Welcome to Dance and Theater Art at South Columbus High School! The Stallion Art Department is the best in the county and I look forward to working with all of you. We're going to have a fantastic semester!
This blog is for SCHS dance and theater students and their parents. On this blog you will find the 2012 - 2013 SCHS school calendar, the SCHS Art Department 2012 - 2013 calendar , common core standards, music playlists, classroom materials, class work and more!
I'm going to be using Engrade this year for student/parent communication regarding class work and grades. Soon you will receive a username and password for your child. Using Engrade you will be able to see your grade/child's grade at any time. There is also a message feature which enables you to contact me with any questions or concerns.
Dance and Theater students are required to pay a $20.00 class fee each semester.This
fee will be used to cover the cost of production materials and royalty fees, costumes/props and
travel expenses. What will you need? For Dance:
1 subject spiral notebook
pen/pencil
dry erase markers (multiple colors)
Dress Out Clothing
dance pants or shorts (length must not be shorter than 4 inches above the knee)
fitted tee shirt or tank top (no spaghetti straps)
black Jazz sneakers or black sneakers
For Theater:
1 subject spiral notebook
pen/pencil
highlighters
I'm looking forward to an exciting and productive semester with all of you!
Sunday, May 6th, 2012 is your last chance to see Into the Woods, presented by the Southstage Company at SCHS. The performance begins at 3PM and we hope you will join us! The students are doing a phenominal job!
Here are some cast pictures! We took these Friday night after the show!
Our annual spring musical is just around the corner.
This year we're performing Into the Woods.
Never heard of it? Here is the synopsis:
An ambivalent Cinderella? A blood-thirsty Little Red Ridinghood? A Prince
Charming with a roving eye? A Witch ... who raps? They're all among the cockeyed
characters in James Lapine and Stephen Sondheim's fractured fairy tale. When
a Baker and his Wife learn they've been cursed with childlessness by the
Witch next door, they embark on a quest for the special objects ( a cow as white
as milk...a cape as red as blood... hair as yellow as corn... a slipper as
pure as gold... ) required to break the spell, swindling, lying to and
stealing from Cinderella (with the slipper as pure as gold) Little Red
Ridinghood (with a cape as red as blood) Rapunzel (with the hair as yellow
as corn) and Jack (the one who climbed the beanstalk - with the cow as white
as milk). Everyone's wish is granted at the end of Act One but the consequences
of their actions return to hauntthem later, with disastrous results. A Giant
(A female Giant, that is) steps down from the heavens and straight upon some
beloved characters. It takes a few lives before the survivors realize that they
have to act altogether in order tosucceed. Thus, what begins a lively
irreverent fantasy becomes a moving lesson about community responsibility and
the stories we tell our children.
This week we began construction of the set.
Here are a few pictures of the Southstage Company hard at work!
This sets requires lots and lots of fake rocks. We used carpet padding and paint to create our faux rocks. Oh, and in case you ever have the necessity to cut carpet padding, it's not easy!
Works in progress...
Rapunzel's tower
Painting rocks...
Cutting rocks...
Stapling rocks...
The broadway version of Into the Woods doesn't have a bridge,
but the SCHS Southstage Company will because we're awesome like that!!!
We also created lots of trees, but I forgot to photograph the beginnings of our forestry. Hopefully we can post those pictures soon. We accomplished a lot in two days time, but we still have a great deal of work to do (the Baker's house, Cinderella's house and Cinderella's mother's tree). At least the large structural things are completed.
Thanks Southstage for your hard work, dedication and sacrifice during your spring break! You are all super stars and this is going to be another fantastic production! Woot! Woot!
This week in Theater One we continued to work with Objectives (learned last week) and added obstacles. Objectives clarify what a character wants and obstacles are what or who stands in their way of achieving them. In class we teamed up as objective/obstacle pairs. One student created an objective while their partner created obtacles to prevent them, or at least slow them down, in achieving their objective. As the week progressed we increased the size of our groups.
Here are some scenes from this week's lesson.
Advanced Theater
In Advanced Theater we continued to work on our Brittish dialects for A Christmas Carol. The students are rehearsing and self directing the production for the Christmas Concert to be held December the 19th.
Vocal recordings to come soon!
Advanced Dance
In Advanced Dance we continued to work on our choreography for the Christmas Concert. This week focused on pathways, non - locomotor movement and contact balances (using counter balance and weight share to maintain balance).
Congrats to my BRATS for an outstanding job at the annual 2011 NCTC Play Festival at Paramount Theater in Goldsboro, NC on January 5, 2011!
Company members gave a phenominal performance of This is a Test earning two awards in Sound Design and Innovative Storytelling! You guys rock! I love all of you!!! :)
Here are a few picks of students on breaks between performances! We had a great time and learned a lot!!!
The Macarena!
Freestylin'!
This week in Advanced Theater! As you may have guessed this week Advanced Theater students prepared for Play Festival. Unfortunately, we were not permitted to film or photograph the actual performance at the festival due to copyright infringements but I will provide a class rehearsal recording so that you may see them in action! Again, they did a great job on Saturday and I am very proud of them.
This week in Theater One! In Theater One we have been studying substitution. In Theater the term substitution refers to an actor using his/her own personal experiences and feelings to portray a character's feelings/situation. Often, as actors, we find that we have not shared the same experiences that our characters share but we have shared the same emotions. In this exercise the actor must substitute his/her own personal feelings for the character's in the scene. This sounds simple but it is very complicated. I am very proud of the work Theater One has achieved in this lesson!
