Course Offerings -- Visual & Performing Arts

Performing Arts Department

Theater 7552

Prerequisite: None Length: One Year course.

Credit: One full credit per year.

Description: The purpose of this yearlong course is to help students develop their acting skills by participating in theatre games, improvisations, scenes, monologues, public speaking, film studies, and productions. The theater I students will participate in at least one major production. Students should be prepared to participate in all aspects of theatre and be willing to work through issues of confidence and apprehension in order to feel successful. Theater I is an accepting and supportive environment that can build confidence, but also one that demands a lot from participants.

High School Concert Band 7550

Prerequisite: Minimum of two years’ performance experience on a band instrument, or with the director's approval

Length: One Year (repeatable course)

Credit: One full credit

Description: The Symphonic Band is designed for students with experience playing woodwind, brass, or percussion instruments. The course will develop students’ ability in reading, interpreting, and understanding written musical notation through the preparation of music for performance. The course also focuses on developing students’ understanding of the elements of music, music history and context, and self-evaluation of musical performances. Students will prepare music from a wide variety of musical genres and styles for multiple performances throughout the school year.

NOT OFFERED in 2021-2022

IB Music Y2 SL 7543 & IB Music Y2 HL 7544 (no new IB Music course offered 2021-2022)

Prerequisite: An understanding of written musical notation and function. Instrumentalists should be proficient in their chosen instruments. Vocalists are strongly recommended to have previous experience singing in a formal setting such as in voice lessons or choir. Students are expected to concurrently be enrolled in either Symphonic Band or Choir.

Length: Two Years

Credit: One full credit

Description: The IB Music course encourages inquiry into creative practices and performance processes. Music study develops listening, creative and analytical skills, as well as encouraging cultural understanding and international-mindedness. In this way, music is a catalyst for expanding critical thinking - a crucial skill. Throughout the course, students are encouraged to explore music in varied and sometimes unfamiliar contexts and are challenged to engage practically with music as researchers, performers, and creators:

A) Exploring music in context - Students select samples of their work for portfolio submission. Students submit:

1. Written work demonstrating engagement with, and understanding of, diverse musical material

2. Practical exercises:

   1. Creating: one creating exercise

   2. Performing: one performed adaptation of music from a local or global context for the student’s own instrument

B) Experimenting with music

1. A written experimentation report that supports the experimentation

2. Practical musical evidence of the experimentation process:

   1. Three related excerpts of creating

   2. Three related excerpts of performing

C) Presenting music

1. Presenting as a researcher

   1. Program notes

2. Presenting as a creator

   1. Composition and/or improvisation

3. Presenting as a performer

   1. Solo and/or ensemble

D) The contemporary music-maker (HL only)- multimedia presentation evidencing:

1. The project proposal

2. The process and evaluation

3. The realized project, or curated selections of it.

High School Choir 7554

Prerequisite: None

Length: One Year (repeatable course)

Credit: One full credit

Description: The vocal ensemble course is for students who would like to express themselves through the medium of singing in an ensemble setting. Students will learn the fundamentals of singing, voice training, reading written musical notation, ensemble performance skills, and musical history and context through applied practice and public performance of a variety of genres and styles.

Visual Arts Department

Art Foundation 1 7510

Prerequisite: None

Length: One Year

Credit: One full credit

Description: Art Foundation 1 is a one-year course that provides a foundation for the introductory exploration and development of skills, techniques, multimedia characteristics, art-making processes, and the development of artistic creativity. Students gain knowledge, understanding, and experience with manipulating new artistic practices associated with a range of media, skills, methods, techniques, and processes in both two- and three-dimensional media. Students explore the characteristics and challenges associated with a variety of materials and art-making forms ranging from drawing, painting, printmaking, collage, sculpture, ceramics, one- and two-point perspective, typography, and more. Fundamental concepts of the Elements of Art and Principles of Design will be introduced, practiced, and reinforced with focused content naturally embedded to support visual literacy, art vocabulary, art theory and practice, and creative problem-solving.

