2012 in Review

Visual Arts Department. 

We ..

  • Farewelled Bev Austin who taught at Lynfield College for 30 years. Bev will be remembered by her colleagues and students as a teacher who contributed to many different aspects of school life, both inside and outside of the classroom.  In recent years she became passionate about learning and teaching fabric arts, including fabric printing and costume construction. Her support and guidance of students interested in these art-forms resulted in the college having many participants across all year levels, and often winners, in the Trash to Fashion and National Agricultural Fieldays  Ag Art Wear competitions. We wish Bev and her family the very best for the future. 
  • Experimented with new digital technologies and e-learning including Lynfield College e-LynC where students can now access visual arts coursework and assessment resources, and links to a wide range of videos, via the internet.
  •  Exhibited student artworks at www.exhibbit.com. Lynfield College was selected as one of twenty Auckland schools to showcase their students’ drawings, paintings, designs and photographs in an online virtual gallery. Fifteen senior students had work selected for the inaugural Wallace Exhibbit Art Awards.
  • Launched an extra-curricular senior Pacifica student sculpture group initiative. Students attended talks, organised through Tautai Contemporary Pacific Arts Trust www.tautai.org , by visiting artists Sopolemalama Filipe Tohi, Siliga David Setoga, and Mele Mafile'o ‘Uhamaka. Students also visited the Home AKL exhibition at Auckland Art Gallery which included work by Filipe and Siliga. http://www.aucklandartgallery.com/whats-on/events/2012/july/home-akl/artists
  •  Visited art venues such as Auckland Museum, Auckland Art Gallery, Artspace, central city dealer galleries, the Pah Homestead, Jeff Thomson’s studio, and Gibbs Farm Sculpture Park. 
Year 13 Visual Culture Studies students enjoyed an amazing day at Gibbs Farm on the Kaipara Harbour. They not only experienced large scale sculptures by such internationally renowned artists as Richard Serra, Bernar Venet, Marijke de Goey and Anish Kapoor, they were able wander over the beautifully manicured property and observe zebras, giraffes and alpacas up close. http://gibbsfarm.org.nz/index.php
  • Congratulated our 2012 Pat Hanly Art Student Award winners, Naomi Faautaga and Ashley Walters, who were both nominated for their "outstanding commitment and passion for the visual arts and community awareness". The awards ceremony was particularly exciting, as it was the first to be held in the newly renovated Auckland Art Gallery and included the launch by the Right Honourable Helen Clark of a major publication on the work of New Zealand painter, Pat Hanly. http://www.flickr.com/photos/aucklandartgallery/sets/72157631297817014/show/
  • Cared for people by offering end-of-year Caring 4 the Community workshops for our Year 9 and 10 students. As in previous years, students made crafts and offered service to local organisations. 
  • Hosted local primary and intermediate schools during our annual Arts @ the Bay festival. Thirty-five primary sector students joined us on a visit to the Auckland Art Gallery. Senior Lynfield College students worked alongside the gallery educators, mentoring the younger students to learn about how to read, and make meaning from artworks.
  •  Engaged in lots of our own researching, thinking, discussing, laughing, reflecting, and art making… 


Music Department 

              ‘Music is a higher revelation than all wisdom and philosophy’ – Beethoven

All was well and right with the Music Department in 2012. Junior music students have continued to develop their skills in all key areas, including rehearsal, group and solo performance, and theory and composition.  The Year 9 programme continues to thrive and the Year 10s have enjoyed specialising on an instrument of their choice in order to reach higher levels of technical proficiency.

In terms of the senior programmes, the NCEA performance assessment evenings were once again an enormous success, with friends and family coming along to enjoy the music and show their support.  As always the performances were diverse in style and instrumentation, with Chamber Music, Jazz, Heavy Metal, RnB and Funk-fusion featuring in most programmes. A large number of students gained Merit and Excellence for their group and solo performances, adding to what had been a fantastic year. Students also continued to use or new(ish) computer software to great advantage, constructing well-notated arrangements in a wide range of musical styles.

2012 saw both the Jazz Band and the Jazz Combo compete in the Tauranga Jazz Festival, with the groups picking up silver and gold awards respectively. Hopefully in 2013 we’ll be able to get the Big Band to the event as well.

Finally, thank you and congratulations to all those who’ve worked hard to achieve their goals and help to make the Music Department the vibrant hub that it is.

Drama Department


Year 9 presented some outstanding work this year. Students explored scripted work as well as devising their own theatre presentations. They studied Greek Theatre, Puppetry and Clowning theatre forms, and produced excellent posters as well as entertaining performances for their peers. Highlights included a devised piece by Poppy Schubert, O’Shara Andelean, Jordan Malaam and Rosalie Graves, and an imaginative shadow puppet performance presented by Ram Sharma, Rishab Goswani, Ryan Xavier and Nilaanj Batavi.
 
