Students at Madeira Park Elementary School got a close up experience with the arts last week.
Principal Barry Krangle outlined the activities for each day of Fine Arts Week, May 12 to 16, and they included local performers of all kinds: painting, pottery and a role for each child in a circus show.
“It’s a chance to celebrate the arts,” Krangle said, “and give opportunities for kids to excel in the arts.”
He pointed to the rich community of artists available on the Sunshine Coast that gave the school the encouragement to book local performers.
Musician Mark Brezer (remember him from Sunshine Coast Idol?) sang for the kids, as did local troubadour Penny Lang. Figura, a performing group from Iceland, put on Peter and the Wolf to everyone’s delight. Painters from the Harbour Gallery demonstrated their art, and Patty Soos brought her pottery to school. Kids began to paint about 100 cut-out plywood fish that are being given a chance to swim along the school fence in the Sakinaw sockeye project.
Arts are not an addition to the curriculum, Krangle noted, but an integral part.
“We want to make them [the students] want to come to school,” he said.
He also felt that a study of the arts balanced out the attention given to sports.
Grades 5 and 6 studied distinguished artists, and the entire school trained for some big moments in a circus act. Local performer, magician and mime artist Gerardo Avila worked with each child throughout the week to bring out the best for a circus show of Jack and the Beanstalk, a story told through masks, puppetry, gymnastics, dance and theatre. It was open to parents and the public on Friday afternoon.
