THE ARTS - CURRICULUM OPTIONS

SEMESTER 1 ELECTIVES

 

CONTEMPORARY DANCE PRACTICES

Explore a range of contemporary dance practices and techniques with staff and industry professionals to create performances for the College Dance Concert.

 

Contemporary dance is dynamic and powerful. It embodies our ideas, thoughts, emotions and values and provides a unique opportunity to develop physically, creatively, aesthetically, emotionally and intellectually.

 

Guided by the principles of contemporary dance, students will learn a variety of contemporary techniques with influences from Graham, Cunningham, Horton, Release, Gaga and Flying Low. Body awareness, alignment principles and components of fitness will be developed through the understanding and execution of technique exercises.

 

Students will work collaboratively with staff and industry professionals to create two intention driven works to perform at the College Dance Concert, gaining an intrinsic sense of enjoyment and personal achievement through expressing and challenging themselves physically.

 

Students will engage with dance as a form of expression and investigate how it can represent a variety of political, cultural and historical motivations, through their own performance and through the viewing of professional works.

 

Participation in this unit may lead to opportunities for future study in dance or related arts fields.

 

SCREEN ACTING

"The great difference between screen acting and theatre acting is that screen acting is about reacting – 75% of the time, great screen actors are great reactors" - NICOLAS ROEG

 

In this course, you will develop your screen acting skills in a fun and supportive atmosphere. Learn the basics of the Stanislavski system of acting, script analysis and the technical demands of screen acting. Become confident in front of the camera while rehearsing scenes from film and TV. The course will culminate in you creating your own acting show-reel.

 

This course focuses on developing students’ vocal, physical and emotional range as actors. It is best suited to students interested in pursuing an Arts pathway or considering Drama ATAR. It is a fast-paced, intensive program that equips students with the skills to cope with the challenging demands of a creative industry. Even though this course culminates in the production of an actor’s show-reel, it is primarily focused on a ‘process’ and ‘learning by doing.’ Students will be assessed both formally and informally.

 

In this course, you will:

  • Develop your body and voice through exercises that enable emotional and creative freedom.
  • Learn how to build a character.
  • Break down a script into story beats and define terms such as the ‘through line’ and ‘spine’.
  • Gain knowledge and confidence in front of a camera.
  • Study Stanislavski’s techniques such as given circumstances, tempo-rhythm, method of physical actions, beats and objectives; and realise these techniques in monologues and duologues.
  • Learn rehearsal techniques and rehearsal processes including script analysis.
  • Experience working with industry professionals in tailor-made workshops and show-reel production.
  • Develop and create a fully edited show-reel.

THE PRODUCTION

During this course you will cover all the elements of drama by producing a fully realised production. Classes will essentially be directed in the rehearsal room, and through a series of rehearsals you will learn what is required to go from the page to the stage. The production will be performed to an audience as part of the College’s calendared performances of 2020.

 

The course is essentially your immersion into Drama, learning the fundamentals of the various roles associated with the art form (actor, director and designer), as you take a part in a fully developed and realised production.

 

The traditional classroom environment will give way to the rehearsal room, which is essentially where all your sessions will be conducted. As the semester unfolds the environment that you work in will transform into the designed set of the play and will conclude with a live performance.

The course is a perfect opportunity for students that are:

  • Curious about drama and its benefits
  • Interested in performance and the processes involved in evolving from the page to the stage
  • Considering a path way in the Arts Industry
  • Considering Drama ATAR

During the process students will engage in rehearsal and be part of a creative process that is designed to promote creativity and resilience. The class will evolve into a company that will work closely together in a fully collaborative and rigorous environment.

 

The experience that the Production will create will equip our students with the skills required in the 21st Century which will not only be learnt but will be implemented and practiced in an authentic space that will be assessed formally and informally.

DOCUMENTARY PRODUCTION

Is this the real life? Is this just fantasy? Join us to investigate Reality TV, mockumentaries and documentaries. Work in a production team to make your own short documentary and answer the question ‘is what you’re watching real?’

