Carolyn's Corner

Dear Stanley BPS Community,

The Arts are thriving at Stanley BPS. The Arts explore our capacity to respond emotionally and intellectually to sensory experiences and promote an awareness of degrees of quality, the appreciation of beauty. Art involves the exploration and understanding of feeling - the process of making, composing or inventing - all of which are present in our ongoing theater program.

At Stanley BPS, aesthetic awareness and understanding are achieved primarily via two avenues. The first is through pupils' own creations of pictures, models, music, plays, mimes or poems. The second is by experiencing, interpreting and performing the works of other people such as artists, composers and playwrights.

The use of the human body as a means of communicating ideas and feelings and interpreting the meanings of others is most clearly seen in various forms of dance and drama. Young children need many opportunities for imaginative role-play and improvised drama. Older children devise, write, direct and perform plays. Children need sources of inspiration. They need to acquire a range of resources and techniques, which in theater, is gradually expanded as plays are invented and acted.

Our alumni will remember fondly Ann Breckenridge's exciting drama extravaganzas. Today, our school has many creative people on staff to inspire and lead the students. Patti Slevc and Chris Lewis work with younger children in drama and music, when it is age appropriate for everyone to play his or her farorite part. Lisa Cameron and Leelee Newcomb make a formidable team turning enthusiasm and high spirits into polished Middle School musicals and plays. David Marias and Matt Barber stage impressive Middle School and eighth grade productions of Shakespeare, among other writers. Steve Goldner-de Beer, one of our 3-4-5 teachers, is a talented actor who consistently entertains us with many great performances from both his devoted students and himself.

Many alumni have continued their interest in acting and dance. I am fortunate to have been invited to watch these taleted students perform in high school plays and musicals. It is a great joy to remember these actors from their younger years at Stanley BPS. I heard of one student who is now performing Shakespeare in England and another who hopes to join Cirque du Soleil in Canada.

Herbert Reed, in Education through Art, points to "Plato's passionate ideas that art should be the basis of education. The aim of Education is the creation of artists - of people efficient in the various modes of expression."