Art Foundation 2 7520

Prerequisite: Foundation 1

Length: One Year

Credit: One full credit

Description: Art Foundation 2 is a one-year course continuum of Art 1 that sharpens, hones and challenges students' skills, techniques, understandings of specific individual media, art-making processes, and further development of creative expression and intentions through a documented process in a visual arts journal. Endless opportunities are afforded throughout the year as students gain deeper knowledge and understanding of artistic practices associated with a range of media, skills, methods, processes, and techniques in both two- and three-dimensional media. Students explore the characteristics, opportunities, and limitations of a variety of media including drawing, painting, printmaking, collage, sculpture, ceramics, decorative arts, architecture, graphic design, and photography. Fundamental concepts will be practiced and reinforced with focused content naturally embedded to support visual literacy, subject-specific language, art theory and practice, creative problem solving, and research. Students will take a tour of the art world exploring: art history, artists, art movements and perspectives, paintings, artifacts, sculptures, art criticism, political, social and historical context, and function and purpose all of which lead to international-mindedness and personal self-reflection. Students can expect art-making, rigorous integration of art literacy, cross-curricular connections integrating art history, investigation of community and cultures, and the exploration of lifelong learning and careers in the visual arts.

IB Art SL I & II 7530 & 7540 / IB Art HL I & II 7531 & 7541

Prerequisite: Successful completion of Art Foundation 1 or Art Foundation 2

Length: Two Years

Credit: One full credit per year

Description: The IB Diploma Programme Visual Arts course encourages students to challenge their own creative and cultural expectations and boundaries. It is a thought-provoking course in which students develop analytical skills in problem-solving and divergent thinking while working towards technical proficiency and confidence as art-makers. In addition to exploring and comparing visual arts from different perspectives and in different contexts, students are expected to engage in, experiment with and critically reflect upon a wide range of contemporary practices and media. The course is designed for students who want to go on to study visual arts in higher education as well as for those who are seeking lifelong enrichment through visual arts. Supporting the International Baccalaureate mission statement and learner profile, the course encourages students to actively explore the visual arts within and across a variety of local, international and intercultural contexts. Through inquiry, investigation, reflection and creative application, visual arts students develop an appreciation for the expressive and aesthetic diversity in the world around them, becoming critically informed makers and consumers of visual culture. The new course has three components:

Part 1 - Comparative study –20%

This is an independent, visual and written critical and contextual investigation in which students explore and compare three different artworks from contrasting cultural contexts (local, national, international and/or intercultural).

Part 2 - Process portfolio – 40%

Students are required to compile carefully selected materials, documenting evidence of their sustained experimentation, exploration, manipulation and refinement of a range of art-making activities during the development of a coherent body of resolved artworks over the two-year course.

Part 3 - Exhibition – 40%

This final exhibition of a coherent selected body of work showing evidence of students’ technical accomplishments and decision-making processes. Additionally, the selection and arrangement of the exhibition, exhibition text, and curatorial rationale exemplify their understanding of the use of materials, ideas, and practices appropriate to visual communication. The audience will have an opportunity to speak with the students to learn about the challenges, triumphs, innovations, and issues that have impacted the artist's intentions, their selections and the final presentation of their artworks.

Process Journal - Throughout the course, students are required to maintain a process JOURNAL. Students should be encouraged to find the most appropriate ways of recording their development and have free choice in deciding what form the visual arts journal should take. The aim of the visual arts journal is to support and nurture the acquisition of skills and ideas, to record developments, and to critique challenges and successes. It is expected that much of the written work submitted for assessment tasks at the end of the course will have evolved and been drawn from the contents of the visual arts journal. Although sections of the journal will be selected, adapted and presented for assessment the journal itself is not directly assessed or moderated. It is, however, regarded as a fundamental activity of the course and ultimately produces the process portfolio. Students undertaking the course will be expected to include art as a major component of their university studies.