At Evans High School, the CAPA Faculty enables your child to study in various areas of the Creative and Performing Arts.
Evans High School offers Music and Visual Arts as compulsory subjects during years 7 and 8. Students are given the opportunities to select Dance, Drama, Music, Visual Arts and Photography as electives in years 9 and 10 and as senior courses in years 11 and 12.
The CAPA faculty provides extra curricular activities for all students to be involved in. These include:
- MADD Fest
- Dance ensembles (Junior Dance, Senior Dance, "Bring it on" Ensemble)
- Music Ensembles: Vocal Ensemble, Rock Bands, Percussion Ensemble
- Education Week and Harmony Day performances
- Eisteddfods such as "Curtain Call" and "Dynamic Dance Festival"
- Photography competitions
- Presentation night and Merit Assembly performances
Dance is offered to all students to study as an elective in years 9, 10, 11 and 12. It is a 200 hour course taught over two years for years 9–10. For years 11 and 12 it is a 120 hour course for each year.
The aim of dance in years 9–10 is to allow students to experience, understand, value and enjoy dance as an art-form through studying three different components. Performance, Composition and Appreciation as a interrelated study.
- Performance enables students to develop dance technique and performance quality in communicating ideas using the human body.
- Composition enables students to create and structure their own movement sequences to communicate ideas
- Appreciation is the theory approach to understanding dance. Students will describe and analyse dance performances within the social, cultural and historical context in which they belong.
In years 11 and 12 students study each component of dance as a core and as a part of the HSC external examination students also have the opportunity to study one of the three components as a major study. There are theoretical components of dance which are taught under appreciation.
As well as our dance subjects, students are given the opportunity to develop their dance and performance skills in other ways. We have two dance ensembles, a Junior ensemble (years 7-10) and an Open ensemble (years 7-12). Both ensembles represent the school at array of events in an around the Western Sydney Area. These events include Synergy Public School Dance festival, Eisteddfods, Public Education Week performance, Charity events including McHappy Day, Assemblies and annual school productions.Our yearly MADD Fest and Harmony Day concert performances are also highlights for our dance students, who have the opportunity to work on their performances through sport time.
Opportunities exist for Aboriginal students to work with Bangarra Dance Theatre Company Youth Advisors at Indigenous Dance workshops run by The Arts Unit. Students have also been successful in auditioning for Schools Spectacular.
Drama is an elective course that can be studied for 100 or 200 hours at any time during Years 7–10, and as a HSC course. At Evans, we offer Drama as an elective in Year 9 and 10, and for the HSC.
Drama enables young people to develop knowledge, understanding and skills individually and collaboratively to make, perform and appreciate dramatic and theatrical works. Students take on roles as a means of exploring both familiar and unfamiliar aspects of their world while exploring the ways people react and respond to different situations, issues and ideas.
All students undertake a unit of playbuilding in every 100 hours of the course. Playbuilding refers to a group of students collaborating to make their own piece of drama from a variety of stimuli. At least one other dramatic form or performance style must also be studied in the first 100 hours. Examples of these include improvisation, mime, script, puppetry, small screen drama, physical theatre, street theatre, mask, comedy and Shakespeare. Students also learn about the elements of drama, various roles in the theatre, the visual impact of design, production elements and the importance of the audience in any performance.
What will students learn to do?
Students learn to make, perform and appreciate dramatic and theatrical works. They devise and enact dramas using scripted and unscripted material and use acting and performance techniques to convey meaning to an audience. They learn to respond to, reflect on and analyse their own work and the work of others and evaluate the contribution of drama and theatre to enriching society.
Music
Year 7 and 8
In year 7 and 8, music students cover a variety of topics such as instruments of the orchestra, music notation and rhythm, keyboard and guitar work, and also take a look at instruments in a rock band along with ensemble work. We work with percussion instruments for rhythmic activities and also touch on western instruments such as guitars and keyboards in year 7 before moving on to more advanced work in year 8.
Year 9 and 10
Students are introduced to a broader range of topics in music such as Australian music, music of a culture, popular music, classical, film music and so much more. Students also study the concepts of music and focus more on analysing selected repertoire discussing the use of duration, pitch, tone colour, texture, structure, dynamics and expressive techniques. Practical work is a large part of music in stage 5 and students are required to complete performance tasks and are encouraged to participate in whole school events such as Multicultural day and MADD Fest.
Year 11 and 12
Music in stage 6 can become quite complex, students are required to gain a deeper understanding of theory work as their written exam requires them to analyse music focusing on the use of duration, pitch, tone colour, texture, structure, dynamics and expressive techniques. Students also begin work on their HSC performance pieces as performance is a large part of this subject. Students are encouraged to participate in whole school events such as Multicultural Day and MADD Fest as well as actively participating in Year 12 Showcase where they are required to perform their HSC pieces to their family and friends.
Photography
Photography and Digital Media
As part of the Creative and Performing Arts Faculty, we offer the subject Photographic and Digital Media to students in years 9, 10, 11 and 12. In years 9 and 10 the subject is a 2 Unit course where students explore the conventions of photographic practice in Australia as well as internationally. Students are engaged in historical and critical investigations of photographic practice, as well as their own artmaking practice. Students use both traditional and contemporary photographic techniques to produce their own images. Students appreciate how to develop prints within the darkroom using chemicals. Students also explore how to take photographs using digital techniques, incorporating digital cameras, specific computer software and manipulative techniques.
Photographic and Digital Media in years 11 and 12 is offered as a 1 Unit course where students focus on developing their artmaking skills in terms of image making. Students concentrate on developing an artmaking style within the genre of photography. Students develop their skills further to create original and contemporary imagery that is of a high quality. Historical investigations are incorporated into the senior course, however, the main focus of the unit is to develop the students' practical skills, utilising specific equipment and new technology.
Visual Arts
Visual Arts
Visual Arts is a mandatory subject in years 7 and 8 and becomes an elective subject for students in years 9, 10, 11 and 12. Visual Arts in the junior school is dedicated to developing the basic creative skills of students. Through engaging and creative artmaking activities, students learn how to produce an artwork that is of high quality. Students engage in a variety of classroom activities like drawing, watercolour painting, lino- printing and a variety of 3D forms like ceramics and sculpture. Visual Arts also incorporates historical and critical studies where students learn about specific artists and artworks from the world today and in the past.
Visual Arts in years 9 – 10 focuses on developing student's skills across a broad range of artmaking techniques, including painting on canvas, sculpture and installation, collaborative artmaking tasks, as well as individual projects that are student centred.
Stage 6 Visual Arts encompasses an equal amount of historical and critical studies and artmaking practice. Students refine their artmaking skills in specific artmaking genres to utilise their strengths within the visual arts to construct quality artworks that are resolved and conceptually strong. Students create a range of artworks throughout the Preliminary year, as well as study a range of artists and artworks as a part of their case studies. HSC visual arts focuses on the students developing a Body of Work and completing a range of school- based assessment tasks and an HSC examination.
