Five of our Year 13 girls receive Honours in Arts, Senior Drama students enjoy a visiting show and workshop and Year 12 Drama and Music students present the powerful collaborative around identity, “I Am.”

Excellence in Arts
Congratulations to the following girls who have gained Honours in Arts and were presented their awards at the Combined Honours Awards assembly last week, alongside other Year 13 girls who have gained Academic and Sports Honours: in Music Amy Chung, Sujean In and Meg Shatford, Annālida Jaeger in Drama and Georgia Hardy in Dance. Soph Kingi received a red rose for her team’s national 2nd placing in Hip Hop.

An Unseasonable Fall of Snow
Our Senior Drama students were treated to a performance of 'An Unseasonable Fall of Snow' in the Charles Luney Auditorium on Monday 6 May. This was presented by professional theatre company Simple Truth Theatre who are currently touring and performing this NCEA prescribed text to Drama students around the country. After the performance, our students enjoyed a Q and A session and participated in an acting technique workshop with the actors and director. This was a great opportunity for our girls to learn from young industry professionals who are making their mark on the NZ Theatre scene.

I Am: Year 12 Drama-Music collaboration
Tuesday and Wednesday evenings in the Ngaio Marsh Theatre our Year 12 Drama and Music classes presented pieces they have been working on over the last term and a bit. The evening was a celebration of the girls’ talents and efforts exploring the topic of "identity" working with published texts and music but also including original devised work and musical compositions. Two Level Two NCEA Drama classes, a Level Two Music class and a Year 12 IB Theatre Arts class performed. We congratulate the girls and their teachers Megan Herd, James Tarbotton and Amanda Woods for this funny, moving and original piece of work.

Sheilah Winn Shakespeare: student voice
With one of St Margaret’s largest Shakespeare drama groups to date, 20 girls competed in the Regional Sheilah Winn Shakespeare Festival at the end of Term 1. All three pieces were student directed, showcasing the differing styles and plays of William Shakespeare's masterpieces. The festival is a highly anticipated event for the drama community at SMC, allowing girls to work closely with teachers and senior students to develop theatre skills often leading to the gaining of some big awards. Our massive success this year started with the excellent award “Best use of Visual Imagery” for the 5-minute Henry VIII directed by Kaitlin Burden, Sam Capon and Annālida Jaeger. Another 5-minute piece, Merry Wives of Windsor, directed by Feya Durkin and Cara Donaldson, gained the impressive award of “Outstanding presentation of a Comedy”. The Taming of the Shrew, an amazing 15-minute piece directed by Izzy Leighs and Georgia Benton, won the prestigious award “Most thought-provoking Performance” and furthermore, Georgia earned the elite award of “Best Actress”. Along with these awards, this last group was also selected to proceed through to the National finals for the festival during the Queens birthday weekend. We hope these girls have a great experience in Wellington and will continue to amaze audiences with their talent.

Arts Photos
Last week photos were taken of all our school co-curricular arts groups. We thank Janine Hutton for her great skill in artfully staging the photos this year which show our groups amongst the autumn leaves in the main quad. Photos will be available for purchase soon as well as going into our yearbook magazine.

Showquest
In a world of full-on iMacs, iPhones and iPads, verbal communication is diminishing. It’s all about selfies, followers, hashtags and likes. Everyday life is becoming overwhelmingly mundane because online you can be anything you want. You can be exciting. You can be something you aren't but think you want to be. Unrealistic standards are set online for real life and people we have never met become more important than our real-life friends and families. We need to remember that we can’t auto-correct humanity.

Tuesday 21st May at 7pm, the Year 8 SMC girls will take the stage to perform at Showquest alongside hundreds of primary and secondary students at the Christchurch Town Hall. Tickets are available from Ticketek.

