From January through March 42 students from as young as six-years-old to as old as thirteen-years-old gathered every Friday to create magic together. The magic invoked was theater at its finest complete with pirates, heroes, and villains. This fun twist on the old Treasure Island classic by Robert Louis Stevenson featured Josie, an adventurous and courageous young girl, as the main character. The theme of the play was one of empowerment, imagination, and actualization as Josie learns that in the end it truly is always her adventure no matter what obstacles and challenges come her way. As the performance drew nearer it became clearer and clearer that these youngsters were transforming and evolving not only as confident young actors and techies, but also as an extremely multi-aged and connected ensemble. Whispered cues were hurriedly exchanged backstage as actors reminded each other of their blocking, while stagehands stepped into their less visible yet powerful roles of supporting the production as a whole. By the time the curtains closed on that epic first and last performance, those 42 students stood together as friends, artists, storytellers, performers, and family. Huzzah and congratulations to these brave pirates!
In their first trimester electives, Omega students had the choice to take either Home Economics, Theater of the Oppressed, Advanced Art Techniques, Creative Writing Workshop, or Choral Explorations. These four brave 7th and 8th graders chose to deepen their understanding of vocal technique, harmony, and choral arrangement in Choral Explorations with Sue Forde, our wildly creative music director. They performed their original song “Love is More” to an amazed audience during our Annual Winter Program. The Jaegens’ insightful lyrics and playful melody delighted and inspired all in attendance. Love is overused, abused, confused with admiration, attraction, creation, temptation, obsession, emotion, relation, confusion, delusion… The song starts with this somber note on the misuse of Love and then continues to motivate us to build a new and more compassionate relationship to Love itself.
For the Annual Winter Program this past December the eighth grade worked with Billy Goodrum, acclaimed composer and musician, to create a totally unique originally composed song. In songwriting workshops students composed the melody and rhythm as well as wrote their very own lyrics, like the beautiful chorus: “Let the love shine through, it’s a chain reaction; spread the love and take some action.” The grounded rhythm combined with the wise lyrics make for a heart opening and catchy song. Thank you, Billy, for your help in guiding our students’ natural creativity into musical form.
Billy Goodrum, acclaimed composer and musician, as well as long-time Rainbow parent, worked with the seventh grade to create an originally written and composed song for last year’s Winter Program. In intensive song writing workshops, Billy first worked with the seventh graders to write a collaborative chorus that could serve as the songs steady heartbeat. Students thrived in their creative process as they gained the skills to express their truth through song ultimately agreeing on the title, “Love is Action”.
Teachers and staff gathered together to sing the final song of our Winter Program. After a night of love made visible by the the children’s heart-centered creativity and authentic expression, this cumulating song genuinely expressed our response to what we had seen that night. Musical Director, Sue Ford, in collaboration with the classroom teachers and parents had helped our students to create an entire show of originally written songs on the theme of love. As teachers and staff we were blown away by what our students had accomplished and were truly “full of love” that night.
