running again.  Ariane and Kieran and doing so well with the choreography and rehearsals.  Mr Ryan is fundraising the required $5,000 to get our show on the road.  Oliver has the set well underway.  Ms de Croy has kept up with all the paperwork and online forms.... and I have flapped about the place mumbling things to myself.  All in all, a team effort?

The Visual Artists are excited as the first official looking drawings of the new Art Suite are up and about.  All majorly interesting.  We will have 2 new Art rooms and 2 digital spaces.  And all this will be near the Performing Arts department!  Finally we will all be together.

Ms Beecroft has been working with the Yr 9 Drama class on poi this year, and their skills are through the roof.  Tomorrow she will demonstrate fire-poi which is very exciting.

But, for now, it is time to log out and hopefully log back in soon for a proper update on all these things.

The Winters' Tale

This year has been a fantastic year for Shakespeare!  We have been working on our Shakespeare production of King Lear for the competition, and all Drama students from Year 10 upwards have been working on a student directed scene.

The Bard is the Word- that is for sure.

Recently we travelled to Wellington to see the Propeller performance of "The Winters' Tale".  The cast was all male, so it was more like Shakespeare as his audiences would have seen it.  While some of the students couldn't follow the difficult storyline, but the acting and technical effects made it all easy to understand.

We had a great time, but unfortunately had to cancel our viewing of "Troillus and Cressida" due to weather.

Wordless Wednesday: Enjoying the Show

Performing Arts in Focus

One of our new areas of education is in Performing Arts Technology.  Here senior students choose what they want to focus their time and energies into, looking at the technical aspects of performance.  We have students looking into hair and make-up for the stage, costume design, stage design and construction, directing, script writing and lighting and sound technologies.

The courses are predominantly student driven.  Most students have areas of focus within the Performing Arts (Dance, Drama and Music) and then choose their standards to align with their interests.  Ariane will be linking her studies with her work in Dance, planning and implementing Stage Challenge this year.  Oliver works tirelessly on set and stage construction, linking to his interest in Sculpture, while Zoe and Alena focus on Drama with script and concept development for the stage.

Here are a group of Performing Arts students working on a construction challenge for our 15 minute scene for Shakespeare this year.

Out of the chaos will come something wonderful

Chaedyn and Kylie model their headpieces

Twelfth Night in 2012

Well, 2012 has begun in earnest, and we are off and racing.

The Stage Challenge team have started planning, and shortly will be calling for dance auditions.  Shakespeare is off the ground with rehearsals underway for Sheilah Winn.  Arts classes are brimming with talent, and looking spectacular in the possibilities.

We have so many fun activities planned, especially with the International Arts Festival.  "Private Peaceful" will be playing at Kuranui, which is looking amazing, and we are really lucky to be offered tickets at a highly discounted rate.  We are also taking Drama students to "A Winters Tale", Dance students to "Birds with Skymirrors" and a whole van load to the Maori version of "Troilus and Cressida".

Last night the Drama classes were given the chance to go to "Twelfth Night" at Gladstone Vineyard.  It was amazing.  Dan Carlisle was quoted saying, "Shakespeare was a bloody genius".  The kids laughed hysterically at the antics of Sir Toby Belch and Malvolio, and a good time was had by all.  We will definitely be going back to see whatever is performed at next years' Summer Shakespeare.

Natalia, Moana and Sarah enjoy the show

Chaedyn and Oliver laugh at Sir Toby Belch

The amazing cast of "Twelfth Night"

Jan and Jordan sit enraptured by the performance