Drama & Dance

Drama

After a somewhat disrupted previous year, it has been especially pleasing to see our Churcherian stars back where they belong, on the big stage, performing in front of a live audience! The aim this year was provide our young actors with as many performance opportunities as possible, to make up for lost time, therefore, the Drama Department’s programme of events has been bigger than ever before.

The Autumn Term saw the return of our much-loved Panto Week, where our First Year students took to the stage to perform their very own mini-Pantomimes. As always, we were bowled over by their creativity and humour, with some even designing and making their own props and costume! At the end of the Autumn Term, our senior students celebrated the tercentenary with an original production, 1722: The Musical, which depicted the journey of Fin and Theo, two naughty Churcherians, who are sent back in time to learn the allimportant value of education. Our amazing cast sang, danced, and acted their way through the decades as the audience tapped their feet to some of the most well-known pop and rock classics! This was a truly unique experience for everyone involved, after all, it’s not every day you get to perform in a bespoke musical!

Before our students had the chance to put their feet back on the ground, the Spring Term commenced with the hilarious production of ‘It Runs in the Family’. The cast were superb in re-telling this story of the farcical antics occurring in a doctor’s common room. The pace was brilliantly exhausting, and the comic timing was just outstanding, so much so that the production later went out on tour, providing our students with the added opportunity of living the life of a professional actor on the road, an experience they will remember for years to come!

The Spring Term concluded with our Lower School production of Annie. Our talented young cast magnificently brought the story of one of musical theatres best-loved characters to life. With such brilliant direction and great efforts from the backstage and technical crew, this really was an example of the high standard we have come to expect from our students, and it was great to see some stars of the future taking to the stage for the very first time. The creativity of our students wasn’t limited to outside of the classroom. This year saw the return of our GCSE and A Level practical pieces, with some astonishing work being created. Our A Level students so brilliantly utilised the methodologies of theatre practitioners, including Frantic Assembly and Bertolt Brecht, to create some very sophisticated and thought-provoking work. Our GCSE students cleverly explored some of the important social issues affecting teenagers, when responding practically to their stimuli.

After a very difficult couple of years, we are absolutely blown away by how our students have bounced back and displayed their many talents on and off stage. A huge congratulations to all involved! Stacey Carty

Dance

The Dance programme at Churcher’s has undergone some rapid expansion this year: we now have both Junior and Senior clubs, and the students try out Dance in their PE lessons in the Fourth Year. This expansion has required investment in some topnotch equipment, and we now have four portable mirrors that help perfect the lines of the dancers and help all dancers improve their learning and understanding of the routines.

In PE lessons, we have explored cheerleading routines, group dances, partner work, and they also choreographed their own routine in the last week of the year. In the Lower Sixth enrichment programme, we explored Ballet, Jazz, Contemporary, and tap-dancing styles. It showed some students who have never danced before, the value of dance and its effect on coordination and flexibility, which can help them in their competitive sports.

Our Junior Dance squad have had a busy year: in the Autumn Term they performed at the Junior Cabaret, and in the Spring Term they learnt a dance for the Modern Languages performance evening – ‘Bella Ciao’. This pushed them to their limits as they had to adapt to the use of a tambourine prop. In the Summer Term, they performed not only at Open Day but also at the Community Fair celebrating, 300 years of Churcher’s.

The Senior Dance group had a similar experience. They also learnt a musical theatre number, ‘America’ from West Side Story, for the Senior Cabaret in the Spring Term, and learnt an upbeat Jazz number to ‘A Little Party Never Killed Nobody’, to perform at the mega weekend – Open day and the Community Fair.

Paige Elson