Fine Arts: A Spectacular Bilingual Integration of Music, Movement, & Art

The whimsy, rapture, and joy of Saint-Saëns, The Carnival of the Animals, is reimagined at JCDS, as first graders listen, throughout the year, to this classical piece, deciphering the fourteen animals beautifully brought to life by an orchestra. They attend to the donkey’s bray by paying keen attention to the low buzz of the violins’ strings; they listen for the lion’s roar in the tremolo of the lower register piano notes, and they giggle at the staccato of plucking strings sounding like pecking chickens!

Yet how, exactly, is all of this orchestrated?

“When first wondering about a new animal,” explained Lower School music teacher, Elah Grandel, “we just listen, and then we watch. First we listen for tempo; is the music fast or is it slow? Is the pitch high or low? We watch the orchestra and notice what instruments are playing as we try and guess further information about a particular animal. Is it large? Is it small? Is it fast? Is it loud? How does it move?” And then comes the big reveal – to see if we got it right! Once the children understand which animal they hear, they come to understand the thoughtfulness and humor SaintSaëns gave to his musical composition.” And oh, the fun they have!

Once carnival animals have been identified, it is time to create individual and unique masks. In their art class, as the Carnival suites play as background music, the children discuss, with art teacher, Vered Singer, how each animal looks and what unusual and important features make up its head and face. And now the best part, without specific directions, students construct their very own original and magnificent animal masks using both the information they gathered in their discussion and a variety of materials, from cardboard to crinoline, that Vered has laid out for them.

To express the movement of their critters, dance teacher, Alla Shimron, meticulously describes to the first graders the importance of “using their understanding of the animal to then function in a space with others to create unique movement.” Before asking if an elephant can waltz, the special rise and fall of the “1-2-3, 1-2-3” three-quarter waltz rhythm is discussed. Children are taught the composition of dance, learning the components of rhythm, direction, and rotation. They collect data and consider individual and group movement, and then, using props such as light blue flags for sky and green crêpe paper to represent forest, children create the ambience and setting of their production. And similar to the self-initiated means by which the children construct their masks, they choose their own individual motions and movements, within the parameters given, to create unique dances. Alla, using their ideas and input, then choreographs a new and wonderful JCDS Carnival of the Animals!

The fine arts in our Lower School are not only aligned to bring a full and rich daily experience to our younger students, all three classes are taught equally in English and Hebrew, creating a spectacular bilingual integration of music, movement, and art.