Learning

The Arts

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The Arts

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In the Arts learning area, students develop creative skills, critical appreciation and knowledge of artistic techniques and technologies. The Arts help students to develop a sense of personal and cultural identity and prepare them for a lifetime involvement and appreciation of the arts. Students are given numerous avenues throughout the year to display their artistic talents to the school and wider community.

Visual Arts

Our Visual Art program offers the students a wide range of contexts such as textiles design, fine art, drawing and design, painting, sculpture, jewellery, print making and ceramics. The Visual Art students present work for numerous school and community events throughout the year. Year 11 and 12 students can complete a Certificate 111 in Visual Art and Contemporary Craft. These students use the resources and facilities of the Margaret River Education Campus which gives them access to TAFE and Universities resources, staff and students. The Certificate III course enables students to complete “Units of Competency” towards TAFE accreditations.

Visual Arts lead the “Creating Identity” exhibition held annually at the prestigious Jahroc Gallery. This exhibition allows students to sell their work and be involved in all aspects of an art exhibition. They also present art work at numerous community events throughout the year. Visual Art has an enrichment project which involves workshops with local artists. Art works produced in this way are then displayed around the community and online.

Performing Arts (Music/Drama/Dance)

Performing arts learning areas offer numerous performance opportunities so that students can demonstrate their excellence to the outside community. Every second year our school holds a large scale Arts Festival at the Margaret River Cultural Centre. This major event incorporates the talents of Dance, Drama, Music and Visual Art students. Running over two nights the Arts Festival includes food created by the catering students at our school. This event involves contributions from the whole school and is always enjoyed by a full house of audience members representing the wider community. In alternate years the whole school arts event involves a large scale school musical drama such as Little Shop of Horrors. Auditions are held across the school and all four arts areas come together to offer our students a chance to work with others across each year group to create a dynamic production for hundreds of audience members to enjoy.

Drama

Our Drama program establishes drama as a vibrant and varied art form which can be found in play, storytelling, street theatre, festivals, film, television, interactive games, performance art and theatres.

Drama Performance Opportunities Include:

  • Upper School Drama Production
  • Arts Festivals
  • Year 9- 12 Group Devised Plays
  • Original Solo Production Evenings
  • Year 10 Drama Productions

Senior Drama students present their class production early in the year. For this major arts task students present one of the set text studied for their course as a fully realised production aimed to entertain large audiences. Past productions include Away by Michael Gow, the stage adaptation of Cloudstreet by Tim Winton and The Laramie Project by Moises Kaufman. Drama students have continuously received excellent results in external WACE exams. Several of our students have been recently accepted into the (WAAPA) Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts for Music, Acting and Musical Theatre. One past student is currently enjoying success in a key role in a Home and Away, another has been cast in two major, professional feature films. Drama students are invited on school excursions including trips to professional theatre productions in Perth, Bunbury and Margaret River. Workshops run by external directors and actors are a critical aspect of uor Drama enrichment program.

Dance

Dance is a dynamic and powerful course set to challenge and motivate. Students reflect on, respond to, and evaluate how dance styles and forms are historically derived and culturally valued. In performing dance, technical, design and expressive skills are incorporated and developed. Through participation in the Dance course students develop transferable skills essential to their future.

Dance Performance Opportunities Include:

  • ACHPER Dance Festival
  • Bunbury Eisteddfod
  • Margaret River Agricultural Show
  • Arts Festival Nights
  • Presentation Assemblies
  • End of year Celebration Concert

Students will be exposed to a variety of dance genres such as Contemporary, Jazz, Hip Hop, Latin, Tap, Musical Theatre and Cultural Dance and will have the opportunity to view live performances and participate in workshops with professional dancers. Dance specialists from the wider community offer dance workshops to students in their specialised dance areas.

Music Studies

In the Music program, students continue to extend their understanding and appreciation of a range of music and further develop the skills and knowledge to shape the role of music in their lives. They are encouraged to integrate the activities of performing, composing, arranging and responding to music and use musical language to communicate their knowledge and understanding of music studied. In the Stage 2 and 3 WACE courses of Music the study of more complex repertoire enables students to responding greater depth and detail to the musical language used in creating and performing music. Our music computer room has all the equipment for the students to compose and record their own creations, nurturing their creativity and self evaluation.

We have numerous ensembles for our music students such as Concert Band, Choir, Junior and Senior Guitar ensembles, and a mix of jazz and rock bands. All of our junior Music students learn the ukulele along with the classical instrument they choose to focus on.

Music Performance Opportunities Include:

  • Music Soiree’s, Assemblies and Lunchtime concerts
  • Big Band Picnic
  • Art Festival
  • Primary School Travelling Tours
  • End of year Celebration Concert and presentation assemblies.

Our Music program is growing and the number of staff and specialist instrumental teachers available to our students is too. We now offer percussion and piano along with woodwind, voice, brass, bass and classical guitar.

We are very proud of the success our Music students have enjoyed for WAAPA auditions. In 2013 all of our Senior Music students successfully auditioned for the classical guitar course at the Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts.


Year 7 in The Arts at MRSHS

Arts staff are currently developing the programs we will implement for the Year Seven students at our school. These “taster” courses will offer lots of new concepts and skills to students from all of our feeder primary schools. Year Sevens will benefit from specialist arts staff in all four arts areas. This will ensure that key skills, concepts and terminology are taught in an engaging, practical way in Year 7. Students will develop their knowledge with more complexity in Year 8 before they choose the arts areas of interest to them in their Year 9 and 10 elective courses.