Year 8 Performing Arts Night
On Thursday 23 November, students from Year 8A and 8D performed together in the Year 8 Performing Arts Night. The evening was the culmination of class work in dance, drama and music united under a common theme ‘The Arrival’. Students worked independently and co-operatively to interpret the theme and prepare a mix of collected works and original pieces that expressed the students’ interpretation of this semester’s theme.
The evening began with prelude music by Lydia Tan and Joshua Choong performing a lovely Mozart violin duet. Both Lydia and Joshua are very accomplished string players completing high-level examinations. The duet was followed by Charlie Victoria performing a trumpet voluntary by Jeremiah Clarke. This particular piece is very popular as a wedding march and Charlie’s performance was a wonderful way of announcing ‘The Arrival’ of our program for the evening.
Following the prelude music, the evening was officially opened by our special guests, the Chao Feng Orchestra of Melbourne established in 1982. Introducing us to their traditional instruments and unique sounds, the orchestra performed four pieces made up of traditional Chinese music which included an interesting composition based on horse racing followed by a traditional Australian folk song, ‘Click go the Shears’. For their final piece, the Chao Feng Orchestra combined with the Year 8 students to perform the song, ‘Man of Determination’. We were thrilled that members of the Chao Feng Orchestra are able to join us and share their music with us.
In their class ensemble orchestras, Year 8A performed Handel’s sinfonia ‘The Arrival of the Queen of Sheeba’ and Year 8D brought ABBA’s 1976 instrumental work ‘Arrival’ to the stage. Both works gave each student the opportunity to experience a new instrument, work together and play their part in producing a truly inspiring and insightful performance of these popular compositions.
Year 8A brought a mixture of dance and drama to the stage with their exploration of ‘The Arrival’ theme. Their group-devised piece called ‘Time to Travel in Time’ focussed on a group of teenage students who find an old machine that enables them to time travel. The students take advantage of their discovery and are transported back in time to a childhood crèche, then forward into a zombie apocalypse future. Their adventure saw them climb a stairway to heaven and finally descend onto a highway to hell. As well as performing on stage, each student took on a backstage production role and responsibility for production management, choreography, costumes, script writing, music mixing, makeup, multimedia and lighting.
The Year 8D Drama students launched into a compendium of ‘infotainment’ commercials. Each group was given the task of announcing ‘The Arrival’ of a new environmental wonder product aimed at solving one of today’s many environmental issues. Each group devised their own original solution and made their marketing pitch. We discovered products like the ‘The Shrubbery Shot’ – an instant forest regeneration device, ‘The Box Choy’ – a teleportation machine, Smith’s Chips & Snowy’s Air – food and oxygen in one convenient package, ‘The Water Wonder Cycle’ – domestic wastewater purification and ‘FIONG Fish’ – the fish regenerating online neural generator.
We have many students who learn instruments and others that pursue specialised dance and drama classes. The evening gave each of these students the opportunity of creating an artistic product as a solo or small group ensemble. Two of our Dance students, Paige Anderson and Lauren Wooler choreographed a contemporary duet called ‘Run’ that energetically explored the theme of friendship and highlighted Paige and Lauren’s technical virtuosity as dancers.
Several music ensembles demonstrated their skills on their respective instruments by performing a range of entertaining items. One of the small ensembles, made up of Freya Bryson, Alyssa Dunn, Laura Mitcham, Eden Riddell and Lydia Tang, performed the beautiful song called ‘Safe & Sound’ by Taylor Swift. The girls managed to create an angelic sound with their vocal harmonies supported by violin and piano. Another ensemble with Lachlan Bastin, Adam Choong, Joshua Choong, Lilli Holiday-Ryder and Holly Whitefield tackle Handel’s famous ‘March from Scipio’ composed in 1725. Solo pieces by Joshua Choong on Saxophone and Lachlan Bastin on the Tuba also demonstrated how dedicated these students are to their chosen instrument.
The Year 8 Performing Arts Night is an important celebration in the Tintern school calendar, challenging our students to work as a team, respect one another, listen and share ideas, build performance skills and commit to a lengthy rehearsal process that leads to the creation and presentation of the final artistic product.
Thank you to our Tintern community, families and friends who came to support us. The students thoroughly enjoyed sharing their class work with you.
by Vince Di Mitrio & Anne Bortolussi, Drama Teacher & Music Teacher