PERFORMING ARTS
Year 7 and 9 Drama
Year 7 Drama
It has been a vibrant start in Year 7 Drama! We have enjoyed getting to know each other through drama activities and workshops. Students are working hard to develop ideas for their mime assessment task; collaborating in groups to create clear characters and narrative that will show their budding mime skills! There has been a lot of laughing and creativity, I can’t wait to see the final product!
Year 9 Drama
The year 9 drama class are excited to be participating in ‘The Drama Victoria Theatre Festival’, a performance-making festival for Year 9 and 10 students from schools across metropolitan and regional Victoria. The Festival focuses on the creative development of young theatre makers by giving them an opportunity to explore ideas with their peers, learning new ways of approaching performance, learning about first nation perspectives and expanding their creative engagement, through drama, with the community around them.
They have participated in a creative workshop day at Peninsula Grammar uniting with students from 3 other schools, working collaboratively with each other, led by the Festival artistic director to creatively investigate and explore artworks and issues related to First Nations histories and future, addressing the ATSI cross curricular priority.
We now have the exciting task of devising a performance work inspired by a range of creative stimulus material. These performances will be shown in cluster groups across the state in late May, uniting students from different schools to share their devised work with each other and their wider community.
The students are inspired to develop their knowledge and understanding of the world’s oldest continuous living culture. Drama enables students to explore our history, diversity and inclusion in meaningful and empathetic ways; keep an eye out for updates as we work on this exciting project.
Fiona Bechtold
Adelaide Theatre Trip - Teacher perspective!
On Thursday 27th Feb, 32 intrepid Year 11 and 12 students and 3 Performing Arts teachers embarked on the Adelaide Theatre Trip. Everyone was excited for 3 full days and nights of theatrical viewing. The purpose of the trip was to enable students to view and critique a wide range of theatre styles in difference performance venues around the city.
Day 1
Arriving at the airport, there was a general buzz of excitement and our short flight to Adelaide was a jovial one.
Once there, we checked into our accommodation and, after grabbing some lunch, we headed to our first show. We set up the expectation of critical and rich discussion post-show during snacks in the gardens nearby. We took full advantage of the glorious weather and beautiful park scape to grab our first full group photo.
Some exploration of Gluttony and the Garden of Unearthly Delights provided students an insight into the festival culture and then we capped the evening off with a joint piece from Belvoir Theatre and State Theatre SA, concluding the evening with evaluative discussions on ways theatre can comment on societal issues, how it has the capacity to shock, entertain, move or provide audiences.
Day 2
Friday started in a relaxed fashion with breakfast and some much-needed study time. The teaching staff were incredibly impressed with the way the students had brought their study materials and were able to focus in on their homework so diligently.
We then managed to fit in SEVEN shows/experiences which the students will detail in their reflections.
A busy but wonderful day.
Day 3
Saturday started with breakfast, more study and a wander around the Adelaide Markets. We then headed to the Giant Sing Along, where Adelaide citizens were awestruck by the dulcet tones of Sandringham students' voices. (The microphones had autotune functionality!)
In the afternoon we headed to Art Festival Centre for two shows, The Doctor and Dimanche - two highly contrasting pieces. Our pizza delivery arrived and we all enjoyed this, along with each others company, in the Festival Centre gardens with a view over the river.
After this, we had planned to attend the free Adelaide Festival 60th Anniversary Concert in Elder Park but nobody had foreseen just how popular this would be, with the event at capacity and people turned away at the gates. We thought the students would be incredibly disappointed but, as it turned out, they were fairly tired and happy enough to head back to the accommodation for more in-depth discussions about the shows...Perhaps the promise to stop at a mini-mart for sweet treats also softened the blow!
Day 4
Awake early, organised and ready to head back to Melbourne, students were tired but in great spirits after such a brilliant weekend. Sitting on the plane ready for take-off, we must have jinxed ourselves talking about how EASY the weekend had been, as we then experienced the joys and reality of travel...technical issues on our plane. We would be jumping back on a different plane to Melbourne... but not for several hours and we'd go via Canberra first!
A teachable moment
Always striving to find the life lesson, we talked with the students explaining the delays and the new plan of action, and as a cohort we all decided we would handle the setback with grace and calmness and kindness. Students were fed and many took the chance to do homework, get a little nap in, or just listen to music and talk about the weekend. Three Year 12 students - Archie Beaumont, Bailey Bliss and Declan Farr - shrewdly observed that we were all in need of some light entertainment and so they crafted an improvised piece of theatre - a highlight reel of sorts, of the Adelaide Trip thus far. Their demonstration of comic timing and exceptional storytelling skills had everyone in laughter, including the teaching staff.
Overall we had an incredibly valuable trip and I'm so thrilled to report that our students were courteous and kind at all times. I'd like to take the opportunity to acknowledge the work of Tim Clifton (Music Teacher) and Prue Slingsby (Dance and Visual Art Teacher) for their unwavering support and brilliant care of our students, for their incredible patience and exceptional organisation, for giving up their weekend, and also for utilising their expert knowledge to help students make cross-curricular connections to Dance, Art and Music.
