On Wednesday, November 16th, students made the four-and-a-half-hour trip to downtown Toronto to get the full arts experience! Two coach buses full of dance, drama, and band students departed sacred at 6:45 in the morning and checked in at the Chelsea Hotel in the afternoon. From there, students explored downtown Toronto, Dundas Square, and the Eaton Centre. After shopping their hearts out, students returned to the hotel to get all dressed up to go to the Prince of Whales theatre and watch the National tour of Mean Girls the Musical. Students stopped for dinner at Boston Pizza on the way there and then took a traitorous 3 stop subway ride to the theatre.
Watching the musical was a great learning experience for all the art students, the dance students took in the impressive choreography and blocking, drama students studied the acting and singing of performers, and band students could listen to the soundtrack of the show while enjoying the production. The Prince of Whales is an impressive venue that is found right downtown making for an immersive experience for all involved. After the show, students took a bus back to the hotel and spent time bonding with their classmates until lights out.
The night after the show students were up bright and early for an 8:00 am wakeup call in order to get to their respective workshops. All the students travelled to The Underground Studio where the workshops took place.
The dance classes rotated through two workshops. One Hip-Hop workshop led by actor and professional dancer Carter Musselman whose most recent role is playing Heathcliff on The Next Step. Carter led dancers through a hip-hop combo and encouraged students to dance in small groups in order to be confident in front of their peers. Their other workshop was a contemporary combo that focused on long lines and using breath and fluid movements in their performing.
The drama and film students participated in an acting and improvisation workshop that helped them think on their feet and exercise their brains in ways that would help them onstage. They played different improv games in order to exercise new muscles in their brains and get a few laughs out of each other. The workshop was led by Cara Pantalone who is from Ottawa. How fun to see someone local all the way out in Toronto! Cara introduced games such as “The Two-Headed” politician where partners would act as if they were on a talkshow as one two-headed person, meaning they can only speak at the same time. Undoubtedly, their interview answers went a little off track!
Finally, the music students worked in a Brazillian Percussion workshop where they learned new techniques and ideas along with their traditional percussion knowledge. In this workshop, they learned about many different percussion instruments that they would not normally have the chance to use or hear in their day-to-day music classroom.
After their different learning experiences, all the arts students piled back onto their buses and returned to the school. After a whirlwind of 36 hours and a high school experience that they will never forget, the 120 students arrived safely back in Stittsville. The trip was a fantastic experience that many students wouldn’t trade anything for and after no such field trips for two years, it was amazing that the school and staff could pull it off so well!