 

Documentary-making is are one of the most exciting areas of the Media Arts. It is in a constant state of reinvention and evolution that reflect changing audiences and technologies.

 

In this course students will learn the knowledge and skills to be able to create their own documentary film on a subject of their choice.

 

Working with staff and industry professionals, students will study the greatest documentaries of all time to learn how the codes of conventions of the medium work to create realities. We will then look at how these techniques can be used to create false realities by creating our own reality television show or mockumentary.

 

Students will learn and develop their writing, research and media production skills, working in teams to extend and refine their problem-solving skills and processes.

 

Students will be able to choose to explore options within film, television, photography, print media, radio and online media to tailor their production work to their interests and their audience.

This course will provide the student with the general knowledge and skills to begin to make them ready to pursue a Certificate II in Creative Industries or alternative pathways.

SELF-PORTRAITURE IN 2D

Your theme for this unit will be yourself, both in appearance and personality. You will be drawing a detailed self-portrait in pencil, printing an expressive gestural dry-point etching and a layered multi-coloured print using hand-cut stencils and a photographic image on a silkscreen.

 

 

 

Students will learn:

  • Traditional drawing techniques including tonal shading, cross-hatching, stippling using pencil and charcoal, and learn about proportion and composition when composing a portrait.
  • Contemporary gestural and expressive techniques to design and carve a drypoint etching plate and print it using a printing press.
  • Techniques to design and hand-cut a stencil suitable for screen-printing. Learn how to layer translucent and opaque printing inks, and PhotoShop your face in half-tones to create a photographic silkscreen to complete a multi-layered screen-printed self-portrait.

This unit is designed for students to use visual art language and artistic conventions of greater complexity during their design and production process. Students will extend their knowledge of art practices such as adaptation, manipulation, deconstruction and reinvention techniques, and use their understanding of a variety of art styles in the making of their 2D layered artworks. Students extend their knowledge and practise of safe and sustainable visual arts practice. Resolved artwork is exhibited and appraised, with consideration to their own artistic intentions, personal expression, and audience.

SCULPTURE CASTING AND CONSTRUCTION

More of a hands-on creative? This unit will let you get physical with your art. The creation of three-dimensional artwork needs specialised techniques and processes, and these will be explored throughout the semester for you to create a variety of sculptural objects.

 

This unit will expose students to processes in sculpture using a variety of mediums such as clay, silicone, resins and metals. Students will learn:

Modelling in 3D

  • Working in the round
  • Additive/Reductive techniques
  • Art history – Sculpture since the 1960’s

Casting techniques

  • Cuttlefish casting
  • Mold-making
  • Resin jewellery

Ceramic techniques

  • Hand-building
  • Slip-casting
  • Slab construction

Students will extend their knowledge of art practices, such as manipulation, and the creation of multiples, and use their understanding of a variety of art styles in the making of their own 3D artwork. Students will extend their knowledge and practise of safe and sustainable visual arts practice.

SEMESTER 2 ELECTIVES

 

DANCE CHOREOGRAPHY AND PERFORMANCE

Delve deep into the choreographic process using improvisation and other techniques to create your own work for Student Choreography Night.

 

As an art form, dance encourages artistic creativity and the active use of the imagination. Dancers will play, explore and improvise to create new moves and choreography in the genre(s) of their choice.

 

Students will learn frameworks for critical decision-making, in individual and group work, to manipulate movement to reflect intention. Inspired by a wide range of creative processes including improvisation, tasking and the use of choreographic elements and devices, dancers draw on their own physicality and the interpretation of existing work of others to make dance works. Dancers will be guided by both staff and industry professionals to develop new skills and movement material.

 

Design concepts and technologies will be explored and implemented to enhance dance works with the students having opportunities to develop their own sound, lighting and multimedia if desired. The opportunity to present dance to an audience enables students to understand and undertake a range of production roles and skills.

 

Students will develop transferable skills essential to their future. These include communication skills, collaborative teamwork skills, negotiation and conflict resolution skills, problem-solving skills, as well as the ability to organise, analyse and evaluate. Participation in this unit may lead to opportunities for future study in Dance or related arts fields.

