Performing Arts

ture Communicating with the Specialist Team

We look forward to partnering with you in 2025, and welcome your input:

Penelope Lang (Performing Arts) penelope.lang@education.vic.gov.au

Wominjeka!

Victorian State Schools Spectacular

What can I say?! There is a reason why this event has the word SPECTACUALR in the title.

Congratulations to our students who participated in the VSSS over the weekend and a very big thank you to those families and teachers who came along to support them. It was an incredible show and I am so proud of our dancers who showed incredible resilience, responsibility, respect and bucket loads of talent. A special mention must be made of our talented reserve dancers (Pippa, Dylan, Monica, Cora and Sophia) who have also been working incredibly hard since March to learn all of the dance routines in case we needed extra people. Thank you for your dedication. Finally, I could not do this without the help of Kim Van Hoorn and Trudi Bons. We are so grateful for your talent, time, energy and your amazing attention to detail. It was a joy to spend almost 35 hours with you during the 'VSSS marathon'. This is an end of an era for both of you. I hope you have enjoyed the journey with us as much as we have enjoyed having you (insert sobs from Ms Lang!).

At the end of the show I asked the students to sum up their VSSS experience in one word. Here's what they said:

Fantastic, fun, spectacular, amazing, breathtaking, beguiling, exciting, talent, bedazzling, creative, great, sassy, energetic, inspiring, fabulous, hot, noisy, long, music, rewarding, hard work, exhausting, applause, squishy, 'move up', 'walk with purpose', electrifying, pizza, lollies, thirsty, games, friendships, relief, stunning, silence, loud, 'it's a lot'.

Stay tuned, as the VSSS dancers (including our reserves) will be performing for the whole school in Term Four. Applications for VSSS 2026 open in a few weeks and USPS will certainly be applying to participate. I will let you know as soon as I hear if we have been successful again.

Instrumental Lessons

Our school's Instrumental Program, now being managed by Amaris Lee-David, will continue to offer lessons on most instruments and will be retaining the outstanding team of musicians. The first 'trial' lesson is free of charge and your child will get the opportunity to perform in an end of year instrumental concert if they want to. You also have the option of choosing a lesson during the recess breaks if you would prefer that your child is not taken out of his or her class lessons. Feel free to contact Amaris info@groovefoundations.comfor more information.

Please be aware that there is a waiting list for some instruments at the moment and we are doing our very best to find some additional teachers to fill this demand. I am beyond excited to hear that we have SO MANY students wanting to learn an instrument.

IN OUR PERFORMING ARTS ROOM

Foundation

The Foundation students have continued to work on their dancing skills, including their ability to work with a partner as well as in a small group. We looked at moving our bodies in opposite ways such as, 'high and low', 'fast and slow', 'strong and soft' and 'straight and zig-zag'. I modelled some simple dance moves for the students using 'normal' everyday actions as our starting point. This included actions such as pointing, crouching, walking and turning. Viewing dance as 'organised movement' has definitely given students more confidence to have a go and join in. We listened to the Heel and Toe Polka and practised some tricky partner clap combinations. We continued to explore improvised dance to much slower music and realised that we can still move fast to slow beats. We are beginning to learn some song lyrics for our end of year concert.

Year One and Year Two

The students in both levels have been continuing to learn about the different instruments of the orchestra. We have looked at the brass family and our final family was the percussion family. We had an incredible lesson exploring almost every percussion instrument our school owns. I have included a LOT of photos from these lessons as the pure joy on the student's faces was just incredible to witness. For many students, there were lots of 'first time', playing some of these instruments, especially the keyboard and the piano. The students were encouraged to touch, look, play, chat, compare and have fun exploring. We have discussed the difference between a symphony and chamber orchestra and I shared details of my recent visit to the Melbourne Recital Centre to see the Australian Chamber Orchestra. We listened to recorder virtuoso, Genevieve Lacey, and a performance on a Theorbo (a large 16th century lute). Some students had performing arts during Book Week and we had fun acting together in an improvised special 'adventure' connecting to the Book Week theme of 'Book an Adventure'

Some students have mentioned to me that their parents play the 'harp', 'violin' and 'cello'. If this is actually the case, I would LOVE if any of you could come into the Performing Arts room(or even an assembly) and play for us. Please send me an email if you are keen.

Year Three and Year Four

The students have continued to learn how to play the ukulele. We have now learnt the C chord, the F chord as well as the melancholy Am chord. We are working on forming these chords correctly (using the correct fingers) and moving between chords smoothly. The students have created their own trouble shooting toolbox for when their chords sound 'not quite right'. These include checking their finger is in the right position and not 'squashing' other strings, ensuring their finger is not sitting on the fret bar and, finally, pressing nice and hard to create a nice clear note sound within the chords. Some students have developed an 'ear' for a ukulele that is in tune (G, C, E, A) and will soon learn how to tune their own ukulele. We have experimented with different strumming techniques and have played along to the song, 'Best Day of my life' as well as, 'Thunder'. We are now adding some finger plucking and learning about 'open strings' and fret markers at frets 5 and 7.

Year Five and Year Six