What a fantastic week this was in Performing Arts!
Not only that we explored and learned about traditional music from different countries, but we even had a chance to be LIVE taught by two brilliant Juilliard artists and our curriculum specialists from New York.
Year 1 Tigers kicked off the start of International Week learning with our fabulous dance artist, Donna Costello. They learned about traditional American tap dance through the ‘Fun with patterns’ activity. It was a real joy seeing our youngest students being able to follow some simple directions, experiment with movement and invent some interesting patterns. I enjoyed greatly myself, being able to co-teach and learn about one of the most musical dance styles. Watching a video of the tap dancer, Jason Samuels Smith, at the end of the lesson, was a real treat for all of us!
Straight after the ‘Parade of flags’, our oldest students, Year 6 Falcons, met up Mr Brian Drye, famous trombonist, pianist and composer from Juilliard. We learned about improvisation in Cuban music called descarga and I was more than impressed with the Falcons’ ability for turn taking, imitation and originality. Exploring the musical conversations was so much fun but being able to listen to the complete track of ‘Guajeo de Saxos’ was more than a treat. The students were greatly motivated and felt proud to be given a chance to work with one of the fantastic, big names of modern creative music scene. They had so many questions and learned a lot about the importance of performing and practice.
We are grateful to both our curriculum specialists and their time spent with our students and we look forward to continuing our collaboration in the future and experiencing more fantastic moments and activities!
By Iva Borisavljevic
Head of Performing Arts
