Creativity and the Arts

What is creativity? It sounds simple, but it is in fact quite complex. Creativity involves thinking and making new or different connections to generate new ideas. From the earliest years, we promote and unify the use of higher-order thinking skills, emotional engagement and motor development. Creativity at our School extends into all areas of the curriculum and is designed to engage girls in their learning and to support our WAVES priorities. We see the creative journey of our students as an adventure travelled through Mathematics and Science to History, language, leadership, service and of course, The Arts, where the most visible forms of creativity can often be found.

Creative Arts

Across the Arts, our students enjoy an enormous array of opportunities to explore and express new ideas through Music, Dance, Drama and many forms of Visual Communication and Design. Collectively, our students’ work reflects diversity, boldness and risk taking. Our BIG ART Festival held in Term 3 emphasises that being creative is as much a purposeful function as it is a value that enriches the lives of our students and community as a whole.

Visual Arts

Art simply surrounds our students as they experience a dynamic Art program as one element in the core curriculum from Prep to Year 8 and through our vibrant program of Visual Communication and Design at VCE. Students experience a range of creative arts programs in The Simpson Art Centre which has facilities for drawing, painting, print-making, textiles, ceramics and photography. We teach our students to appreciate the experience of learning, creating, designing and reflecting. Art is like an adventure travelled, rather than a destination reached. A sincere involvement in the creative process has its own reward.

Performing Arts

Wonderful opportunities to act are abundant throughout the curriculum from Grade 5- Year 12.

Drama is a compulsory subject from Grade 5-8, and becomes an elective at Years 9 and 10, with Theatre Studies offered at VCE. Students participate in devised and scripted pieces in both classroom and public performances, and parents are invited to share in their daughters’ progress through showcase evenings at the culmination of each semester.

Highly engaging and passionate Performing Arts staff implement a diverse Drama curriculum; both group and solo, and live and filmed performances are rehearsed and assessed as part of these courses. Specialist workshop and guest lecturers, an ongoing artist-in-residence program, incursions and excursions all enrich and enliven the classroom curriculum, both igniting passion and deepening insight within the students of the Performing Arts.

A specialized black box theatre, The Fergusson, provides students with a sprung floor, blackout theatrical curtaining, three phase power and a flexible lighting rig, provides an excellent professional atmosphere for our budding theatre makers.

Conveniently positioned next door, the Mezzanine Dance Studio also boasts a sprung floor, and dance barres and mirrors frame the light and airy space. Holding classes in these professional environments enables the students to adopt enthusiastic and professional approaches to these innovative and exciting areas of the curriculum.

Theatrical Mentorship Program & Senior School Production

Mentone Girls’ Grammar runs an extraordinary Theatrical Mentorship Program open to students from Year 9 and above. Each year, applicants vie for highly sought after opportunities to work alongside inspirational and exceptional designers and technicians towards the creation of the show.

These industry professionals are currently working in fringe and mainstream theatres across Australia and beyond. The students work alongside their mentors, gleaning insight into both the theatrical process and the final product, from the first read through, participating in the pitching, design and implementation across all the theatrical elements.

Each year, a particular element takes heightened focus through the program, depending on the opportunities which arise from the script. These have included Flight and Stunt Choreography, Digital Multimedia, Music Composition, Swordsmanship and Fight sequencing and in 2018, for our production of Roald Dahl’s ‘The Witches’, our emphasis will be on the creation of Stage Magic.

As we rotate between a musical and a straight play each year, our casts and crews learn to understand the different conventions of each theatrical style. The mentorship program enables its participants to:

Collaborate with students from across year levels towards a highly valued and public event on the School’s calendar
Strengthen their communication, creativity and collaboration
Ratify the knowledge acquired within the academic curriculum in subjects such as English, Music, Theatre Studies, Drama, Business Studies, Visual Arts and Mathematics
Establish their own networks beyond the School, these are crucial elements of our young entrepreneurs’ futures as they embrace the opportunities beyond their school years.

Junior School Performances

In our Junior School we have a range of performances each year including our music concert, dance concert and end of year Christmas Concert.

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