THE ACTOR'S LAB: CLASSICAL TO CONTEMPORARY

This course is designed for actors in today’s ever-changing and increasingly competitive industry. Students get hands-on training in four different acting lab experiences: Stella Adler Lab (Scene study). The Classical Lab (Monologues/Duologues), The Contemporary Lab (Devising and script-writing) and The Production and Design Lab (Set, costume, lighting and sound).  

 

The Actors Lab provides students with an opportunity to experience the art of acting and theatre making highlighting the conventional practices associated with the four cornerstones of acting:

  • Stella Adler Lab (Scene study)
  • The Classical Lab (Monologues/Duologues)
  • The Contemporary Lab (Devising and Script Writing)
  • Design Lab (Set, Costume, Lighting and Sound)

The Labs are a perfect place to grow and nurture the skills required to access the arts industry, especially if you have the ambition to be involved in film and theatre.

 

The labs are a perfect complement to a path way that requires creativity, problem solving skills, communication, emotional intelligence and empathy…the list is endless. For those that are considering a Drama ATAR pathway, what you experience in the lab will fast track you into the course and can be a precursor to the ATAR syllabus. The Labs can also be accessed by those who simply want a one off experience and nurture the skills to invest in other areas of their life in the future. The lab provides all its participants with skills essential for the 21st Century and also provides a space to create wonder and curiosity.

FROM MAGAZINE TO MOVIES: THE SUPERHERO'S JOURNEY

Learn about the evolution of superheroes from comic books, to graphic novels and Hollywood blockbusters. Learn Photoshop skills making your own photographic comics, and produce your own Superhero short movie.

 

Marvel is the most successful film franchise in the history of cinema. How did the superhero genre become the cultural phenomenon it is today?

 

In this course we will trace the superhero’s journey, starting with its roots in the massively successful comic books of the 20th Century. We will practice and develop creative writing skills, planning, and production skills by creating our own photographic comic book. Students will be given the opportunity to promote, reproduce and distribute their work.

 

We will also be joined by a professional graphic novelist to explore this astonishing evolving medium. We will explore this artform as a discipline with its own distinct language, codes and conventions. We will consider how audience and culture are reflected in their heroes and superheroes.

 

Finally, we explore the superheros’ journey from the small screen to the big screen. With its hesitant first kitschy steps in the 1950s and ‘60s the genre achieved huge success, and with the reinvention of the form in every subsequent decade it seems that superheroes are here to stay.

 

We will go on to make our own superhero movie, devising our own characters and universe. We will script and storyboard our films in groups, and also learn production skills, the use of practical and post-production effects, and how to direct and edit our films to establish a new cinematic world.

 

The knowledge and skills developed in this course can apply themselves to a broad range of contexts including English and creative writing, Photography, lighting, cinematography, television and cinema.

URBAN ART EXPLORATION

Do you like street art and illustration? In this unit you’ll look at how urban art has developed from the 1980s to now, learn a variety of techniques used by influential street artists including using spray-paint and screen-print, and learn how to apply these to skate-decks, t-shirts and walls.

 

Students will:

  • Investigate influential street-artists from the 80s to now, then develop a concept into a colourful artwork and transfer it to a 9-ply skateboard deck using spray-paint and paint pens.
  • Looking at T-shirt art and retro and contemporary graphic design, design a detailed image and expose it on a photographic silkscreen to print multiple identical t-shirts.
  • Using machine and hand-cut stencils and freehand spray-painting techniques collaborate with your peers to design and paint a mural on a wall in the school.

 

Students experience a growing awareness of how and why artists, craftspeople and/or designers are influenced by other artists, their environment and the contexts of culture, time and place. They continue to apply knowledge of techniques used by other artists in the production of their own work.

Students use visual art language and artistic conventions, in both written and practical work. They further develop and refine their ideas and techniques to resolve artwork by documenting the design, production and evaluation processes of their artwork. Students extend their knowledge and practise of safe and sustainable visual arts practice.

CLASSICAL PAINTING TECHNIQUES 

Want to paint like a master? This unit allows you to experience a variety of painting methods and techniques, in both acrylic and oil paints, to create contemporary landscape, skyscapes, seascapes and portraiture paintings.

