After a long winter, the sun’s warming rays, budding trees, and blossoming flowers are all signs that spring has sprung on the Mountain. Another important sign is the arrival of Storm King’s annual Spring Arts Weekend. The weekend is organized by the SKS Department of Visual and Performing Arts in collaboration with the Department of English to celebrate various branches of the visual, performing, and language arts, and the talent and dedication of our students and faculty. This year, Spring Arts Weekend took place on Thursday, April 26, through Sunday, April 29, and featured a series of exciting events.

 

 

The Weekend was kicked off on the evening of Thursday, April 26, in the Walter Reade Jr. Theatre, when a small group of students got on stage to perform a series of entertaining One Act plays including La Mouche by Stephen Bittrich and Over the Moon by Lavinia Roberts that inspired laughter from the audience. The plays featured student-actors of all levels, including stage veterans Jack Besterman ‘18, Scott Rolon ‘18, Joe Dawson ‘18, and Tamar Haham ‘19, as well as Aryana Martin ‘18, Jayden Figueroa ‘19, Emmanuel Davis ‘20, Aiden Sweeney ‘19, Bridget Wickiser ‘18, Helen Shen ‘20, Conall Sweeney ‘20, Chris Chang ‘20, and Sean Witte ‘20.

 

 

Theater Director Anne Fulton was very pleased with the show this year: “Students in my acting class look forward to the One Act performances every year. It’s a more casual, low-tech show than the others we present during the school year, and the plays are usually comedies. I think our audience enjoys the format. The plays are five to 10 minutes long and we don’t have a set. We just use a few chairs, a table, and props, so the focus is on the actors and the stories. Several of the actors had never played to an audience before, so it was a fun, fresh experience for them. We also had a great response from the audience. They also enjoyed performing in the small space in front of the curtain and being so close to the audience. This was one of the best groups I’ve had in acting class since I began teaching.”

 

 

Friday, April 27, focused on the visual arts when the talent of student-artists was recognized at an art exhibition and awards presentation held in Ogden Hall. Students from all art classes offered at SKS displayed their works, and each category had a winner judged by a panel of SKS faculty members.

Art Award recipients included Jeewara Jarearnphan ’20 in Drawing for her charcoal sketch Pomegranate; Zhoushi Ichabod Ren ’18 in Painting for Honey; Liwei Wang ‘20 in Photography; A. River Holasek ‘20 in Digital Design for a self-portrait; John Stuart Bobrow ‘21 in 3-D Construction for Wings, Max Chen ’19 in Watercolor for Owls; Emily Elizabeth Kent ’21 in Fashion for Butterfly Dress. The Best in Show Award went to Polina Shlovskaya ’18 for Classical Head and the Most Creative Award was given to Huanran Mao ‘20 for her animation.

 

 

During the exhibition, guests were also treated to a book reading by Storm King Creative Writing students. The students worked collaboratively throughout the year in real-world situations to write, illustrate, and publish their own children’s books. The readings included Cem Taviloglu ’19 – The Cowboy Frog, Owen Ng ’18 – Why Are You Worrying, Igor Zelenko ’19 – Mr. Book, Peiyu Yang ‘19- Gain or Lost, Haohui Zheng ’19 – Cake to Cupcake, Siyu Wang ’19 – The Magic Pen, Yumeng Song ’18 – The Little Pumpkin, and Songjun Ning ’18 – A Black Oval Stone.

 

 

Another important Language Arts event – the Second Annual Storm King School Poetry Festival – was held at the Walter Reade Jr. Theatre on the evening of Saturday, April 28. The festival hosted young poets from SKS and other independent schools in the region, including Poughkeepsie Day School, Rye Country Day School, New York Military Academy, Millbrook School, South Kent School, Greens Farms Academy, Beaver Country Day School, and The Gunnery School. Following opening words by Headmaster Jonathan Lamb, the event began with a student-film prepared for the School’s sesquicentennial by freshman Emily Elizabeth Kent, and lively impromptu “Slam Poetry” performed by Storm King students in the audience.

The Poetry Festival was organized by the SKS English Department, who said they received more than 125 poetry submissions from around the region. Nineteen poems chosen as finalists were judged by Storm King alumnus and poet Mr. Steve Hirsch ’77 and Hudson Valley poet laureate Mr. Robert Milby.

 

 

Following an introduction of the student-poets, the judges took turns reading the poems and giving each finalist feedback. At the conclusion of the ceremony, awards were given to three finalists including Storm King’s Olivia O’Blaney ‘21 for her moving poem “Where I’m From,” Rye Country Day School’s Caitlyn Dahnke for “Four Walls,” and Beaver Country Day School’s Isabelle Aronson for “Fifteen Minutes Until Landing.” Ms. Sarah Pfeffer was presented with the Excellence in Education Award for her outstanding contributions to the English department at South Kent School and for “inspiring her 10th-grade students.”