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.

Rarotongan Dance

This year the 201 Dance class are working on Rarotongan Dance for their unit on Social or Ethnic Dance.  It has been a challenge for the class to get their heads, and bodies, around the subtle movements of the dance form.  However, it has been a really popular dance style.  Setty and the boys are getting right into the difficult male part of the dance.  

Shortly this class will be assessed on their work which will be worth Achievement Standard credits for their NCEA.

Wordless Wednesday: Enjoying the Show

Stage Challenge 2012

We are underway for 2012! 

This year our very talented choreographers are Kieran Tankersley and Ariane Gleeson.  The two have very different styles of dance, but the ideas and the dance are starting to gel together nicely.  Ariane is the master of hip-hop, while Kieran is more of a contemporary dancer. 

Both girls have been running auditions, and getting their choreography ready for the full rehearsals once the chorus has been set.  They have charged Oliver with the task of set construction after his masterful work with the set for 2011.  Danica and Travis have also been taking the lead, helping out with rehearsals and auditions.

The force will be out at the Martinborough Fair in March, fundraising for the cause, as they have a 0 budget to start with, and have to raise the money to get the cast and crew to Wellington, all the costumes and set, and to cover all the other production expenses.

Ariane (in the front) teaching one section for the auditions in the Dance Studio

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

Wordless Wednesday: Dance