Dunedin Youth Jazz Festival

Dunedin Youth Jazz Festival

The John McGlashan Big Band played spectacularly at the Dunedin Youth Jazz Festival on Friday 4th August. The Band came away with a Silver award, as well as awards for ‘Best Drummer’ going to Emilio Ghosh-Novero (Year 12), and ‘Most Promising Guitarist’ going to Rylan Urquhart (Year 13). Amazing achievements boys, and a huge thanks goes out to our Band director Ross Kane for all his incredible work. 

Theatrefest Success!

The Local heats of the Theatrefest Competition were held on the 22nd and 23rd of July at Trinity College. We had one senior Drama group consisting of Zoe Eckhoff, Eli Gepte and Leila Luckhurst, compete against seven others from Queenstown, Dunedin and Timaru.

The group came away with several awards including:

Excellence in Acting - Eli Gepte
Excellence in Acting - Leila Luckhurst
Distinction Award for the Production of Drama (script written & directed by Zoe Eckhoff)

The group has also been chosen to proceed onto the next stage of the competition (Lower South Island) to be held at Allen Hall Theatre on the 26th of August. 

A huge congratulations to Scriptwriter and Director Zoe, and to actors Eli and Leila for this amazing achievement. It is a great acknowledgement of all the hard work you have put in to get here. Ka tū poho kererū mātou i a koutou - we are so proud of you! 

We look forward to seeing you the next stage soon! 

University of Otago Caroline Plummer Fellowship in Community Dance workshop

The Year 13 Drama class were very lucky to have Daisy Sanders, the University of Otago Caroline Plummer Community Dance Fellow, come in and teach an immersive dance workshop.

Daisy took them through a range of dance and movement exercises that will be very beneficial for the devising work they are currently doing in class.

Tēnā koe i tāu mahi Daisy! Thanks for your awesome work!

Rockquest Regional Finals.

The Rockquest Otago Regional Finals were held at the Mayfair Theatre on Friday night. The two bands from John McGlashan; 104 Days (Rylan Urquhart, Kaleb Durant and Ethan Leitch) and Soul Side (Leo Hill, Jamie Bradfield, Christopher Body, and Adam Ludgate), played spectacularly in front of the packed Mayfair Theatre audience. Soul side were awarded the 3rd Best Band which was an awesome achievement amongst an incredibly high calibre of performances from all the Secondary Schools around Ōtepoti. Amazing work everyone!

Appropriate at the Court Theatre.

Appropriate at the Court Theatre.

The senior drama students returned last night from an amazing trip up to Ōtautahi-Christchurch to see the Court Theatre’s staging of Appropriate. It was a huge day for everyone, leaving at 5:15am in the morning from Dunedin to make the matinee performance and Q&A, and arriving back in Ōtepoti at 8:30pm.

As a guide for the show, here is the blurb from the PlayWright Branden Jacob-Jenkins:

“After their father dies, the Lafayette siblings gather at their crumbling ancestral estate to clear out the family house for sale. There, they discover the most unexpected of secrets and are forced to confront realities they would prefer had never been revealed.”

The show deals with some heavy themes of racism and erasure of history, and proved itself a great example of how effectively art can be used to address difficult topics in our society, and how we deal with them.

As well as thematic conventions, the students were able to see a strong use of theatrical techniques, and instances of using voice and pacing to change the energy of the scenes. The high quality of acting on display will be of great benefit to the work they are doing in their current standard.

In addition to seeing the performance, the students got the opportunity to ask the cast and crew questions in a Q&A afterwards. Through some well thought-out questions, the students were able to unpack the process of the show, and get an insight into both the actors' preparation as well as the design and production elements.

Overall, an incredibly valuable experience for everyone involved! Mauri mahi, Mauri ora!

Smoke Free Rock Quest Heats 

Smoke Free Rock Quest Heats - 2 bands through to the Regional Finals!

Congratulations to all our Bands from John McGlashan who played in the Rock Quest heats during the weekend, and to the bands 104 Days and Soul Side who have made it through to the regionals finals! Amazing work by everyone! The Bands that played were:
104 Days
Facts Machine
Soul Side
Unknown

The Regional Final will be held at the Mayfair Theatre on Friday the 16th of June from 7pm. Tickets are available at the door on the night for $10 for students or $20 for adults, or via Eventfinda (plus booking fee). Link on the regional page on smokefreerockquest.co.nz.

Year 8 Myth Performances.

The year 8 drama class delivered some stellar performances of a variety of myths they have been researching and developing into short performances.

After gaining an understanding of the context and function that stories and myths hold, the groups chose their own myth from around the world to focus on. They then constructed a script to learn and perform.

With impressive depictions of myths originating from as far away as Egypt and as close as our home here in Aotearoa, the year 8's have been exploring and implementing many different theatre conventions to create thoroughly entertaining pieces. Well done to all!