Performing Arts
Communicating with the Specialist Team
We look forward to partnering with you in 2022, and welcome your input:
Penelope Lang (Performing Arts) penelope.lang@education.vic.gov.au
We have had a very busy and exciting two weeks in Performing Arts. The Performing Arts captains, Ruby Hutchings and Laura Johnson-Hayes, were kept busy helping me run the Year 5/6 production auditions. Then our room came alive with the sound of drumming (sorry Janette and Paula) as Harmony Day was celebrated all week in Performing Arts (lucky me). The highlight for me was when a student summed up Harmony Day by saying, 'Harmony Day is about letting people into your life'. I could not have said it better myself (thank you Noah H).
Our Foundation students have continued to develop their beat and rhythm skills through unison singing. Their pitch matching improves every week. We have started to explore the use of our 'drama voice' (which is different to a normal speaking voice) by listening to how our voice changes when we express different emotions (this is my happy voice, this is my sad voice, this is my shy voice etc). We will develop this further through adding facial expressions. Our Harmony Day celebrations involved lots of singing and dancing to the African welcome song, 'Funga Alafia'. The song translates to 'we welcome you with our thoughts, our words, our hearts and our open arms'.
The Year One and Two students enjoyed some new warm up activities including mirroring some tricky 'Balance Cards', 'Don't clap this one back' and the partner game, 'I am Batman'. They continued to work on developing their beat and rhythm skills by saying and clapping various combinations of ta, ti-ti and Za and using fruit syllables (apple, apple, pear, pear) to assist. You can work on this at home with the simple song, 'Hot Cross Buns'. One of you can clap the beat and the other person the rhythm (then swap). During Harmony Week, the students sang and responded to the song, 'Children of the World' as well as 'Where are you from?'. I loved hearing about all of their cultural connections.
The Year Three and Four students worked collaboratively to perform the poem, 'Today is very boring' by Jack Prelutsky. We discussed the various ways in which poetry can be 'performed' and not just read. The students experimented with the skill of 're-acting' using verbal and non-verbal forms of communication. This will be a skill they will use when they become the citizens of Emerald City for our school production. Our Harmony Day celebration included a conversation about our multicultural Australia and the powerful feeling of 'belonging'. We talked about the origins of Cossack dancing and enjoyed some drumming on the Djembes and Cajons.
The Year Five and Six students had a very busy week preparing for and participating in the auditions for our school production, 'The Wizard of Oz'. We used the icebreaker task, 'I am Batman' as a reminder that it is OK (and essential in fact) to be a little bit 'silly' when you are acting as a character in a play. I was so impressed with the talent on display as well as the bravery and resilience shown by the students. I will be announcing the cast next week. We celebrated Harmony Day together by talking about the importance of the arts in cultures all around the world. We consolidated our knowledge of African drumming and spent time playing the Djembe and Cajon. Our hands were certainly tingling by the end of our lesson.
Our VSSS dancers had a very busy rehearsal in our school gym with our visiting schools.
If you are in the VSSS (dance and choir) please make sure you spend some time in the holidays on google classroom rehearsing your songs and dances. Have fun and Happy Easter everyone.
