The Arts have the capacity to engage and inspire all students and help to ignite the imagination.
The Arts learning area at Cape Naturaliste College comprises of four subjects: Drama, Media Arts, Music and Visual Arts. Together they provide opportunities for students to learn how to create, design, represent, communicate and share their imagined and conceptual ideas, emotions, observations and experiences, as they discover and interpret the world.
Drama
Years 7 – 10
In Drama, we focus on expanding the creative talent of each student by broadening their knowledge and appreciation of the art form, both as a life skill and a career pathway. Through practicing a range of styles and conventions, students will be provided with learning experiences that will explore the art of storytelling through performance, that connects people of all communities.
Drama is a compulsory subject in Year 7 and becomes an Elective from Years 8 to 12. Performance processes, technical production, collaboration and response are the key components of both programs. There are curricular and co-curricular performance activities that are available to all students.
In the Middle School years, there is a focus on building students’ confidence, focus and listening skills, resilience, collaborative skills and empathy for others. Students will explore a range of theatre forms, including character development, the devising process, script interpretation and production roles.
They will present and respond to a range of performance styles, including Commedia dell’ arte, Mime, Kathakali and Indigenous Theatre. Students will develop performance skills including devising, improvisation, stagecraft and play building. They will learn to respond to theirs and others art-work using the elements of Drama as a guide.
Years 11 and 12
In Senior School we focus on expanding student’s knowledge of drama conventions, forms and styles, and their theoretical understanding of a range of practitioners.
Through a range of workshops, students will develop skills to present authentic artwork through movement, voice, characterisation and technical elements. They will engage in drama processes such as improvisation, play building text interpretation, playwriting and dramaturgy. Drama practitioners they will study include Stanislavski, Brecht, Grotowski, Boal, Artaud and Bogart.
Students’ work in this course also includes exploring production and design roles such as directing, scenography, costume, stage management, sound and lighting.
They will present a series of meaningful performances with an emphasis on ensemble work and collaboration.
Dance
Dance is expressive movement with purpose and form. Through Dance, students learn to represent, question and celebrate human experience, using movement as the medium for personal, social, emotional, physical and cultural communication.
Active participation as dancers, choreographers and audiences promotes wellbeing and social inclusion. Learning in and through Dance enhances students’ knowledge and understanding of diverse cultures and contexts and develops their personal, social and cultural identity.
At Cape Naturaliste College, Dance is currently offered to students from Years 7 – 10, and General Dance for Year 11 and 12.
In Year 7, Dance students build on their understanding of improvising and experimenting with the elements of dance (BEST) and choreographic devices to create dance that communicates an idea. They continue to improve their dance skills, focusing on developing technical competence in relation to body control, accuracy, posture/alignment, strength, flexibility, balance and coordination. They are provided with opportunities to present dance to an audience, developing their performance skills. Safe dance practices underlie all experiences, as students perform within their own body capabilities and work safely in groups.
In Year 8, Dance students continue to use improvisation skills to build on their movement vocabulary. They further develop their dance skills to explore the technical aspects of different dance styles. Students are given opportunities to present dance to an audience, further developing their performance skills of retention and clarity of movement, projection, focus and expression. They discuss how dance can communicate meaning and how dance genres/styles differ.
In Year 9, Dance students are given further opportunities to choreograph using the elements of dance (BEST), choreographic devices and structures to develop choreographic intent. They build on and refine technical competence in their dance skills in specific dance styles. They further discuss the choreographer’s use of the elements of dance, choreographic devices and structures, and design concepts for choreographic intent in the dances they make and view. They investigate the evolution of particular dance genres/styles.
Safe dance practices underlie all experiences, as students perform within their own body capabilities and work safely in groups.
In Year 10, Dance students continue to extend their use of the elements of dance (BEST) and choreographic processes to expand their choreographic intentions in their choreography. They extend their technical dance skills to include style-specific movement skills.
Through performance, students continue to work on confidence, accuracy, clarity of movement and projection. They refine their discussion of the use of the elements of dance, choreographic processes and design concepts in their own dance and the dance of others. They investigate dance and influences of the social, cultural and historical contexts in which it exists.