“Don’t think about making art, just get it done. Let everyone else decide if it’s good or bad, whether they love it or hate it. While they are deciding, make even more art.” – Andy Warhol

Creating performance art is personal risk taking. You must commit to getting it done and overcome challenges with self-awareness and resilience. 

In NCEA drama classes students created several interesting devised pieces around personal identity and community values. They explored cultural stereotypes around beauty, the importance of family and the challenges of growing up.

For junior students improvisation is a good skill to lead them into creating their own work. They had fun learning improvisation games like shared story and expert interview. This is a great way to work with others, have fun and practise quick thinking. It requires strong story-telling skills to make the audience care about a character and keep them watching. You have to show physical bravery by leaping into poses and actions which could take you anywhere! You become a risk taker, walking on the edge of the stage, making up dialogue as you go. It is not for the faint-hearted.

COMPOSING in NCEA Music - Lachlan Hickford created an intelligent, creative and thought provoking programme of compositions.

Lachlan has become an incredible composer of music and his Level 3 programme gained an Excellence.

Casey our resident song writer also completed three very cool songs for his level 3 composition task. These were typical Casey flavour featuring reggae beats and gospel themes. These are always songs I could easily imagine being played on the radio. Maybe we will hear a Casey song on the radio in the future.

Film Music with year 10 

This year our Year 10 musicians have really enjoyed delving into the world of film music. We have studied how music is used to evoke emotions in movies. We looked at different movie genres including animation and spooky movies. Students then set about creating their own piece of film music. Some students created their own short movie with their composed music in the background and others worked on an emotive mood piece. Composition is one of the hardest strands of music and I was really impressed with how our Year 10 students tackled this!

Creating devised work individually or in a group demonstrates the skills Hornby High School values. You need commitment, resilience and respect in order to achieve a meaningful piece of art.

Leonard Bernstein: “To achieve great things, two things are needed; a plan, and not quite enough time.”