A big thank you also to the patient parents during our delays and for enabling students to attend this trip. We are so lucky to be able to offer students these opportunities. The Adelaide Trip is open to all students undertaking VCE Theatre Studies Unit 1/2 and Unit 3/4 and is run every two - three years.
Laura Washington
Adelaide Trip - TWO STUDENTS PERSPECTIVES!
Last week, many students from the VCE theatre studies class packed our clothes -and our enthusiasm for theatre - and went off to the Adelaide Fringe Festival. Throughout our three days in Adelaide we saw a variety of shows and installations, including:
- a lightshow that told traditional Aboriginal stories
- an interesting (to say the least!) show about the hardships a dance troupe has to overcome as they navigate adolescence
- a recontextualised performance of the Greek tragedy Orpheus and the underworld
- a play about the special day for an Italian family, when Hitler visits Rome.
We saw shows that made many of us cry with ‘The Doctor’, and ones, like ‘Dimanche’ that made us laugh for the rest of the day. We also experienced other forms of performing arts, such as a dance battle which captivated its audience from start to finish, a dance showcase from university students which expressed current issues in todays world, a circus piece which made us gasp aloud as performers dangled from the chandelier
Although we discussed our point of views and critiques for the shows afterwards, often to polarising degrees, both the Unit 1,2 and 3,4 students were able to bond together over the trip.
On the final day, it was as if Fringe Festival didn’t want us to leave and delayed our trip back to Melbourne by eight hours. It didn’t bother us as we were entertained with UNO, magic markers and a pretty accurate improv play about our trip so far.
And as we get back into school work, all of the students involved would like to thank Laura, Prue and Tim for looking after us and making sure we were always full for the entire trip.
Declan Farr
Student Leader, Year 12
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We arrived in Adelaide, without knowing what to expect, except shows and a fun filled experience. We were greeted with an array of performances from contemporary dance to visual light installations. Between our shock, enjoyment and sometimes lethargic interpretations of the shows, they were all consistent with exploring a relevant and profound theme and using thoughtful design principles.
Over the three days of shows we all rapidly increased our step count and extended our friendships, as we walked around the city to get to the different venues where the 11 performances were located. After each performance many discussions and debriefs were had between pairs and the combined Unit 1/2 and 3/4 classes, which raised many ideas of themes, conventions of styles and design elements.
On the first day we walked through Yabarra, which utilised complex soundscapes, haze and lighting installations to direct our attention to where the story was occurring, whilst developing a solemn atmosphere. We also saw a satirical piece that explored young adolescents in a competitive dance school through contrasting colour palette, set materials and speaker placement. That developed an immersive experience that effectively shocked the audience, causing us to question the ambition and self discovery of youth.
The second day was our busiest day as we fitted in studying and 5 shows. We started with a Cambodian/Darwin hiphop Dance battle, that used an arena style stage (the audience stood around the performance in a circle) as the two dancers cleverly incorporated comedy and acting into their performance. The costumes were of a modern day context but the insightful choices of venue, lighting and soundscape developed an industrial feel that mixed electronics with groove to create an infectious rhythm. The next show was another dance that showcased 6 contemporary pieces, exploring issues in todays society, the costumes helped convey intentions along with the composed sound. After a lunch break we headed over to the internal festival fringe venues to see a circus performance, which played with Commedia D’elle Arte in conventions of design and acting.
The next performance, Eurydice, was a recontextualised ancient greek story that was delivered through spoken word and song, they effectively used rhythm to capture all of our attention. They used a traverse stage (seating either side of the stage) for an intimate performance in a rose garden, while making all of the changes whilst performing on stage. The following show was in an Italian WW2 context, delivered in English by two Mexican actors, they used poor theatre conventions with inspiring methods of drawing set pieces and props on a black wall with chalk and realising different characters through their voice and physicality. This inspired all of us to see how effective such simplistic concepts can be.
Our final show that night was produced by the same people who were in the previous ancient greek show, in this performance they merged a music gig with theatre to create an interactive audience-actor relationship. It provoked all of us to think about how one can create atmosphere and vibe whilst maintaining an understandable story. After this long day we all went back to our youth hostel, very tired and ready to sleep!
On our final day of the festival we saw two shows and participated in a giant singalong which everyone very enthusiastically joined in, except for a few silent teachers... Our first show for the day, was our most political and realistic style that left everyone contemplating and moved. The shows design was very simple and sterile with a live drummer suspended above the set, which emphasised the themes explored. The final show for our trip was something that none of us had seen before, object theatre. It explored the effects of climate change across the world without any words, just object manipulation, puppetry and actors physicality.
Thank you to the teachers involved, Laura, Tim and Prue, for organising, keeping us fed and having many debriefs with us (despite many deflective questions) and thank you to our peers who helped make this experience.
Lalli Kirby
Student Leader, Year 12