Author Archives: jmagee

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Department Meeting Notes For Performing Arts

Submitted by: Joanne Magee

4:08 start

Peggy, Damon, Aedín, Carrie, Susan, Nick, Joan and Deborah and myself- Joanne attended.

Our department had an authentic, passionate conversation where we addressed challenges, feelings and attitudes around the DEI work in our subject areas. 

We agreed to create a document to answer the questions and to see which ones felt more connected to our line of work. We concluded that our focus includes: 

  • What material we can/ should teach? 
  • What material we can rehearse and perform? 
  • How best can we serve the population of our students from grade to grade and year to year with inclusivity and equity?
  • We addressed how over many years, awareness has evolved and that we have been and will continue to  focus on examining what we teach and how we teach it to better serve our students and our community.
  • We addressed how we need to move away from “White Centrism” and we will continue to examine the content of our curriculum and make changes.
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Department Meeting Notes For Performing Arts

Submitted by: Joanne Magee

April 2020 REMOTE PERFORMANCES:

MS Majors teachers have been discussing how we can create a “performance” for Performing Arts Night now that we are not  in school. We have been “meeting” via email and will meet with Ana Chaney April 21st to talk through expectations and logistics. We are challenged by many technical aspects as well as the true nature of group work, rehearsal and performance. We are also reduced to one class a week now so we find this to be an additional challenge as rehearsals usually pick up speed and intensity before performance. There are technical pressures that are hard to overcome and this is something we are trying to get to grips with as we go.

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Department Meeting Notes For Performing Arts

Submitted by: Joanne Magee

DEC 2019 – JAN 2020

The HS team were addressing practical concerns and items that impact us.

We discussed the way the summer Camp had left the set room and costumes. We need to ensure that the summer camp does not disrupt, destroy or leave our items disorganized. Joanne has contacted the summer camp folks.

We have a running spreadsheet of events and continue to work through the challenges of sharing the PAC and needing technical support for so much. We still feel we are not staffed with a theatre tech person to handle our needs or the many school events that tend to overlap in production times.

Standards Based Grading came up as the HS moves to an all school commitment to this method of grading. The MS have been doing this for years. We shared our standards with the HS teachers to give them the basis for the spiral system of skills within our disciplines.

The rotation of the 9th Grade Arts classes was discussed and we continue to look for opportunities to change this in the near future. A good idea put forth was the suggestion of making the rotation just 1st two trimesters with choice for 9th graders in 3rd trimester. To be continued! 

The organization of the props and costumes came up – we continue to need regular re-organization, culling and adding, with a record of where everything is. This is done somewhat effectively but we still need to re-organize each year and this needs to be budgeted for. Ana Nivelo has a good system but it needs re-doing each year. The costumes also need an overhaul after the four shows are complete. this is problematic as the summer camp arrives and we have no time to re-organize. Summer camp were also part of the disorganized state of things in September.

There was a mid- year hire for set work. The job description is somewhat unknown. We will follow up again for 2020 hiring.

 

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Department Meeting Notes For Performing Arts

Submitted by: Joanne Magee

OCT 2019 – JAN 2020 The HS music teachers have been in discussions about examining our HS program as it exists now and seeing how we can make some changes to improve the program for the benefit of our current students, and utilizing the skills of the current music faculty. 

Meetings are held at convenient times for the team as we often have rehearsals after school and many of our faculty are part time which requires flexibility in schedules.

We discussed:

  • Requirements for Band students in HS and MS such as a degree of proficiency before joining. 
  • Ideal scenario/infrastructure (10th-12th grade specific)
  • Lessons: Individual / Small Group for HS students in school day
  • 9th grade rotation system-  possibilities  to review and alter

Mark Silberberg weighed in with his support and we are continuing conversations to look at areas where a prerequisite of proficiency is acceptable for advanced classes and that “beginner” classes can be factored in so to continue access for all students at any level.

We discussed how the 9th grade rotation can leave a student behind in a subject they had already shown great interest in in 8th grade. That some students have to wait until almost the end of the year before they take the class they love and had been taking frequently in middle school. We have been in discussion with the Visual Arts department about other models that might serve the students better.

This is to be a continued conversation as we strive for the best classes offered for our students and groups that are required to perform to have a degree of proficiency before playing in our ensembles.

 

 

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Department Meeting Notes For Performing Arts

Submitted by: Joanne Magee

AUG 29 2019

We met to review our focus – how our curriculum is seen with the lens of diversity and how America was really influenced and established. We will be doing all we can to adapt our teaching to incorporate the 1619 work that Phil has presented.

Each teacher discussed the ways we can teach with respect to acknowledging African American influence. We discussed how in song and acting sometimes challenges with race make it more complicated to teach but we are all finding ways to work around this.

We listed our events for this year:

HS Play  Nov 7, 8, 9 (PAC)

Winter Concert Dec 9 (NYU)

MS Play Dec 13, 14 (PAC)

Musical Theater Showcase Jan 8 (PAC)

Long Weekend off Feb 15, 16, 17, 18 (PD) 

HS Musical Feb 27,28,29 (PAC)

6th Grade Medieval Night April 7 (MS)

Long weekends off: April 9, 10, 11, 12

                           April 17,18, 19, 20

MS Performing Arts Night  April 22 (MS)

MS Young Composers Concert (PAC) – TBD in May

MS Musical May 7,8 (PAC)

HS Spring Theater Showcase May 16 (PAC?)

Vocal Concert May 19 (PAC)

Instrumental Concert May 21 (PAC)

4th Grade play May 29th ( PAC)

5th Grade Evening Event June 1st ( MS)

 

We debriefed on challenges on certain events, disciplines, schedule changes, space issues and certain expectations when we are compromised in spaces that are not ideal. We continue to strive for more ideal situations.

We discussed how the sound proofing is non existent for the second year between the music room and the auditorium and how we really need better should proofing as soon as possible. Joanne has requested that this is put in the budget again for the year ahead.