This week in Advanced Dance! In Advanced Dance we have been studying choreographic elements (Time, space and Design). The students were taught movement phrases demonstrating these elements and were later asked to create their own movement or manipulate previously learned movement using the elements (Time - 1/2, 1/4, full, double; Space - levels, facings, areas; Design - manipulation of movement phrases using various guideline/choreographic manipulation). Advanced Dance has been very successful with their choreographic projects and you can look forward to seeing their completed work at the Christmas Concert in December!
Check out Carmike Cinemas promotional video for Footloose! The video features Southstage dancers!
Congratulations to the Showstoppers Dance Team for their excellent performances this weekend!
First, they dazzled and amazed the fans at the Varsity football game Friday night. Both squads performed hip - hop choreography that they choreographed and arranged themselves. They were entirely responsible for all decision making including selecting music, movement, formations and costuming!
On Saturday afternoon they took the stage at the Columubus County Fair Grounds and, together (both squads), performed the crowd pleaser, Thriller by the late Prince of Pop, Michael Jackson.
Both performances were well received and appreciated by the crowd. The Showstoppers at the fairgrounds Saturday shrouded in ghoulish attire!
Congratulations to SCHS's Main Attraction as well for an outstanding vocal performance! I enjoyed watching all of the choral performances from the participating schools in the county. Great work everybody!
Theater One!
This week in Theater One my students continued to develop characterization through the exploration of confrontation. The students were given confrontional scenarios to improvise (act out spontaneously). By the week's end we witnessed a teenage spat instigated by a trouble maker, someone being thrust in front of a vehicle during an argument, and a two - timing boyfriend getting caught by his sweethearts... not really, we were acting!
I had fun with this group this week!
Advanced Theater!
This week in Theater we began to prepare for play festival with formal run throughs that included load in and load out and lighting cues. We also discussed sound effects and incorporated propterties!
Great job Advanced Theater!
Advanced Dance!
This week in Advanced Dance we prepared for the performances we participated in this weekend. We also began to experiment with some computer software called Lifeforms. This software is very tricky to work with so this week we just got a feel for the basic functioning of the program. Later on down the road (when we are able to access the portable laptop lab again) we will commit to creating choreography using the software and with any luck I will post the end result of that project here on the blog. Here is a link to a more detailed description of the software.
Once again, congrats to the Showstoppers for a fantastic performing weekend!
Footloose the Movie Launches next weekend in most local movie theaters. This is an especially exciting event for us considering the fact that we performed this wonderful show only two years ago. Several of our cast members still walk the halls of SCHS. Apparently we are not the ones who remember our presentation fondly because I recently received a phone call from Carmike Cinemas in Myrtle Beach requesting our participation in the promotion of the new movie. This past Friday myself and several students assisted the staff at Cinemark at The Colonial Mall in promoting the movie next weekend. The movie theater gave free movie passes to any audience member who was willing to learn the choreography to Footloose and perform it. It was a fun time and we thank Cinemark for inviting us to join in their fun!
FYI - Cinemark filmed the event and entered the footage in a company contest which will be showcased on Youtube next Thursday! Be on the look out for familiar faces (who knows, the company may choose our promo video).
The Columbus County Fair!!!
Don't forget the Columbus County Fair kicks off at the Fair grounds this Tuesday, October 11th. The Arts departments county wide are participating in the fair juat as they do every year.
Band - The Band exibition kicks off Tuesday night at 6:00. Chorus and Dance - Several choral groups (SCHS, WCHS, Williams Township Middle, Nakina Middle, Chadbourn Middle, Tabor Middle) and the SCHS Showstoppers Dance Team will hit the stage on Saturday, October 15th from 5 PM to 6:30 PM.
Art Exibition - K12 Art work will be on display every day at the fair grounds Tuesday through Sunday.
Stallion Football!
Come out and support the Stallions Friday night for another exciting round of Varsity football. At half time kick back and relax the entertainment provided by the SCHS Showstoppers Dance Teams and the Stallion Marching Band.
Theater One!
This week in Theater One we examined how different art forms can inspire characterization. We listened to several selections of music, observed a number of paintings and learned several different styles of dance choreography. Each piece of music, painting and dance combination inspired a different character. The students were instructed to select one of the characters they created to perform in an improvisational scene.
Great work Theater One! I was very impressed with the variety and original characterization happening in class!
Advanced Theater!
Tick tock, tick tock! Time is ticking away, closer and closer to play festival. My Advanced students are going to rock-n-roll at play festival with their production of This is a Test. I really had fun directing this week in class. My students are mostly off book, props are being coordinated, some hilareous physicality is in the works AND we are making excellent progress with our production responsibilities (Load in, perform, load out).
Excellent work Advanced Theater! Look out play fest... here we come!!!
Advanced Dance!
This week in Advanced Dance we examined how different art forms can inspire choreography. We listened to a selection of music, observed a painting and read/interpreted a poem. The music, painting and poem inspired ideas for dance movement which we incorporated together into dance phrasing.
Excellent work Advanced Dance! Make sure you watch for us at the Varsity Football game Friday night (hip hop choreography by both squads) and again at the fair on Saturday where we will be performing our rendition of Thriller! by Michael Jackson.
