Cornwall-on-Hudson, NY

This past weekend, the Mountain was blooming with more than just flowers. The Arts came to life as The Storm King School held Spring Arts Weekend on Thursday, April 20, through Sunday, April 23. The weekend was designed to celebrate various branches of the visual, performing, and language arts, along with the talent and dedication of our students and faculty.

Throughout the weekend, the school community enjoyed the spring weather as they strolled across campus to enjoy the events. Visual and Performing Arts Department Chair John Carruthers had a lot to say about the success of this year’s festival. “I believe it really exceeded our expectations,” he said. “All the students who participated had great attitudes, and really enjoyed the activities.”

The event was kicked off on the evening of April 20 in the Walter Reade Jr. Theatre where SKS Theatre Director Anne Fulton’s students performed seven highly entertaining one act plays. The plays starred young actors of all levels, including stage veterans Jack Besterman, Scott Rolon, Olivia deBree, Nic George, and Nick Budich, as well as Caroline Hecht, Allegra Walker, Ekin Dalman, Jutta Appiah, Claudia Gonzalez, and newcomers Joseph Dawson and DJ Omolayole. “The students really enjoyed the short plays format; they were happy to work on comedies after the serious subject matter of “Cabaret” earlier in the year,” explained Fulton. “They also enjoyed performing in the small space in front of the curtain and being so close to the audience. They all get along really well. This was one of the best groups I’ve had in acting class since I began teaching,” she said.

The excitement continued on Friday, April 21, with a fine arts exhibition and art awards in Ogden Hall. Students from all art classes offered at SKS displayed their works, and each category had a winner. The art was judged by a panel of SKS faculty members. “The art exhibit allowed students to show off their strengths that are sometimes hidden from other students and the SKS community, unless they physically come to the art center to look at what’s hanging on the walls,” said John Carruthers. “There was great excitement when we gave out awards for the art work, and the students really supported each other.”

Art Award recipients included Polina Shklovskaya in Drawing for her work “Apollo”; Tiana Vazquez in Painting for “Portrait”; Ines Borbon-Bours in Printmaking for “Fish”; Cierra Martin in Photography for “Portrait”; Jae Hyun Kim in Digital Design for “Broken Pattern”; Liwei Wang in 3-D Construction for “Mask,” Shona Vo in Creative Technology; Ichabod Ren in Ceramics for “Native King.” The Best of Show award went to Gloria Wang and Iris Zhang for their pop art painting called “American Beauty.” The Most Creative award was given to Dorothy Mao for her graphic novel titled “Roaring Flames.”

The “Reading Room” – an event highlighting Language Arts – also took place on Friday where students read aloud children’s stories they had written and illustrated themselves. Each of their stories has been published as a book and will be sold online.

Another important Language Arts event – the First Annual Storm King School Poetry Festival – was held at the Walter Reade Jr. Theatre on the evening of Saturday, April 21. The festival hosted young poets from SKS and other independent schools in the region, including Wooster School, Chase Collegiate School, Marvelwood School, Greens Farms Academy, Poughkeepsie Day School and Watkinson School. The event was organized by the English Department, who said they received over 150 poetry submissions. The poems were professionally judged by Eve Becker and Chris Blackman of The School at Columbia University in New York City. The evening received a great deal of praise, not only from the judges and parents, but from families of the other schools who participated.

“I think we saw an important cross section of high school youth on display at the poetry festival,” said Jeremy Freeman. “In a world that favors extroverted endeavors, catchy headlines and heroic sports achievement, I think this festival supported and uplifted a group of young writers whose spirits are best characterized as empathetic, highly self-aware, curious, introverted, introspective, philosophical, and artistic,” he said. Poetry awards were given to three of the 17 participants, including Ben Shaw of Poughkeepsie Day School for “About Music,” Flynn Murtaugh of Greens Farms Academy for “City Lights,” and to our own Naunet Leonhardes-Barboza for her moving poem called “Where I’m From (Tomorrow).”

Sunday, the last day of the festival, featured a Creative Entrepreneur workshop in the Art Center and the premier screening of “Nicky Goes to School,” a student-led feature film and a “labor of love that was two years in the making” according to Director of Film/Video Production Zhenya Kiperman. Both events were excellent opportunities for students to see how their passion in the Arts can be taken to the professional level. The workshop “put students together with professional fashion designer and entrepreneur Mariya Kelly to learn how to define their career path by analyzing their talents and goals, and determining what would be positive career choices, either as a creative worker in business for oneself, or looking to have a fulfilling life and career,” said John Carruthers. “The feature film was yet another opportunity for students to see how an extended, multi-year project can result in a professional-level product.”

The Storm King School Spring Arts Weekend was a great success and planning for next year is already underway. Many thanks go out to the faculty who organized and ran the weekend, the talented students who participated, our art and poetry judges, and the families from SKS and other participating schools for their support of the Arts.