Performing Arts at Mount Ridley P-12 College provides students with the opportunity to explore the subject areas of Drama, Dance and Music during the course of their Prep to Year 12 education.

Drama

Drama is the expression and exploration of personal, cultural and social worlds through role and situation that engages, entertains and challenges. Students create meaning as drama makers, performers and audiences as they enjoy and analyse their own and others’ stories and points of view. Like all art forms, drama has the capacity to engage, inspire and enrich all students, excite the imagination and encourage students to reach their creative and expressive potential. Drama enables students to imagine and participate in exploration of their worlds, individually and collaboratively.

Dance

Dance is expressive movement with purpose and form. Through Dance, students express, question and celebrate human experience, using the body as the instrument and movement as the medium for personal, social, emotional, spiritual and physical communication. Like all art forms, dance has the capacity to engage, inspire and enrich all students, exciting the imagination and encouraging students to reach their creative and expressive potential. They choreograph, perform and appreciate as they engage with dance practice and practitioners in their own and others’ cultures and communities.

Music

Music is uniquely an aural art form. It encompasses existing sounds that are selected and shaped; new sounds created by composers and performers, and the placement of sounds in time and space. Composers, performers and listeners perceive and define these sounds as music. Music exists distinctively in every culture and is a basic expression of human experience. Students’ active participation in music fosters understanding of other times, places, cultures and contexts. Through continuous and sequential music learning, students listen to, compose and perform with increasing depth and complexity. Through performing, composing and listening with intent to music, students have access to knowledge, skills and understanding, which can be gained in no other way.

Early Years

In the Early Years Mini School (Prep – Year 4), students explore and develop the fundamental Performing Arts skills for all three subject areas. This includes the exploring and expressing of ideas, learning key practices for Drama, Dance and Music, presenting and performing their work to an audience, and responding and interpreting their own and others’ works. The Prep to Grade 4 curriculum utilises a Word of the Day program to develop student literacy and the foundations of specific Performing Arts language. Additionally all Early Years students are given opportunities to perform beyond the classroom, for 2022 the format of this is to be determined. 

Junior/ Middle Years

In Junior and Middle Years (Year 5 – Year 9), students build upon and develop their essential Performing Arts skills through semester based delivery of classes. In Years 5 and 6, students explore performance styles and develop their performance skills by creating and interpreting Dramatic, Dance and Musical works. They participate in a 3 week Dance program in Term 3, facilitated by external dance teachers from a professional dance school, to develop their personal movement vocabulary, dance experience and exposure to different arts forms. Students also explore the use of instruments to create and play music.

Senior Years

In the Senior Years (Years 10 – 12), Performing Arts is an elective based curriculum, allowing students to select various subjects according to their personal interests and individual skill set.

Senior Performing Arts Electives offered at Mount Ridley College:

• VCE Drama (Units 1+2)
• VCE Drama (Units 3+4)
• VCE Dance (Units 1+2)
• VCE Dance (Units 3+4)
• 11 VET Music Industry
• 12 VET Music Industry
• Year 10 Drama
• Year 10 Dance
• Year 10 Music

College Production

2023 Matilda

2020 Disney’s Beauty and the Beast – Junior (Cancelled for 2020, 2021 and 2022 due to impact from Coronavirus)

2019 Disney’s High School Musical (One Act version)

2018 Disney’s CAMP ROCK – The Musical

2018 The Wizard of OZ Junior

Instrumental Music Program

Students in Years 3 – 12 are given the opportunity to enrol in the Instrumental Music Program offered at Mount Ridley College. Successful placement in this extracurricular program will see students undertaking lessons in Keyboard/Piano, Guitar, Voice, Drums and/or Bass. All lessons are taught by industry standard musicians who specialise in their given instrument. Students in the program will develop their performance skills to the highest level and will be given the opportunity to perform at a wide range of school events.

More information can be found in the Instrumental Music Program handbook.

Instrumental Music Handbook

To enrol in the Instrumental Music Program offered at Mount Ridley College, please fill out either the MS Forms link below, or the PDF document (and return to the Main Administration office). There are also hard copies of the enrolment form available at the Main Administration office and the Performing Arts office. Spots are limited and students may be placed on a waitlist.

Once your enrolment form has been received, a member of the Performing Arts team will contact you regarding your child’s enrolment status.

MS Forms Online Enrolment Form:

https://forms.office.com/r/nP3pMr5CcE

Instrumental Music Program Enrolment Form:

Instrumental Music enrolment form

Please note that if you complete the 2023 IMP Enrolment form, it must be returned to Administration for processing.

Clubs

The Performing Arts department is currently offering the following extra-curricular programs for all students at Mount Ridley College during lunchtime and/or after school:

• Singing Club
• Dance Classes
• Production
• More to come!

All programs are provided FREE for interested students.

All expressions of interest can be addressed to the Performing Arts department via email, phone, Compass, MS Teams and/or in person.