April 2020 Volume 20 Issue 4
Harvey Dancers Shine on Stage By Lauren Grauer
On Thursday, Feb. 13, 2020, The Harvey School Dance Concert took place in The Lasdon Theater. The Dance Concert is an annual event that occurs during the end of the Winter Term. The dancers start preparing for the performance at the beginning of the fall term. There were 33 dancers in the concert from grades nine through 12. As dancers progress in the program, their roles in the Dance Concert grow. The theme of this year’s Dance Concert was “Exploring our life stories, things that make us think, move, and act deeply.” The dancers displayed this theme through their dances.
Featured in this issue: l Reports l News from The Harv l Reviews
The 2020 school year marked teacher Melanie Gambino’s 16th year as Director of Dance, Choreography, Somatic Movement, Meditation, and Mindfulness at The Harvey School. Ms. Gambino puts forth hard work, creativity, and dedication for The Harvey School’s Dance Program, year after year. Ms. Gambino’s vision and goal are to
foster and support collaboration within the Dance Company creatively, artistically, and educationally. This year in particular, Ms. Gambino was thrilled with how that vision and goal Harvey School Dancers. Photo courtesy of John Brooks. were realized throughout the entire concert. Ms. Gambino connection to the deeper meaning of was pleased, largely due to the seniors’ the Dance Concert. This was due to the participation along with the whole stories that came before the dances.” Dance Company’s contributions. It was the last Dance Concert at The Harvey School for seniors Monet (Yuming) Sze, Marina (Zhirui) Man, Kai (Lingkai) Zhao, and Victoria Cartularo. Zhao said, “As a senior, it was very cool to take a leadership role in the concert by helping to choreograph several dances. Although it was very exciting for me to take a leadership role, it came with a lot of challenges. The schedule this year was a lot tighter.” Zhao also said, “This year, all of the dancers had a huge
Each senior had a very specific vision for their own piece. Each piece had depth, emotion, meaning, and its own dance and theatrical style. Each dance furthered the greater vision.
The Dance Concert could not Harvey Dancers Shine...: cont. on page 7.
Robotics Taking Over By Steven Chase
The Harvey robotics team has had some recent success in their tournaments, especially team 6277B, which consists of Michael Martirano, Marley Shyer, and Robert Gross. The team has won many tournaments throughout the year, including the Night at the Museum tournament. The tournament is said to be the second most challenging tournament of the VEX Season, next to the World Tournament.
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Ms. Gambino has been teaching and mentoring the seniors for at least four years to become leaders in choreography, as well as dancers and performers, and they did an outstanding job!
6277B was the only team to participate from New York in the tournament, which was located at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum, Udvar-Hazy Center in Chantilly, VirTeam 6277B and Team 6277C with their robots ginia. The tournament lasted from Jan. and awards after the Harvey Tournament. 31-Feb. 1, and 60 teams from around Photo Courtesy of the Harvey Newsletter. the world participated. discuss the teams’ participation in the Out of the 60 teams, 6277B tournament and the success throughout came in 27th place, which is an excelthe year. lent placement, especially considering how difficult it is to get into the tourna The Pulse asked Mr. Kelly ment, and the teams that are there are about his expectations going into the the best teams around the world. The and in response, Mr. Kelly said, only way teams would be able to qualify year, expectation each year first and for the Night at the Museum tournament “Our foremost is to hopefully provide our is by winning the Excellence Award, students with a positive experience Tournament Champions, Design Award, that encourages and motivates them to or Robot Skills Champion Award at a become innovative problem solvers. local event. The competitive robotics platform helps our students build their communication, The Pulse interviewed Directeamwork, and leadership skill sets. “ tor of Robotics Mr. Chris Kelly and Mr. John Wahlers, robotics teacher, to Mr. Kelly also stated, “Our
biggest hope every year is to qualify for the National Championship and the World Championship.” When The Pulse asked Mr. Kelly about the joys of being a robotics teacher, he responded, “We are incredibly fortunate to be in a class that students look forward to every day. The robotics lab is a great place to work and is what, I believe, your generation might describe as ‘chill.’ The best part for us is when we see our students approach the engineering challenge in so many unique ways.” When asked about the competitions, Mr. Kelly stated, “We are extremely impressed with our students’ robots and their achievements. The Harvey robotics teams have been historically very successful, and this year’s teams are building on that history with much success of their own.” Finally, The Pulse asked about any advice for future robotics students, and Mr. Kelly responded, saying, “A great way to get started is to take our Robotics 1 elective and see if there is an element (or two or three) that you enjoy.” The Pulse thanks Mr. Kelly for his time and words, and we congratulate all of the teams on their success.