The Performing Arts challenges students to step outside their own lives to inhabit the thoughts, emotions and reactions of another character. It allows them to explore the expressive potential of their bodies and voices, engaging in dramatic play, encouraging communication and promoting collaboration.
Year 5’s dramatic play sees students learn to perform stories through role and character. The Dance elective, offered in Years 6 and 7, develops technical accuracy, creativity and performance skills.
From Year 7 to Year 10, students can choose Drama as an elective subject and engage in visible thinking activities alongside serious development of acting skills and exploration of dramatic forms from different cultural and historical contexts.
At VCE level, students participate in sophisticated explorations of theatrical styles and develop critical analysis skills of professional performances. The solo performance during Unit 4 is a rigorous and creative task. Our students are regularly shortlisted for performance at Top Class Drama.
Through the bi-annual cross-campus musical productions and non-musical drama performances, students celebrate their work by taking to the stage in front of audiences. Past musical productions have included Annie, Peter Pan and Beauty and the Beast.
Staging a musical demands an incredible amount of work on the part of many people. At Christian College, we have a tradition of putting on a major musical production every two years. With the uncertainty surrounding events caused by COVID-19 during 2021, we opted to stage a smaller production, The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee. While we were unable to proceed with the intended performances, we were able to hold a dress rehearsal, which some parents were able to attend, and we also presented it to a small audience in our brand new R.W. Gibson Centre for Music Performance – the first use of the auditorium in that facility. Here are some images of that performance taken at the dress rehearsal. (Images loaded into Imagery folder)
Our last major production, Annie, was staged in 2019 at Geelong Performing Arts Centre. It showcased the incredible acting and singing of a number of students ranging in age from primary through to secondary years, as well as the exceptional musical talents of those students and staff in the orchestra.
Non-musical performances are also important. They provide opportunities for students with acting talent who prefer not to sing to showcase their abilities on stage. A recent example is ‘Our Town’ – the 1938 Pulitzer Prize-winning three-act play by Thornton Wilder.
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