Performing Arts 

Drama Matters

It has already been a full calendar for the Drama students, and it is still only Wednesday. On Tuesday there were 3 Year Groups who performed in the Sarto on our new portable staging. The new stage can be configured to each separate performance and will be a great asset to both Drama and Music performances and presentations. 

The shows this week are:

Year 9 Narrative Playbuilding – original plays written by the students that demonstrate a linear plot and clear character intentions.

Year 10 Children’s Theatre – original plays written for Year 5 & 6. This included music written by the Year 10 music class (Mr Nathanael Primrose-Heaney) that added excitement and atmosphere to each play.

Year 11 Social Issue Playbuilding – original plays written with topical issues in mind using the techniques of Jacques Lecoq.

Please take the time to look at some of the photos. Students were impressive with their storytelling skills and their embrace of character. 

Climate Movie: Not Dead Yet

It has been a pleasure to bring in Christiaan Blok to work with the students. He is a professional movie maker and has really enhanced the project and pushed it along. With his advice we have now decided to make 4 mini movies, this gives us the chance to create a production team for each movie and allow the students to try different jobs, also enhancing their creativity. The production jobs are: Director, Art director, Cinematography, Sound, Gaffa. All very important roles. We will start filming in the holidays 6th and 7th April with our Land and Air movies. Each movie will take on a different aspect of Climate Change culminating with boys arriving at St Pius trying to save themselves. There is a lot of humour to be found in this challenging topic and we think audiences will enjoy the final movies. 

Students needed for Land (6 April): Isaac Donlevy, Michael Krizan, Riley Collins, Jack Fairbanks, Caleb Hanrahan, Jamie Leong, Charlie Dwyer.

Students needed for Air (7 April): Cooper Anderson, Spencer Anderson, Jack Harrison, Samuel Hollier, Luca D'Alessandro, Michael Krizan, Joshua Squires, Peter Yastreboff, Isaac Birchall, Zavier Domenici. 

Ms Penny Lindley - Drama Teacher

Music Matters

What a fantastic week last week was for the Performing Arts!  

On Thursday last week we had our first performance in front of an audience for over a year. Our bands and percussion led the way and showed a lot of polish in their first performance for 2021. For some of our students it was the first performance at St Pius X. The concert was short but very important as it resets our performance program for 2021. This was a new performance in the school calendar but I hope to make it a permanent fixture. 

More and varied performance opportunities will give ensembles the ability to choose ever more challenging repertoire and achieve even higher standards. We will have our Twilight Concert in Term 2 and at the moment we are thinking about the concert format. We will be definitely showcasing our orchestra, strings, guitars and Primary Concert Band. We will also have an appearance from our choir who have gone back to rehearsals and are developing their repertoire. It is a relief that the Performing Arts can get back to doing what they do best and we look forward towards future performances.

An encouraging development that came with the concert is that we had around 70 people in attendance. This was due to COVID distancing rules. We also had 160 “hits” of online viewers. We estimate that there would have been sometimes 2 or 3 people around screens. In all I estimate that we had an audience of 250 plus in “attendance” with some watching from far afield. This might be the “complexion” for future performance events. Many restrictions have been eased in NSW as of 29 March but some have remained. The distance rules still applies so in future performances we will formulate a new COVID plan to reflect these changes. Obviously P&F meetings are allowed  back on-site so this means we can return to an in-person PAPA meeting in Week 2 next term. I will make a TEAMS option available to expand our meetings.

Positive Participation in Weekly Ensembles

There has been a great reaction to the publishing names of students who has contributed positively to their Ensembles. I commend them on this and to all the students who contribute to their ensembles in every way. Below is this week's list.

Mr Anthony Timmins - Performing Arts Coordinator