3 minute read
Performing arts
CONNECTING ONLINE through music & dance
Director of Performing Arts Shelagh Thomson explains how we kept connected during lockdown and how we engaged our performing arts students in activities they are truly passionate about.
Our team came up with ‘virtual’ music and dance videos, and this certainly did keep the passion alive. By refocusing, we got inspired by the idea of performance in isolation, then joining the individual bubbles and creating a digital performance platform. Students were sent videos of new choreography, and new music with audio tracks to practise in their own homes.
Individual Zoom lessons in all the arts forms were hugely successful – tutors got creative, running sectionals on Teams, where groups of students would meet and play back to teachers, each taking turns while others practised. Believe me, at times the mute facility was very useful!
DIOARTS INSTAGRAM gets creative
Our Arts Council, headed by Arts Prefect Anna Casey and Deputy Prefects Jessica Woo and Lucy Bartlett, also got very creative on DioArts Instagram during the lockdown period.
Their arts challenge initiatives, collaborative partnerships with other School councils, and Arts Interviews with Year 13 leaders not only celebrated the Performing Arts during this challenging period, but also inspired girls across the School to get creative, and to send them their isolation creations. In collaboration with the Marketing Department, they also launched their Dio O campaign, a photo competition for Years 7 – 13 students to create an image that could be a 2021 Dio ‘O’ billboard, and worked on another initiative, ‘Dancing with the Staff’, which will be one of many events celebrating the arts during Arts Week at the end of Term 3.
Tuwhera – to be open, is this year’s Arts Council motto, and their aim was to engage with as many students as possible in 2020 by staying connected. Their social media presence during this unprecedented period not only opened up the arts to all our students, but also assisted them in inspiring and staying connected with our Dio community.
Year 12 student Matilda Hol has clocked up double diploma status this year. At the beginning of 2020 she was awarded the international ARSM Diploma in Piano and an ATCL Diploma in Violin. She is currently working towards her LTCL Diploma in Viola. Matilda is a very high-achieving musician who plays piano in one of our top trios, leads the viola section in both the Symphony and Chamber Orchestras, plays viola in the Dio Octet and is also a violinist in the Auckland Youth Orchestra. These are very impressive achievements indeed across three different instruments.
Nearly 600 of our students continued during lockdown with their private music, drama and dance lessons via digital platforms, with parents watching (and often participating).
Many households saw a surge in their children practising instruments, singing, drawing, writing poetry, reading books, learning dance moves, making things – just getting creative in ways that feed the soul!
Our performing arts students were super busy in our ‘Virtual Video’ project and these videos provided a connection for all the community. Marketing also saw Facebook viewing ratings soar as each video was released, all clocking over 3000 viewings, and Jessica Marshall’s Last Post, especially recorded for ANZAC Day, hitting a record 6000!
Over the 8-week period in Alert Levels 3 and 4, students and staff pumped out one video per week, each release focusing on a different artform and genre. Year 12 trumpeter Jess Marshall performed a moving rendition of the Last Post, filmed in lockdown from her bedroom.
“They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old: Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn. At the going down of the sun and in the morning, We will remember them.”
Huge thanks to everyone who made this project possible. Dio has captured an amazing set of lockdown memories. A fantastic commitment under stressful and uncertain times!
MATILDA SUCCESSFULLY ACHIEVES INTERNATIONAL MUSIC DIPLOMAS