Year 10 classes explored the theatre forms of Commedia del Arte and Mime, presenting some very amusing performances based on stock characters and situations. Students also researched significant events from New Zealand history and presented effective dramatic pieces based on Erebus, Tangiwai, the Mount Tarawera eruption, and the Christchurch earthquake.

Performance highlights included an exceptional piece of comical mime about two children in a sandpit performed by Ben Hammond and Maddy Butler; an excellent Commedia DeL’Arte performance from Edmund Hodges, Ben Hammond, Kieran Van Leeuwen, Maddy Wyn and Jessica Farrell; and a provocative devised piece on the Erebus tragedy, showing the effects on one family, performed by Maddy Wyn, Maddy Butler, Ben Hammond, Acacia Lord and Paige Wilson.
 
Year 11 completed a solid year’s work with the production of Pat Spillane’s delightful play Rosie. Much effort was put into costume, set and lighting to enhance some fine performances, including Alina Trbuhovich playing the long suffering mother, Tracey Coffin playing a furious mother, Toa Peteru playing the glass-eyed Bung, Kieran Sumner as an old beachcomber, and Megha Patel as the darling Rosie. Melodrama highlights included Ben Fleming-Yates’ bumbling servant, Alicia Howard’s senseless and ungainly servant, Danielle Lim Kwan’s extraordinarily clumsy bumbling servant, and Vanessa Aliaga’s extremely feminine and fussy heroine. Devised highlights included Blair Faith, Jamie Braithwaite, Emily German and Alex Kin’s, ‘The boy who liked Dolls’, which was a touching story about fortitude in the face of loss.
 
Year 12 also focused on New Zealand texts, devising physical theatre pieces based on a selection of stories from Katherine Mansfield, and presenting scenes from The Pohutukawa Tree by Bruce Mason.
The course explored acting technique, devising for theatre, physical theatre and developing character when working with scripts.
The class performed their physical theatre interpretations of Mansfield’s stories to a Year 12 English class who were drawn in to the situations that explored the effects of bullying, child abuse, peer pressure and the social hierarchy of early twentieth century New Zealand. All students worked extremely well as ensemble casts for the physical theatre story-telling style, achieving excellent performance results. Caitlin Smith, Samantha Holland and Ashley Gerlach’s performances evoked spine-chilling effects, while Alys Corr, James Heskett and Euan Reilly delighted with their presentations of childish antics.
 
Year 13 combined class-based study with their extra-curricula involvement in the school production of Romeo and Juliet. This was an entertaining and highly successful production – and for many it was the first Shakespeare produced at Lynfield College. Their effort and commitment resulted in fine performances and netted some Excellence achievement credits for Emily Jenkins as Juliet, Breanna Blackwell as Lady Capulet, Tom Jaeger as Mercutio, Dion Pritchard as Romeo, Holly Stokes as the nurse, Josh Edmonds as Capulet and Billy Scarfe as Benvolio.
 
Those not performing Shakespeare staged a successful production of contemporary new Zealand playwright, Jo Randerson’s Fold. This was performed to an invited audience of family and friends. Randerson’s work aims to be provocative and the audience responded with appropriate humour and horror to the shallow, materialistic world of the play.
Outstanding work for the drama techniques standard included Emily Jenkins and Holly Stokes’ work on a scene from Caryl Churchill’s Top Girls about two girls trying to work out the adult world; and Rebecca Greenwood’s interpretation of Joyce, an embittered working class housewife in a different scene from the same play.
Special mention should go to Georgia Mismash for her imaginative devised piece on folk singer and environmental activist, Joan Baez.
It is with the mixed emotions of sadness and excitement for their futures that we farewell the Year 13 class of 2012. Some of these students (Holly, Emily, James and Billy) have been with the department for five years now, and we will miss their energy, enthusiasm and commitment to Excellence. Best wishes to all of you.

Dance Department


Four classes of Year 9 students explored Dance for one term each as part of the 9 Dance and Drama Arts option.

This year the students were particularly enthusiastic and hard working. The focus of the class is on choreography and performance, plus exploration of a variety of dance styles.

They performed their Funky-Folk Fusion to the year nine Drama class and also devised and performed original dances that combined moves from Hip Hop, Lyrical, Contemporary and Bollywood dance styles.
Many of these students plan to join extra-curricular dance groups next year, and some have enrolled in the Year 10 Dance course for 2013.  They will work towards achieving credits for their NCEA Level 1 certificates which will be awarded in 2014.

A big thank you to all the students who participated and contributed ideas and energy to their groups.
 

 
 


 



Curriculum