Year Nine Hackathon

A great review of a lively and irreverent performance at the Singapore Reparatory Theatre last week! Thanks to Ayra and Zeinab in Year 12

On the 16th of November 2021, Tear 12 IGCSE, IB Theatre and English learners went to the KC Arts centre to watch ‘The Complete Works of Shakespeare (abridged)’ a play produced by SRT.

It seemed fitting that this was the first production we had been to for a while as for much of Shakespeare’s career, England was suffering from the plague, theatres were closed and people were discouraged from mixing in large groups. Sounds familiar? In fact, it is suggested that Shakespeare wrote King Lear, Macbeth, and Anthony and Cleopatra during lockdown!

The company effectively created an interesting set by using scaffolding, LED lights and graffiti to achieve a modern feel to the set that contrasts the Elizabethan era of Shakespeare. SRT were keen to bring Shakespeare into the 21st century. If you are unsure what to expect from this play, you’ll essentially discover a comedic mashup of Shakespeare's plays through song, dance and interesting dialogue. This fast-paced and hilarious performance will take you through the best bits of the bard’s plays. As you witness four actors weaving their wicked way through all of Shakespeare’s 37 comedies, histories, and tragedies in one wild 97-minute ride. However, do not expect to leave this show knowing a detailed plot of all 37 plays.

An interesting aspect of the play was how they included the local culture of Singapore by including a scene where they communicated using the Singlish accent. This really helped the local audience relate to this play despite its references to Shakespeare - an English poet and playwright. So, even if you are not familiar with most of Shakespeare's plays, the comedy and acting are powerful in amusing the audience despite the amount of knowledge they have on the individual plays. Another great scene was during their rendition of Anthony and Cleopatra when the three actors dressed in a snake costume and one of them dressed as Cleopatra. The juxtaposition of the strange, wobbly and chaotic snakes dancing on stage behind the elegant Cleopatra was an interesting and humorous sight to see and was an amazing take on the story. Furthermore, their take on Othello was also quite intriguing as they decided to rap the plot rather than enacting or narrating it. This made the show much more entertaining to watch as the director's combined lights, set, props and costumes to create a fun and interesting scene.

Although the play was incredibly impressive, there were a few bland areas. This was shown when they created a small minigame to combine all of Shakespeare's comedies. Ironically, it was the least entertaining and comedic part of the show as it was an overly long scene with the same repetitive joke. However, some may argue this was a commentary on how Shakespeare’s comedies are not actually funny as they all had the same tropes - identical twins, somebody falling in love and magic. Perhaps the play was trying to reference the repetitive tropes with their repetitive jokes.

So, would I recommend other learners to watch this show? Yes. Singapore these days has not been very fun due to the many restrictions. Despite Covid regulations in the theatre, watching this show is a great opportunity to return to normalcy as you get to watch the actors interact with no masks. Enjoy a lovely show with your friends.

Field trips are a huge part of Geography and something we have missed over the last two years. So it was fantastic to be able to get out and about with the Year 13 Geographers on 15 November. Learners were exploring urban microclimates and the urban heat island effect by collecting various temperature data at four sites across Gardens by the Bay.

The early part of the morning was sunny and hot so it was nice to hit the air conditioned comfort of Shake Shack, which seemed the popular choice for lunch. After lunch, the dark clouds started to build up. For Ms Vicky and Mr Tony, this rekindled memories of the torrential downpour on Pulau Ubin two years ago! Fortunately, the rain seemed to pass us by and the resulting cloud cover kept things a touch cooler for the rest of the day.

Of course, our learners were a credit to Nexus as they worked efficiently and effectively to collect the data required for their internal assessments, as well as conscientiously following the various Covid-19 restrictions with good humour and grace.

Well done, Team Geo!

Mr Tony & Ms Vicky

IBDP Learners getting involved: Trashion and Nexmas!

Getting ready for Nexmas Sing-a-long!

Many of our Year 12 learners are accomplished musicians and vocalists. Here are a few practising their skills ahead of the Nexmas Sing-a-long recordings this week. There were many more supporters behind the camera.