DRAMA

As a Year 8 student who had never been on a trip with the school before, I was amazed by the experience that came with our year group residential. We began by piling into three of our school buses at 9am on a Saturday morning and then left for Ras Al Khaimah. We drove through the beautiful mountain scenery and I can easily say that by the time we had reached RAK, that I was already in awe.

We were then greeted by the amazing staff and played a few games to get to know each other before we were taken to our tents. Each tent contained six mattresses, and we were told that we were responsible to lay down our sleeping bags for what personally, was my first typical camping experience! Soon after we were taken on our tour of the site and headed off to our first activity. I loved the survival skills I learnt which ranged from making a fire, to making a water filter!

Finally, the night arrived, and we all gathered around a spectacular campfire, where we roasted marshmallows and sang songs. We were then directed to our tents where we laid down in our sleeping bags ready for our first and last night at Challenging Adventure! A perfect conclusion for a great first day at camp.

Before we knew it the sun had risen, and we were all out of our tents by 7am in the morning. We were soon geared up for the day’s activities which began with the infamous Via Ferrata, where you climb across the edge of a mountain, and needless to say it was one of the best experiences from my time there. At last, we had a great lunch and headed back on to the bus once again, to conclude a great experience which I will never forget.

The Year 9 residential was certainly the highlight of the year, it really gave us all a chance to get away and relax. Thankfully, we didn’t have to wear masks outside and it was really amazing to see everyone properly for the first time in over a year! It was a great opportunity to socialise with the rest of the year and do lots of fun activities as well as playing our own games in our free time which turned into three very competitive sports including Volleyball, Basketball and Football where even the teachers got involved!

There was a wide variety of wet and dry activities ready for a day packed with fun. My group started with the Houseboat where we all slid down the slide a countless number of times before being lucky enough to see our very own Mr Cottam slide down. Then we all sat down together for lunch before kayaking and raft building where we were challenged to perform crazy stunts whilst keeping our balance on the water.

In the evening we had the night race with some very close results - in my opinion my team should have won! By lights out time, most people were exhausted but every residential has students who want to stay up as long as they possible can.

The next morning after breakfast, we started with building a Trebuchet and it took a direct hit to the face with a water balloon before I was fully awake. Moving on, we did the high ropes obstacle course including the zipline, leap of faith and Jacob’s Ladder. I would say they were my favourite, however, kayaking comes in a close second.

Before heading back to Dubai, we all grabbed a snack from the ice cream shop and hopped onto the bus, and then sung all the way back to school.

It was an amazing experience, and I would never turn down the chance to go again.

Lara Shah 9JCO

MAMMA MIA! came to Dubai Opera House in September and we collectively celebrated the tentative return to live theatre. The Drama and Music Departments collaborated to bring Amanda Claire Jones, who performed in the original West End production of MAMMA MIA! to Dubai College. Sixty-five students were lucky enough to gain a rare insight into the world of professional musical theatre with a 3 hour workshop focusing on the three elements: acting, song and dance. The workshop was wonderful, our students learnt a lot all while having bags of fun.

Earlier this month, our Year 9, 10 and 12 Drama students were given the fantastic opportunity to take part in an online theatre workshop with The Paper Birds, an exciting and well-established theatre company based in the UK who specialise in creating original drama that challenges, provokes and explores through the use of verbatim theatre. Students were challenged to create, refine, perform and reflect through a series of practical devising techniques including shared narration, ensemble movement and stereotyping. The performances the students produced were mature, imaginative and sophisticated and really impressed our workshop leader Kylie Perry, Co-Director of The Paper Birds, and us Drama teachers.

Feedback from the participants has been unanimously positive, with Year 9 students sharing that they have “learnt that it’s okay to take risks and it, in fact, betters the performance” and they have also “learned to work with others - sharing ideas, listening, creating.” Year 10 and 12 found it particularly pertinent given The Paper Birds are an addition to the accepted Drama practitioner list for AQA GCSE and A Level Drama, meaning they now have first-hand experience of the devising process used by The Paper Birds for their practical coursework!

The Drama department had a great time hosting the workshops in our fabulous Black Box Theatre and are excited to offer more exciting and creative learning experiences across all year groups in the near future.

The GCSE and A Level examination performances were, as is characteristic of our brilliant DC dramatists, a day celebrating nearly two years of creativity and dedication. These students persevered through a very trialling time where much of the practical element of their course was impacted by social distancing restrictions and multiple absences. They showed commendable resilience and adaptability time and time again, the outcome of which was clear to see in the highly creative devised performances and monologues packed full of characterisation.

This year, we saw devised performances inspired by a variety of practitioners, from Bertolt Brecht's Epic Theatre to the brilliant visual storytelling of world-renowned theatre company, Complicite. Students selected an eclectic variety of monologues with stand out performances in Year 13 from Tarini Tipnis performing a rousing monologue from ancient Greek tragedy Medea, Cara Mitchell who captured Henrik Ibsen's satire brilliantly in a monologue from Ghosts and Eddie Zickerman and Simran Garg who chose contemporary plays, and both moved the audience with monologues from Orphans by Dennis Kelly and Linda by Penelope Skinner respectively.

We are very proud of their resilience and we wish them all the best in the future.