By Tayler Morencie
On Tuesday, May 30 and Wednesday, May 31, Grade 11 Drama, Music and Visual Arts classes presented their integrated culminating tasks in a new cross-curricular arts initiative called Gallery in The Grove.
Each day during lunch, community members were invited to participate in a walking tour around campus which showcased a total of 48 performances and artworks. Students worked independently, in pairs, or in groups made up of a variety of members from the three subject areas. In some cases, students participated more than once, being inspired by their ideas or the ideas of their peers. For many students, this was the first time they were asked to present and perform their artwork in front of an audience and the takeaways were impactful. Lily Coates ’19 and Keely Matsusaki ’19, visual arts students, collaborated to create an installation addressing the inequality of women’s rights throughout the world. Keely described her experience, “It gave me a sense of pride knowing that people were affected by my work, it wasn’t just for a grade. It was when Maddy Sheward came up to me showing me a picture of my work she took telling me how much she loved it I realized that art affects everyone.” Lily reflected, “It was really nice to hear that people took something away from what you made and that you made an impact on how they see an issue.”
Drama students performed plays, dances, wrote and delivered monologs and spoken word poetry, and shot and edited videos. Music students created digital compositions, original arrangements, original choreography set to music and live interpretations of powerful songs. Visual Arts students created sculptures, striking installations, digital videos, and large-scale paintings and drawings. Many of the projects included more than one media, or a mixture of music, drama and visual art, and all projects addressed joy, hardship, truth, equality, pain, civil rights and social justice in unique and creative ways. Gallery in The Grove was such a success, that teachers Mrs. Rachel Bemrose, Mrs. Sarah Young and Ms. Tayler Morencie have hopes of continuing this project in future years.
LJ Simmons ’18 created a
video in which she wrote, sang, recorded and starred in herself.