Brentwood School - Brentwoodian 2020

38 Dance Academy The 2019 annual Senior Dance Academy presentation was an impressive and visual demonstration of the hard work and dedication that goes into Dance at Brentwood School. Through a combination of both extracurricular and curriculum dance, the showcase explored a variety of dance styles, including jazz, tap and contemporary and utilised several different dancers across the senior years. The dance studio was packed with a hundred friends, family members and school staff, all of whom acknowledged the talented cohort of senior dancers the school possesses and the spellbounding choreography taught by Ms Herterich and Ms Choate. The rigorous rehearsals began early in October and lasted for the duration of the Michaelmas term, with the final performance being on the last week before we broke up for the Christmas holidays. The commitment shown by the dancers and the work that went into the showcase was definitely reflected in our final production as we performed with confidence and an element of poise. This hard work continued into the Lent term as we began preparations for the 2020 Dance Show. Although we are yet to know the date of this performance, we take great pride in our achievements and we move together as an academy, ready to take on and present you all with “The Greatest Show”. By Clarise Castleman The lockdown caused many things to take a pause, but this change of events was not about to stop Brentwood School’s Drama Department. Through the magical world of Twitter, they were able to set up monologue competitions for us to take part in. Students and teachers alike sent in submissions for the challenges, the first of which was film and television. To kick us off we saw Mrs Clark performing an energetic and funny piece from Bridesmaids and Mr Bulmer showcased an intense monologue from the movie Taken . These were not the only members of staff we saw get involved. Mr Clark got creative in more ways than one when he delivered his monologue from Gladiators complete with his homemade costume and Miss Foster gave a magical performance as Hermione Granger from The Philosopher’s Stone . We were even given the treat of seeing our Headmaster flaunt his skills and his accent in his monologue from Braveheart . With the teachers leading by example, the entries from students came flooding in. After seeing this, I, for one, knew I wanted to get involved so I got decked out in makeup and tried to get into the mindset of a killer clown for a monologue as Pennywise. I must say, it was great fun to do something new like this in the middle of being stuck at home. We also saw Murray Peat who channelled all the sass for his entertaining monologue from Celebrity Big Brother . Emily O’Sullivan performed a stunning piece from Love, Rosie , which showcased all her natural talent for acting. And Alex Lockyer provided us with his ‘septologue’, using the power of technology to play all seven parts from the iconic “I Want It That Way” scene in Brooklyn Nine-nine . Now that’s dedication! Congratulations to Murray who was announced as the champion for that competition for his passionate delivery and excellent embodiment of the character! A well-deserved win, and it is clear to see that Brentwood School has lots of talented individuals ready to show their skills.It seems, whatever happens, we can always rely on the Drama team at Brentwood school to keep our creativity alive! By Heather Trevelyan Film Monologue Online Competition