BISA Arts Evening

This term’s Arts Evening, where Years 10 – 13’s got to perform their coursework to an invited audience, was a great success. The performances took place in the newly refurbished drama room, which doubles as a black box theatre.

The Year 10 Drama students performed an extract from ‘Teechers’ by John Godber, an hilarious look at life in a school with scruffy, unmotivated teenagers and a range of different teachers.

The interactions between these characters were all performed by just four students who swap and change characters at the drop of a hat.

The highlights were Michel Herssens with his perfect comic timing as the naughty Salty and the new teacher Mr Nixon and Oscar Baker as the flamboyant Mrs Parry.

The two Year 11 Drama groups performed their thoughtful, creative devised pieces, which form the third and last part of their drama coursework.

A shout out to Vaidehi Soni who arrived back in school on Wednesday and performed on Thursday evening – successfully managing to squeeze a term’s work into a few hours!

The first piece was about the effects of social media, a thoughtful and relevant piece that really touched the audience.

The second devised piece, a beautifully abstract commentary on dreams, the crushing of dreams and the rebirth and healing that comes with sharing.

They are both wonderfully sensitive, mature and well-crafted pieces, delivered with great skill and empathy.

Janina performed a thought provoking and powerful dance about stress and balancing all the pressures she feels in her daily life.

To end the evening, the BTEC Performing Arts class showcased the Artaudian acting style, ‘Theatre of Cruelty’ with an extract from ‘Macbeth’, Act 4 scene 1.

Their current unit, Unit 20 – Applying Acting Styles, requires them to showcase two different acting styles, so this was one half of this assessment, the other acting style will be showcased in the touring production of ‘Macbeth’. Artaud was a theatre practitioner who was part of the Surrealist movement, and believed that theatre should transcend language. He wanted to shock audiences, make them feel uncomfortable, to allow them to ‘feel the unexpressed emotions of the sub-conscience’ (Justin Cash).  In order to really explore this we chose to set the scene in a mental asylum, where Macbeth is admitted and driven crazy by his actions.

We explored the idea that perhaps the ‘witches’ were fellow patients or perhaps merely a figment of his imagination.

The evening was also a chance to showcase some of the wonderful artwork by the BTEC Art and Design students. On show was mixed media work by Charis Pulei and Gabby Doria,

and observational still life studies by Robyn Ayling and Mona Sentabyo.

All in all a great evening and one very proud drama teacher!