The Creators’ Room
The Creators’ Room is holding their inaugural art exhibition from 23-26 May 2019 in the iconic Deloitte Building (Level 1, 151 Cambridge Terrace), with SMC’s Ruby McCallum as one of 15 student exhibitors.
The Creators’ Room is a new organisation launched in Christchurch in July 2018 to provide Christchurch Secondary School’s Senior Visual Artist students (Year 11-13) with a platform to sell their works and be recognised for their talents. A total of 1,282 artworks across 16 Christchurch secondary schools were submitted, with the judging panel identifying 15 Top artists from the 51 finalists – these works will be setup as a blind auction running over the 4 days of the exhibition.

The online gallery (www.thecreatorsroom.co.nz) will be selling limited edition prints of the students’ work. Original work will be up for sale during the 4-day exhibition with prices ranging from $200 - $800. 20 guest artists from around Canterbury will also be exhibiting at the exhibition.

Rockquest
This Saturday, May 18th, our girls will be performing their original songs at the Rockquest competition in the Aurora Centre. Nat Hutton will be singing with CGHS student Minnie Robberds and Billie Leiataua will present a solo act. Izzy Leighs and Evie Eaton will be sending in their song online. All welcome to attend.

Debating Regionals new date
The Canterbury Debating Regionals scheduled for March 16-17 will now take place at Canterbury University May 18-19.

Combined Concert
May 29th we will be holding our annual combined music concert with Christ’s College in the Charles Luney Auditorium at 7:30pm. Our combined orchestras and choirs will perform alongside musicians and groups from both schools. All welcome.

Cushion Cabarets
Tuesday, June 4th our student Arts Council will be hosting two Cushion Cabarets in the Ngaio Marsh Theatre. Our Middle School show will start at 5pm and seniors are on at 6:30pm. We welcome whanau to join us for this relaxed evening of entertainment from our girls.

The Big Sing
SMC Chamber Choir and our combined CC-SMC Collegium choir are working hard in preparation for The Big Sing Secondary Schools’ Choral Festival to be celebrated in the newly refurbished Christchurch Town Hall Friday, June 7th. Both choirs will attend sessions during the day, the Chamber Choir at 10:15am and Collegium at 4:30pm, where their 3 song repertoire will be judged alongside choirs from all over Canterbury. The Gala Concert, at 7pm that evening, is open to the public, with tickets available through Ticketek. The choir’s Director Rachel Wilford accompanied the girls to a choral workshop with the renowned director at Christ’s College earlier in the term, and they will also be performing their repertoire prior to the festival for residents at the Nurse Maude Hospital.

Arts Mentoring
The Arts Council team continue this term with their Arts Mentoring programme where Year 12 and 13 girls guide Middle School girls interested in learning something new or improving their skills in any arts area. The aim of this programme is for our Year 7-10 girls to make connections with girls involved in the arts in the senior school and for them to provide support, advice or even work towards a project (i.e. a performance, an artwork etc.) This is a really great experience for our girls as part of our Tuakana-Teina (big sister-little sister) philosophy. At the moment the Council need mainly mentors for Music/Singing, Drama, Dance and Visual Art and those who have skills in more than one area are gold. Also open to staff!
If you are interested in being a mentor, please send Kaitlin Burden an email with:
- Your name and year group
- What area(s) of the arts you would like to mentor
- Why you want to be a mentor/why you think you would be a good mentor.
If you are in Year 7-10 and would like to find a mentor, you will need to fill out this survey to be paired up: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/PBSJWLF

Grimm Tales
The buzzing and humming in the school continues as hedgehogs, wolves, evil stepsisters, grotesque creatures and dancers explode from the woods in rehearsals for Grimm Tales. Tickets for this senior production in the Charles Luney Auditorium July 1-3 are now available through our school website www.stmargarets.school.nz. Please be aware that there are violent endings for the villains of the piece and it is not recommended for children under eight or those with a sensitive disposition.
We are looking for parent volunteers to do a few sewing jobs for costumes. Please contact Mary Davison mary.da@stmargarets.school.school.nz