Wakakirri

Wakakirri is an Aboriginal word which means to tell a story through dance, movement and music. Wakakirri is a national annual event, open to both Primary and Secondary students.

Our school has entered the competition several times over the past few years as we believe it allows students to actively participate and learn about the process of creating and performing with their peers and to express their ideas through the art of storytelling and dance.

The event enables our students to tell a story that they believe is important and resonates with them. It is always exciting to hear the students’ ideas and see their story dance come to life!

Learning Intention: To create a story dance which demonstrates the importance of learning from each other and accepting different cultures.

Learning experience overview:

Over the past 8 weeks the school has worked with an Artist in Residence to help the students visualise their story. Our wonderful choreographer, Maddy, choreographed and rehearsed with the 5/6 students. During their Arts Sessions the students also worked on the storyboard which provided ideas for the music, props, projections, costumes and face paint to complement their story.

As part of The Arts curriculum, this experience enabled all students to explore areas of the Drama, Music and Dance curriculum. Wakakirri also affords students the opportunity to develop important aspects of the Personal and Social capability area of the curriculum. This includes collaboration, perseverance, empathy, and appreciating different points of view. Throughout the process of creating their own story dance, the students explored and developed dance skills, practised a choreographic routine and increased their understanding of the production elements required to communicate their story, ‘Steps in Culture’.

It has been a joy to see how the students worked together and supported each other throughout the creative process. Last night all of their hard work paid off as they performed with such enthusiasm and confidence.

For those fortunate enough to attend their spectacular performance you would have seen how clear their message came across and how well our students performed and spoke. We are looking forward to the judges feedback in the coming weeks but what we do know is that he was impressed with our clear representation of our story and originality.

We will receive official feedback and information about which schools in Victoria go through to the final. We will keep you informed.

Official Photos and Video

In a few weeks the school will receive a streamable video link of the students’ Wakakirri performance. We will forward this to all parents as soon as we receive it.

Should you wish to order a copy of the entire show, (USB or Digital) you can order this via the Wakakirri link here: www.wakakirri.com./shop

Official photos, posters and digital files of your child and their performance are available 48 hours after the performance from Wiki Pop Media at :www.winkipopmedia.com.au

Go to “Current Events” and Wakakirri

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A card with all the details has also been distributed to your child.

Thank you to all parents who supported us throughout our Wakakirri journey, including taking the props and costumes home last night!

Feedback from students

At rehearsals I honestly was worried because we started practising and rehearsing later than all of the other schools and we only had two weeks to make our storydance before we started. Fortunately our artist in residence, Maddy, came to the rescue. By teaching us dances and music styles that helped us so much, we could do our story dance. So thank you Maddy for helping us every step of the way.

- Rio

As part of our Arts we have rehearsed and practised our Wakakirri performance every Thursday for the past 8 weeks. Our amazing choreographer Maddy helped us every step of the way. We performed at the Frankston Arts Centre Melbourne on the 16th of August and we all had the most amazing experience. We all did such a good job

- Sylvie

I would like to thank Maddy for Choreographing our dance. The atmosphere last night was amazing and “Chookas” was the only word you could hear all night. It was a great experience.

- Ben

I loved Wakakirri. It was the best! My favourite part was performing to the audience at 7:15pm, it was very nerve wrecking and exciting at the same time. The wait time was very long but as the day went on people were more and more involved. I loved looking at other people practising in our waiting room and meeting new people at different schools.

- Tristan

Backstage Photos

Jenny, Zaim and Jade

Year 5/6 Team

Jenny.Kourkouvelis@education.vic.gov.au

Zaim.Zeneli@education.vic.gov.au

Jade.Davidson@education.vic.gov.au

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