VPHS
Arts Festival
In our continued effort to promote the Creative Arts
at Victoria Park, we once again held our Mini-Arts
Festival at the school over the weekend of 15 – 17
May 2014.
On the music front, Mr Marlon Louis organised a
superb Jazz Festival, and there were quality performances by our Windband, conducted by Mrs Avryl
Cheetham and our extremely talented choir under
the baton of Mr Wicus Jansen van Rensburg. We
were also most privileged to have a performance
by the Eastern Cape Youth Choir (which includes
four of our own pupils). Our thanks go to Mr Petrus
Meyer for this opportunity to listen to an extremely
polished choir. Wendy Matthews’ Steelband gave to
the occasion that distinctive Festival air both on Friday afternoon and Saturday morning.
At the Festival, we incorporated our annual OneAct Play Festival as well as many other creative
performances such as our Festival of Dance which
included a variety of genres from classical to tap
to contemporary, as well as an Indian dance performance entitled “Surya” by Aarti Narotam and a
fun Zumba Interactive experience lead by Rushka
Johnson which had everyone up and dancing. On
the Friday afternoon we also hosted the schools’
Ballroom Dancing Championships which added another classy dimension to our Dance Festival.
In the Library our extremely talented artists, guided by art teacher Mrs Jenni McGrath, exhibited
their work to the beautiful strains of classical music performed by our equally talented musicians. In
the marquee on both evenings our young vocalists
entertained us either with solo performances or ensembles.The photography club, overseen by Mrs
Kelly Ferreira, had a number of powerful pieces on
display in the hall foyer.
Other creative experiences included our ever popular Poetry and Song, mime, improvisation and theatre sports, puppet shows, a play written and directed by grade 9 learner Andre van Niekerk entitled
‘Brad’s Brilliant Bizarre Encounters’ and our resident fortune teller Madame Gooch . In the afternoon
our hip-hop and rap groups performed to an excited
audience in a hall bursting at the seams.
On the Saturday night, our usual Battle of the Bands
was held, in which a number of Rock and Heavy
Metal groups battled it out for first position. Whilst
this was happening, on the other side of the school
(fortunately) Mr Jansen van Rensburg, aka Will
Jensen,, took us on a unique introspective journey
in his performance entitled “Drie-in-Een”.
In order to create a complete Festival ‘feel’, a number of craft and food stalls were incorporated which
allowed our Clubs and Societies to raise funds and
feed the hordes as well!
All in all our Festival was a resounding success –
thanks to the Grade 11 Dramatic Arts class for their
assistance in the event.
Mrs M van der Walt (Festival co-ordinator)
116