Year 10 version of The Christmas Story

As a last lesson project with a festive theme the year 10 performing arts academy were challenged to create their own version of 'The Christmas Story'. First we had to go over the story to make sure we didn't forget anything. Here is the video f what they came up with in 60 minutes.

Senior Prize Giving

Last week we farewelled our year 13 students at the final prize giving for the year. It was a great opportunity to celebrate students achievements from year 7 through to year 13. Our senior band accompanied the full school singing of 'Lean On Me' and The National Anthem and also performed an item Stan Walker's 'Inventing Myself'. A mix of junior students through to year 11s also performed a song, 'Take It Easy'. Prize giving was finished off with a stellar performance by the entire THS staff. The staff performed 'I Lived' by OneRepublic as a memento for the senior leavers. The video can be viewed below: 

Two nights to remember for Tarawera High School Performing Arts Academy students

While most senior students in New Zealand are at home on study leave, students at Tarawera High School are still gaining internal credits. The senior Performing Arts Academies are an excellent example of that with their performances of A Midsummer Nights Dream and Animal Farm last week.

The year 12 and 13 Performing Arts Academy performed two back to back performances of Animal Farm on Friday. Animal Farm is one of the most controversial and studied political commentaries. The show is a re-telling of George Orwell’s classic novel in which a group of animals enact a revolution against their terrible master and create a society of their own. The animals strive for a utopian sort of communism, where each works according to his capacity, respecting the needs of others. It all ends badly however, and Animal Farm ends up being a dictatorship of pigs who turn from being ‘comrades’ to ruthless dictators. To create the farm atmosphere, director Danielle Hocken brought in a full scaffold platform and covered the entire stage with three trailer loads of dirt. The students did an outstanding job of portraying their animals to the audience with twitchy movements aptly and comically mimicking their animal roles. For many of the students this was their their last drama performance at Tarawera High School before they leave for tertiary study. What a great way to finish the year with such a thought-provoking theme and exceptional performances by the cast.

The previous evening the year 11 Performing Arts Academy performed A Midsummer Night’s Dream to family, teachers, students and members of the elderly community.A great deal of work clearly went into the production, from its comical music cues to its hilarious characters and costumes. The students’ performance of Shakespeare’s classic romantic comedy made Shakespeare easy to follow. A Midsummer Night’s Dream portrays the adventures of four young lovers and a group of amateur actors, their interactions with woodland fairies and a duke and duchess. The play takes place in mythical Athens and an enchanted forest. There is a handsome fairy king, a misguided parent, star-cross lovers, a weaver who’s transformed into a half-donkey, wood sprites and elves. Overall these students did an excellent job especially considering this was their first time performing Shakespeare. All students involved in either production were gaining NCEA credits for their performances.

Level 2 & 3 performing a contemporary dance to 'Howl'

Level 2 & 3 Dance Performance

This afternoon the level 2 and 3 students from performing arts academy performed one of their completed dances. The dance was performed to Florence and the machines 'Howl'. We invited our future PAA students from the year 9 and 10 performing arts classes to be our audience. The hall was set up as a traverse stage with audience either side of the hall. Here is a few pictures and watch this space for a video of the dance also. Tino pai ākonga!

Improving ourselves outside of class time!

A group of level 1 students from the performing arts academy and select few senior students have started learning music theory at homework club! We are meeting every Monday and Thursday in C3 to work on a fully online course designed especially for our students. To sweeten the deal at the Monday session there is even cookies and milo provided by generous members of our community! Come along if you want to learn something new or need a (relatively) quiet place to work after school. Here are some pics of our students this week.

Year 10 prepping for performances

Our year 10 performing arts academy are focused on their group performance assessments in music this week. Here are a few pics of them making some sweet sounds.