6 minute read
On the Quad
Culture Fest
Each year, Culture Fest offers students, faculty, and staff the opportunity to celebrate the diversity of cultures within the CSW community. Here, Jo Munoz ’24 performs a traditional Mexican dance.
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AIA Groups
Each year, CSW’s Student Life Office hosts an Affinity, Interest, and Alliance (AIA) Group Fair, in which student leaders set up tables and share information about their groups with other students. The array of offerings is always a wonderful representation of who students are and what they care about. Here are a few of the groups that were present:
Adoption Affinity Arts & Crafts Club Avatar: The Last Airbender Black Student Union D&D Club Finance & Investment Club Knitting Club Menstruation Nation Neurodiversity Alliance Podcasting Club SOFA — Students on Financial Aid Spanish Club TAGs — Trans Affinity Group
Film Honors
L-J ShenFilerman ’23 headed to New York City in October for the 2021 All American High School Film Festival. L-J’s short film, SANCTUARY, was screened as part of the event at the AMC Empire Theater in New York City’s Times Square. Each year, the festival receives thousands of film submissions by student filmmakers from around the world and only a select few, chosen by a panel of judges, are included in the festival. L-J’s film was selected for the Drama category.
Fix-It Fridays
During Mod 2, CSW’s Visual Art Department, in partnership with Fashion Club and Sustainability Committee (both student-led groups), sponsored Fix-It Fridays. Every Friday, students, faculty, and staff were invited to drop by the art building with their clothes that needed mending, and students and teachers would teach visitors how to fix them.
German D Block
Through CSW’s ambassador program, students in the eleventh and (if they wish) twelfth grades participate in the life of the school and gain important hands-on experience by working with specific academic departments and other important administrative offices. This fall, Elisabeth Weber ’23 served as ambassador for the Language Department and dedicated her time to conceptualizing and designing a German language course. In Mod 3, under the guidance of Spanish teacher Ben Ibbetson, Elisabeth was able to bring her vision to life by teaching her class to a group of seven CSW students.
Photo Credit: Robert Bellinger
Initiation — In Love Solidarity
Initiation — In Love Solidarity, a dance film by CSW Dance Department Chair Nailah Randall-Bellinger featuring CSW Nurse Toni Singleton, and dance teacher Jeryl Pilapil premiered at Harvard University this fall. The film was created as part of Nailah’s work as an artist-inresidence at the Harvard Dance Center. In her artist statement, Nailah describes Initiation — In Love Solidarity as “a choreographic narrative that explores identity through a corporeal and collective consciousness. As an African American woman, I have chosen the cowrie shell as a cultural symbol throughout the work, referencing its usage as currency for the commodification of the Black body, as well as its symbol of wealth, fertility, and beauty. The dance specifically examines the transformative identity of the Black female body, both imposed and self-proclaimed, linked and represented through the cowrie shell.”
Nailah showed a clip from her film with Jane Reynolds’s “Major Author: Toni Morrison” class, in which she spoke to students about movement and dance in Morrison’s Beloved, the inspiration behind “Dancing Beloved,” one of Nailah’s signature choreographic works.
The Latino List
CSW was proud to welcome award-winning feminist writer and documentary filmmaker Sandra Guzman to CSW to help kick off Latinx Heritage Month. Sandra’s work “explores identity, land, memory, race, sexuality, spirituality, culture, and gender” and has been featured by numerous media outlets. To begin the visit, the community came together to view the HBO documentary, The Latino List, a project for which Sandra served as an interviewer. Afterwards, Sandra joined students, faculty, and staff for an all school assembly.
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End-of-Mod Shows
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1. Alice Wang '23 (Wearable Art); 2. Eirwen Kamphorst '23 (Art Ambassador); 3. Mina Cho '23 (Modern Middle East); 4. Helena Starzec '22 (Advanced Drawing Self Portrait); 5. Liya Serikova '24 (Drawing: Advanced Studio); 6. Beatrice Stefan '24 (Book Arts); 7. Jinrong Chu '25 (Drawing: Advanced Studio); 8. Kat Lundberg '23 (Photo I); 9. Stella Wang '25 (Drawing: Advanced Studio); 10. Erin Xue '22 (Drawing Fundamentals; 11. Naomi Fuhrer '23 (Advanced Wearable Art); 12. Lucia Yu '24 (Book Arts); 13. Tim von Felten '23 (Graphic Design); 14. Catherine Qin '24 (Mindfulness Art); 15. Casper Van Vactor '23 (Wearable Art)
Theatrical Excellence
The CSW Theatre Department submitted the film version of their production of The 39 Steps to the Massachusetts High School Virtual Festival and the following students and recent alums were given awards for their work:
Emelia Brinkley ’22 for
Excellence in Sound Design and Excellence in Stage
Management Taylor Bryan ’22 for Excellence in Ensemble Work Ryan Cooke ’23 for Excellence in Ensemble Work Paul Duan ’23 for Excellence in Ensemble Work Zeke Fairley ’21 for Excellence in Ensemble Work Wren Rearden ’22 for
Excellence in Ensemble Work
The following students and recent alums were also given awards by the Massachusetts Educational Theater Guild for their performances in Into the Woods.
Taylor Bryan ’22 for
Excellence in Acting MC DuBard ’21 for
Excellence in Acting Ryogo Katahira ’23 for
Excellence in Acting Gray Moxley ’21 for
Excellence in Acting Wren Rearden ’22 for
Excellence in Acting CSW congratulates all cast and crew members, who were excellent and valued participants for both shows!
Back in Action
The cast and crew of Puffs, or Seven Increasingly Eventful Years at a Certain School of Magic and Magic, were thrilled to be able to build their set and perform their show in the Robin Wood Theatre this fall, after the pandemic forced them to pre-record or pursue alternate locations for many of their productions last year.
