Here, at BSB Sanlitun, we were pleased to host two weeks of visits of two Juilliard specialists from New York, across 3 full working days. Our Primary students got to experience a variety of lessons and teaching styles as Nick Mahmat and Brian Drye stepped into our classrooms and led music and drama activities.
We started on the 15th of January with a Drama specialist who visited Year 3 classes and taught them how to use varying energy levels to differentiate a range of characters. Using a simple story of a: snail, butterfly and a hummingbird, our visitor sparked a pallet of ideas that helped students understand the energy levels used in Familie Flöz by Teatro Deluzio.
Our Performing Arts Teachers, ASA Drama leaders and German and EAL department had a professional development session on Greek Choral Commentary by David Daniel, inspired by story about Oedipus the King.
In the following week, we welcomed another Juilliard specialist but this time from the world of music, Mr Brian Drye. Brian brought over his magical trombone and dived into some open-ended questions sessions and discussion with Year 4 students about notation. We looked at the graphic scores from traditional Chinese music and brainstormed our original ideas to invent new symbols for pipa performers. Brian then taught Bach’s scale shapes and visited even some Reception and KS1 classes who are learning about heavy and light sounds, inspired by Stravinsky’s ‘The Rite of Spring’.
It was obvious that our community is striving to do and fully understand the performing arts at school, so Brian and Ms Iva, Head of Performing Arts, led a session for Sanlitun parents. This time, inspired by Gershwin, we learned about the song-writing skills, enjoying Ella Fitzgerald’s and Louis Armstrong’s interpretations.
We won’t stop here as we are expecting another New Yorker to visit our school, right after the Chinese New Year holidays. Hilary Easton’s visit has already been scheduled for dance classes in Year 5 and Year 6 but also some Year 1s and our Performing Arts team is happily awaiting another PD session to learn even more about Juilliard Creative Classroom activities that we can offer to our BSB students in the nearest future.
By Iva Borisavljevic
Head of Performing Arts
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This term, Year 2 have been learning about many interesting people in our ‘What makes someone inspirational?' Topic. They have explored space pioneers, technology forerunners, civil right activists, inventors and many other inspiring individuals.
Edarabia had the opportunity to interview Joanne Prabhu, the Principal of The British School of Beijing, Sanlitun. Joanne is passionate about providing students with a world-class education that prepares them for success in the 21st century. In this interview, Joanne shares her insights on the school's plans for the future, the importance of student wellbeing, and the challenges facing education in the coming years.
We were delighted to welcome Hilary Easton from Juilliard school recently.
