Arts
Performing Arts
Creative Exploration
The performing arts are alive and well at Poly! Students are offered a breadth of coursework to expose them to the arts with the intention of nurturing creativity, intellectual curiosity, and aesthetic understanding establishing a firm foundation in skills, content, and experience.
The Performing Arts Department is committed to three core principles:
- Art, while innate in some, can be learned by all. We therefore balance excellence with exploration, discipline with freedom, and consummate preparation with bold artistic risk.
- Art, while intrinsically valuable unto itself, educates the whole student. We therefore teach not only drama, music, and dance, but through them integrity, exploration, compassion, acceptance, resilience, confidence, humility, diversity, and love.
- Art, while the purest form of personal expression, transcends the personal and, through collaboration, connects the artist to the ensemble, the ensemble to the community, and the community to the world. We therefore value process over product and encourage students to “love the art in yourself, not yourself in the art.
K-12 Performing Arts Program
List of 3 items.
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Lower School
Performing arts classes are integrated into the Lower School curriculum, as well as offered as electives that meet after-school. Three disciplines are taught:- Dance is introduced in the fourth grade and fifth-graders choreograph a special dance for the End of the Year Sing.
- Drama begins in the third grade. Group cooperation and social growth are key elements. Each grade level presents a production, either a play or a collection of improvisations.
- Music classes meet at all grade levels with curriculum that promotes the skills of music reading and theory, listening and music appreciation, singing, and performance. Third-graders are given their initial instrumental experience through group lessons on violin or cello. Then in fourth grade, students can continue with a stringed instrument or pursue vocal music. Fifth graders can elect to become members of the Junior Orchestra and continue their study of strings.
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Middle School
From reading and writing music, choreographing a hip hop dance, to being part of the theatre tech crew, Middle School students of all abilities and experiences can explore opportunities in the Performing Arts!
Performing Arts course offerings include:- Band
- Cantatori (vocal music ensemble).
- Jazz Improvisation
- Movement and Oral Interpretation
- Musical Theatre
- Percussion
- Technical Theatre
- Theatre
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Upper School
Upper School students take performing arts courses during any one of the four years to explore and develop their interests and talents.
Course offerings (partial list):- Dance: Dance, Intermediate and Advanced Jazz Dance, Tap Dance
- Music: Jazz Band, Music Theory, Orchestra, Vocal Ensemble
- Theatre: Acting (1-4), Directing, Technical Theatre (1-4), Spring Musical
Performance Opportunities
All-school Instrumental Concert • Cabaret Evening • Dance Concert • Fall play • Jazz Concert • Winter Concert • Music Department assembly • Winter play • Upper School spring musical • Various informal performances both on and off-campus
Recent Upper School Theatre Performances
- Anything Goes
- The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
- Head Over Heels
- In the Heights
- Last Days of Judas Iscariot
- The Little Mermaid
- Young Frankenstein
Watch Student Performances on Poly YouTube
Performing Arts News
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Performing Arts Faculty
List of 9 members.
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