The Arts Department
The circumstances of Covid-19, has again meant school closures and remote teaching and learning. As is often the case, students are leading the way setting an example with their resilience, creativity and tenacity. It is inspiring to see the way students have taken the disappointment of various cancellations or postponements in their stride and brought enormous energy to new and adapted activities. This term has turned out to be full of a great deal of positivity and enthusiasm for the arts.
We hit the ground running, with a week to finalise Footloose rehearsals before the performances got underway at the Mayfair. Students put so much energy into this production, working hard to bring the classic 1980’s story to life. The support from the school and wider community was amazing. We hope that for these students participating in this musical production was and continues to be a memorable highlight of school life. The musical was postponed last year due to Covid-19 so we are so grateful that the students got to have this opportunity.
The Year 7 and 8 Bandquest live event was unfortunately affected by the most recent Covid lockdown. However the event is still going to go ahead in an online format. Both bands will be videoed performing at school in Term 4. This video will then be submitted to the organisers as part of the competition. Since being back at school the band have been meeting weekly to practise learning their parts by heart and playing in time together. Students have shown agility and creativity in adapting as necessary to the video submission format for many of these activities. We look forward to seeing what they can produce next term.
Congratulations to Thanuja Luxmanan who is a finalist in the Play It Strange Songwriting Competition with her original song “Paradise”. Play It Strange is a national competition that celebrates and embraces the songwriting talents of New Zealand young people in Years 9 to 13. Mr Potter would also like to acknowledge Chai Yoo and Chloe Wu for their commendable effort writing and entering their own original songs as part of this competition. For being a finalist Thanuja will receive a signed certificate, a $50 NZ Rockshop voucher and a day in a professional recording studio to the value of $750 to record her song. “Paradise” will be mastered for the annual Play It Strange album, available for download or streaming later in the year.
Contemporary vocalist specialists Anna Langford and Beth Waite have worked with the Year 11, 12, 13 vocalists on specific vocal technique and vocal health in preparing for their class Solo Performances. Seniors are also busy putting final touches on their compositions and original songs.
Mr. Madden has been visiting the Year 9 Music classes to work on vocal technique. Creatives in Schools mentor Eliana Gray has also been visiting the Year 9 Music classes to help develop their lyric writing skills. These two visitors have helped feed into the Year 9s main Songwriting and Performance project that students share to the class. Songwriting mentor Jenny Mitchell returned for a final time to work with Year 11s further develop their song craft.
Nga Korimako has begun two new songs this term, Butterfly fly away by Miley Cyrus and Billy Ray Cyrus as well as a song called Sing. The junior choir have had fun experimenting with different harmonies and melodies. Mr Maddon has also taught many fun warm-ups as well as mini songs in which they managed to continue throughout the recent lockdown in an online format. Thank you Mr Maddon for teaching Nga Korimako and your adaptability in extending this teaching and learning online whilst still having fun.
The orchestra has continued in their practicing of the pieces that they began last term. Unfortunately, we have had a lot of disruptions, as we were unable to meet for orchestra over lockdown, and so any plans for a possible performance weren't able to go through. However, we have been able to start up again after lockdown, and we are also planning to start practicing the music for carol service soon.
Lockdown didn’t stop our dance students from having fun by getting up and moving at home. This involved learning some contemporary dances from the very talented ex-student Trinity Maydon, who is now dancing at the NZ School of Dance and also stretching with our peers in some online Yoga classes.
The senior classes have finished internal work and are now looking more in depth at external work, studying the production of ‘trees, birds and people’ choreographed by Shona McCullagh. They are continuing to practise a range of dances to perform in our dance showcase on the 27th October. If Covid levels allow families and friends to come and watch the students share their learning it will be wonderful.
The junior classes are exploring the style of choreographer Fosse in which they are finding very interesting.
Hip Hop crews had a great time at regionals held here in Dunedin on the 1st August. The enthusiasm and effort has continued in spite of these uncertain times as three of our four crews work towards the National competition in Christchurch on the 20th November. Super exciting for these participants. We wish them all the best!
Term 3 has been quite disruptive for Nga Manu o Hira Tapu, St Hilda’s kapa haka group. Otago Polyfest was due to be held in week 7 so the first part of the term was spent practising and preparing the sets for this performance. Again unfortunately due to lockdown and covid restrictions, kapa haka won’t be participating in polyfest but instead look to next year and making a start on learning skills waiata. Term four will provide numerous opportunities to perform with events such as St Hilda’s Day, Prize giving and Art’s assembly. Kapa Haka looks forward to sharing their hard work with peers, teachers and the wider school community.
This term in the visual arts we are mostly producing justified works based on artistic decisions, learning how to build off ideas through experimentation and reason by clarifying our decisions. We are continuing to build painting knowledge and skill from our artistic model chosen. It is an important time to stick to our processes and really build on producing a great body of work that can be refined into portfolio pieces. As Covid affected our in-class time and working resources, it was a perfect opportunity to reflect on the works we have made and think about our ideas moving forward for our portfolios.
Congratulations to Lily Dockerty for an outstanding achievement in the recent Otago Polytechnic School of Art ‘Celebrate’ exhibition. Lily gained an excellence award and received a voucher to spend at Art Zone. Lily’s work will be on display in the office foyer next term.
Congratulations also to Sienna Hore (visual) and Megha Senthilkumar (Performing). These students have been successful in the Year 9 Scholarship process showing a lot of promise in the visual and or performing arts. We wish you both well in your studies and look forward to your feedback on your scholarship year ahead.
At the end of Term 2 our three senior debating teams competed at the Dunedin Schools Debating one day tournament. This was a great opportunity for our teams to have another chance to debate in the competition format, allowing the teams to see how they had progressed since the regional competition earlier in the year. All of our three teams won 2 out of their 3 debates which was a great achievement. Unfortunately due to covid both the senior and junior teams have only been able to do one other debate each this term as part of the usual fortnightly competition. Nonetheless we are excited to finish off the season strongly when we are back debating again.
This past term has been a lot quieter than usual! The beginning started out strong with the senior classes working on devising their own dramas, and TheatreSports finding an audience within the junior school. Then with the interruption of lockdown in the middle of the term, these had to be pushed to the side. However, after coming back to school, Theatre Sports was able to return with hushed conversations over an inter-school friendly competition!
Throughout lockdown our Arts Prefects were actively engaged in supporting artistic endeavours amongst the student body. One of these endeavours was the photography competition. Well done Maia and Ella.