School Events

This weekend, Cory and I went to watch two ISM events: The high school Dance Company's last show, Around the World in Eighty Minutes and the middle school play, Remembering Rezima. On Friday afternoon, we watched the dancing. The students in Dance Co. did a pretty good job. They took turns choreographing dances and also learned from professionals in the field. They chose the music and the mood and designed the theme. It's pretty impressive when you think of it that way. While they have a lot to learn still, they tried really hard and made it look easy. On Saturday evening, we returned to ISM to watch the play. Cory and I were blown away with not only the acting, but by the sheer fact that the students had written the script. The kids went to the director with an idea for doing a play that involved children in war time. The director went with it and the middle-schoolers explored scenes and dialogue through trial-and-error. Then, they wrote a script that depicted the lives of several school-age children and their families in a made-up village, so as not to refer to any one crisis in the world. They showed the innocence and naivete of children before war strikes and how it is all lost. They brought up issues of child soldiers, permanent injury, death, heartache and fear. The emotion they had behind their characters was incredible. The play was really intense and actually brought tears to my eyes! Apparently, for one of their shows, some middle-schoolers came to watch and were uncomfortable with certain scenes in the play and began to laugh. They were reamed out by the play coordinator, but it is hard for students of that age to take war seriously. Which makes it even more spectacular that these kids could pull it off. Cory knew most of them and we both thoroughly enjoyed the 45-minute show. Our arts department is just amazing and we have enjoyed watching the students perform countless times already!