 

This unit will expose students to a variety of painting traditions, in either landscape and portraiture, or both. Students will learn:

Colour theory

  • Colour mixing/blending and paint application
  • Realistic skin tones
  • Art history - Renaissance

Painting techniques

  • Chiascuro
  • Atmospheric perspective
  • En-plein air working sessions

Materials Information

  • Brushes and supports
  • Mediums
  • Health and safety issues

This unit is designed to extend students’ knowledge and practise in the creation of two-dimensional artworks. Students will develop a greater understanding of contexts of culture, time and place and how these impact on the development of ideas and the production of art forms. Students continue to explore artistic influences while being encouraged to express greater individualism in their application of ideas and materials.

SPECIALIST MUSIC

This highly personalised course uses a combination of practical and written work to explore the internal workings of Music. A complex art form, Music connects our humanistic, emotional side with our analytical rational side; and requires us to interact with it using our heads, hearts, ears and hands. If you want to know more about how music works, improve your performance, theory and aural skills, and explore both Western Art Music (Classical) and Contemporary Music, then this is the course for you.

 

This course is highly recommended to be taken as a pair of units; and can also be taken as a 2-year course due to the personalised nature of the theory/aural/performance components and the rotating Cultural and Historical Contexts.

 

PREREQUISITES: 

You need to be learning an instrument (including voice) or studying composition with an external specialised tutor and must be prepared to do a solo performance assessment or submit a composition portfolio. There is no minimum level of experience, only the willingness to take up an instrument.

 

Each unit contains four key learning areas:

  • Practical Music
  • Music Theory and Aural
  • Solo Performance
  • Musical Contexts

PRACTICAL MUSIC

This includes Rhythm Essentials (djembes, drum kit, hand percussion), sight singing, part singing, solfa-based practical application of music theory and improvisation.

 

MUSIC THEORY AND AURAL

Start where you are. You will evaluate your starting level at the beginning of each semester and will then follow a teacher-curated program. These levels roughly correlate with the AMEB Theory grades with some additional material which is in line with the current ATAR and National Curriculum requirements.

  • Level 2 (approximately AMEB Grade 2)
  • Level 3 (approximately AMEB Grade 3)
  • Level 4 (approximately AMEB Grade 4)
  • Level 5 (approximately AMEB Grade 5+)

You will be self-guided with the help of a variety of personalized resources. These include small group and individual teacher support, peer-support, programs such as Auralia and Musition, and a selection of texts.

 

Should you wish, you will be offered the opportunity to sit the formal certified AMEB exams. Specialised Contemporary Music theory will be covered in Musical Contexts. 

 

SOLO PERFORMANCE

In partnership with your specialist tutor, you will prepare a program of solo repertoire to be performed at the end of each semester as part of your assessable work.

In-class support will include training and resources for the following:

  • Effective practice
  • Performance psychology and mindfulness
  • Creating a balanced program of work
  • Performance etiquette and working with an accompanist

Throughout the semester you will have the opportunity to perform works-in-progress as part of regular performance classes. Here you will practice giving and receiving feedback in an effective way, musical interpretation, understanding marking criteria and exploring reflective practice techniques. 

 

MUSICAL CONTEXTS

Each semester focuses on exploring different styles and eras of Music – in both Western Art Music (‘Classical’) and Contemporary Music contexts.

 

By the end of each unit, you will have developed a holistic understanding of the eras covered, know the key influencers and taken an in-depth look at popular, ground breaking or representative works of each context.

 

Contemporary Music-specific theory is covered here and where appropriate, group composition and performance projects will be undertaken.

 

The themes for each unit are as follows:

Year A

Year B

 

Semester 1

Music 1A - Musical Structures

Blues and Baroque

 

Semester 1

Music 1B – The Magic of 145

Classical Symphony and Rockabilly

 

 

Semester 2

Music 2A – Virtuosi

Romantic Concerti and Guitar Heroes

 

Semester 2

Music 2B – Music as Story

Program Music and Film Music