Art Liaison Reports

Hip Hop Liaison: Sophie Wispinski

With Hip Hop regionals around the corner, all four crews are working to the extreme in preparation for the competition! With their coaches, ideas are developing for different sets in their overall performance. There are regular practices underway, with some mentors coming in from out of school to assist with choreography. With the first St Hilda’s Mega Crew, relationships are built with the girls in different year levels to create an inclusive environment for team work skills. All crews are looking forward to being able to share their dances in the NZCAF Hip Hop regionals, which will be held on Sunday the 1st of August, at Otago Boys High School.

Visual Arts Liaison: Frankie Robertson

This term in Visual Art we are continuing the artistic process. This keeps us working towards developing and producing new artworks for portfolios. These have been produced from our knowledge gained from desired artist models, exploring and experimenting with a range of media to produce artworks. We learn more about our own artist style, as we have trialled works inspired by our artist models, with positive and negative outcomes to justify. Producing a large variety of pieces whilst exploring through experimenting is the most important and exciting thing in the classroom this term.

Music Liaison: Chai Yoo

Throughout Term 2, students were able to showcase their musical talents in multiple ways. The Year 9 and 10’s had the opportunity to write lyrics with Eliana Gray through the Creative in School’s program. Students also crafted and sent their original songs to Play It Strange’s Peace Songwriting Competition and the Lion Foundation Songwriting Competition. Hopefully, we’ll hear the results of the latter competition early next term! Bands that started practicing from Term 1 had the chance to enter into the Rockquest heats. Both bands performed well, and they were lucky to have a workshop with Jenny Mitchell, a talented songwriter, before the competition. With all these exciting events coming to a close, I hope everyone will keep an eye out for Music next term!

Debating Liaison: Anna Hutchens

The St Hilda’s debaters have had a great Term 2, with 4 senior teams and 2 junior teams competing regularly as part of the Dunedin Schools Debating Competition. Our teams have been going really well, with lots of wins to their names, and learning and improvement being shown. We have 4 teams entered into the Mid Season Championships held at the end of the term, and are very excited to see how this goes. With Term 3 fast approaching, we also have a team going to the Winter Quad busy preparing their material and practicing hard!

Orchestra Liaison: Lauren Heng

In Term Two, we changed the orchestra practice time to Wednesday after school instead of at lunchtime. This fitted most people’s schedules better, so we were able to practice every week with more students than in the first term. We were working on 4 pieces this term, which we performed at the Music Matinee in Week 9.

Drama Liaison: Meg Rogers

Term Two has been a quieter term for the Drama department. Theatre Sports has continued to be run every Wednesday, with strong support from the juniors of the school. We were able to host a workshop for Theatre Sports on the 3rd of July, run by the local improvisation group Improsaurus. Senior and junior drama classes alike have also had the opportunities to visit Olveston and Larnach’s Castle to help with their devised dramas.

Sings Hilda Liaison: Helena Fitzgerald

Sings Hilda have been working hard this term, with our main focus being preparing for and performing at the regional Big Sing competition in June. We performed pieces from a range of styles and cultures, including Beau Soir, Psalm VIII, and The Lord’s Prayer. While our program was particularly musically challenging, Sings Hilda rose to the challenge and delivered a dynamic performance, earning us a commendation award.

Following the Big Sing we have continued our set rehearsals three times a week on Tuesday/Friday mornings and Thursday lunchtimes. During these rehearsals we have been practicing pieces for our full school Eucharist service, as well as the end of term Music Matinee evening to share with the school community. Sings Hilda hopes to keep up the efforts we have made over this past term as a choir, and continue learning and growing musically as the year progresses!

Ngā Korimako Junior Choir Liaison: Megha Senthilkumar

This term we have continued to learn the southern folk song 'Charlotte Town'. We have had fun experimenting with different harmonies and melodies and what keys we sing the song in. Not only did we learn songs, but Mr Madden has also taught us many enjoyable warm-ups. We have also learned a new song called 'Solfege Mambo' consisting of the solfege syllables. We performed this piece at the Music Matinee in Week 9.

We all found the Music Matinee a great opportunity to show our caregivers the skills we had learned over the past 10 weeks. This term has been absolutely outstanding, we have extended our knowledge with music terms, sung exciting songs and have even rapped our warm-ups. Last but not least I would like to thank Mr Madden for all the hard work he has put into Ngā Korimako. Without his help, we wouldn’t have been able to learn all of the amazing things we have this term.

Kapa Haka Liaison: Analee Toro

Near the start of the term Ngā Manu o Hira Tapu, St Hilda’s Kapa Haka group, performed at the Boarders Open Day. It was great to present our hard work to all the prospective families and for our girls to gain more performance experience. We have also been working on developing our set for Polyfest, which will be happening at the end of next term. We are grateful to have such dedicated teachers and our tutor Lillieana Powell-Shore helping us learn a wide range of waiata, which we're excited to continue learning and polishing over Term 3.

Dance Liaison: Maisie McGregor

In Dance this term we have been lucky to have Swaroopa Unni (our amazing Artist in Residence), teaching our Year 11, 12 & 13 Dance classes the Bharatanatyam style of Indian dance. We have learnt about lots of different peoples experiences when moving to New Zealand, along with more background to the dance style and Indian culture. The stories that have been shared with us, have been used as inspiration for our personal choreographies. The Year 12 & 13 class performed the dance we learnt in the Arts Assembly, which was exciting to share with the rest of the school. We have all enjoyed trying out this new style. Thank you Swaroopa!

Some of our girls also got involved in the Dunedin Midwinter Carnival. Sophie Silcock, Brianna Le, Anna McClean, Lindsay Black, Olivia Wilkinson, Phoebe Hunter, Victoria Avery and Elisa Fitzgerald performed a dance in the parade. These girls said they really enjoyed this opportunity, because it was a fun experience that allowed them to perform in a different kind of setting. We have all been super busy, but are looking forward to Term 3 to get involved in more dancing opportunities!