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Overview
In addition to working with instructors from the Arts Academy and from the ProArts Consortium, students have the opportunity to work with a variety of professional artists—local, national, and international. In the past, the following artists were in residence and/or provided master classes at the Arts Academy: the Alvin Ailey Dance Company, the American Ballet Theatre, George Faison, Wendy Kesselman, Yo Yo Ma, Shakespeare & Company, the Mark Morris Dance Group, Keith Lockhart, Tito Puente, Paul Tucker, Bill T. Jones, Royal National Shakespeare Company, Diane Walker, Peter Gould, and August Wilson. In addition, student benefit from strong relationships with local arts organizations such as Boston Symphony Orchestra, Institute for Contemporary Art, Boston Classical Orchestra, Handel & Haydn Society, the Gardner Museum, Museum
of Fine Arts, Boston Chamber Music Society, Broadway in Boston, and FleetBoston Celebrity Series.
Dance
The Dance Program at the Boston Arts Academy is a rigorous and comprehensive program of study. The curriculumis designed to provide professional training in dance that prepares students for further studies at post-secondary institutions or a career in dance.
Music
All music students take four years of foundation courses in music history, music theory (including rhythmic, harmonic, and melodic dictation), vocal technique, and keyboarding. Students also take music and technology courses, with an emphasis on sound design and computer-assisted composition. Upperclass music students are assigned a private teacher; through private lessons, students learn proper performance technique, performance practice, and repertory study. Finally, music students have the opportunity to perform in at least one ensemble per school year. In the past, instrumental students have participated in string quartets/quintets, brass woodwind quartets/quintets, jazz combos, percussion ensemble, and guitar ensemble. Vocal students have participated in Chamber Music Choir, Jazz Choir, BAAcapella, Madrigals, and Concert Chorus.
Emphasis in all ensembles is on musicianship, performance practices, music reading, ensemble playing/singing, intonation, and (where appropriate) improvisation.
Theatre
Theatre students build knowledge of all areas of the discipline and develop their skills in a supportive and creative ensemble that is project-based and culturally aware. Throughout their four years of theatre study, students build vocal technique and breath control; develop physical support, control and relaxation; research and analyze character and text as actor and director; develop an understanding of acting and directing technique; learn to develop a theatre piece from process to product; develop playwriting skills; develop an understanding of the nature of critique; develop an understanding of the context of theatre from various cultural influences and throughout theatre history; and produce a community-related theatre work. Students also learn the basics of theatre production: scenery, props, costume construction and design, stage
lighting and sound, and production management administration and communications. As upperclassmen, students participate in a number of special events with visiting artists.
Visual Arts
The Visual Art Curriculum is organized thematically: the 9th grade curriculum centers on the theme of "Me, Myself, and I"; the 10th grade theme is ""Looking Outward: Connecting to the Community"; the 11th grade theme is "Fantasy and Time." In their senior year, visual arts majors create and organize an individual curriculum, document their process, identify community needs for their work, create and schedule monthly critiques, and curate and execute a senior exhibit. Throughout their four years at the Arts Academy, visual arts students gain experience in the following media: drawing (including observational, contour, still life, figure, nude, gesture, and applied perspective); printmaking (including ink and print, working in reverse, creating an edition, additive and subtractive, monoprinting, rainbow
rolls, oil-based ink, woodcuts, transfer techniques); painting (including colormaking, mixing and hue, use of palette, color relationships, painted picture plane, mural, abstraction); mixed media (including assemblage, collage, design, adhesion techniques, found objects, conceptual and installation art); photography (including the science of photography, enlargers, camera obscura, alternative processees, and large-scale prints); sculpture (including form and shape, armature, properties of clay, transition from 2D to 3D, beginning glazing skills, properties of plaster, abstraction in 3D form, and mold making); and media-assisted art (including Adobe Photoshop, RayDream Designer, Visual Page, and GIF Builder in computer-generated art and basics of video production). Students also gain curatorial skills; practice critique and analysis skills; and study art history and art context.
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