Greenwich Academy and Brunswick School Arts Assembly

by Ann Adler, Brunswick School

There are a phenomenal number of students at Brunswick and Greenwich Academy who participate in the Arts Department, which includes instrumental, vocal, visual, dance, drama and film.  Thursday morning Upper School students and staff were entertained for an hour and a half by their peers involved in the performing and visual arts.  Of the six hundred plus students in the Upper Schools, easily 100 were involved in some aspect of the Arts Assembly performance.  The instrumental and vocal performances were held in Ramsing Gymnasium, and the dance, drama, art and film were featured in Massey Theater.  At the mid-point of the morning the students who started in one venue moved to the other, in perfect coordinated timing.  What was most telling about the involvement of the students in the arts were the number of performers who had to run between the venues as they are performed in music as well as dance or drama.  There was even a coordinated act with dancers performing while the premier jazz group, the Blue Notes, played.  While some were performing in one venue their art work or films were being displayed simultaneously in the other. 

Each group had one performance piece so the morning moved very quickly.  In Ramsing Gym were the two musical improv groups under the direction of Shane Kirsch, two Greenwich Academy choral presentations by Bel Canto and the Madrigals, both directed by Beth Raaen, the Mahertians and an all-boys chorus directed by Alexander Constantine and then Paul Raaen's two groups Vanguard and the Blue Notes.  A new course offering this year, Musical Theater, showcased a duet from West Side Story.  Back in Massey Theater, slides of phenomenal art work flashed across the screen to a musical background.  There were three student films shown, which received rave applause and there mere multiple live performances.  Dance Corps, the premier dance group at GA, danced two student-choreographed numbers:  "Warm Up" and "Because They Don't Want To."  Drama was well represented with two scenes, one from the last week's Drama Club Cabaret of Our Town and another from an acting class portraying a Dave Ives's play, Sure Thing.  As an enticement to come to the Upper School fall play next week, there were several scenes from Dark of the Moon.  It should be a standing-room-only audience as the acting was superb, and the story line seems really intriguing.

A very special thank you to the Arts Department faculty from both Greenwich Academy and Brunswick for a stellar start to an otherwise ordinary school day.  The coordination of performers and audience was flawless, and the level of expertise in each medium was phenomenal.  Brunswick and Greenwich Academy have achieved significant programmatic depth in their arts departments.