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Performing/Visual Arts

Performing Arts (Theatre and Music)

The performing arts are a vital part of our students’ educational program, both in the Middle and Upper Schools. A variety of electives allow students to explore theatre, music, singing, theory, and technique. Non-performance classes include stagecraft, world music and politics, and techno music. All students have the opportunity to perform in annual drama and musical productions, and informally during forums and assemblies; our students also participate in all-state band and chorus, and the Independent Schools Association of the Southwest Arts Festival.

There are two major productions each year for students in grades 9 through 12: an Upper School Play in the fall, and an Upper School Musical in early spring. These productions are extra-curricular and all students are invited to audition. There is one major production for students in grades 7 and 8: a spring musical which rehearses as part of the 2nd semester Middle School Musical Theater class. In addition to these productions there is the Winters Arts night for both the Middle and Upper School students where they perform work produced in Chorus, Jazz Band and Acting during first semester. To learn more about our Performing Arts program, please contact Department Chair Brad Fairbanks.

Visual Arts

The Visual Art program is rigorous and inspiring and is enriched by the collaborative energy of seven distinct disciplines—Drawing, Painting, Ceramics, Contemporary Sculpture, Media Arts, Printmaking, and Photography.  At the heart of the Arts Department is a curricular program that is both broad and deep. We offer courses intended to engage and support the inquisitive beginner, as well as courses intended to challenge and distill the skills of students who have experience in deliberate arts engagement. The arts are the foundation of expression in every culture, and at the heart of our curriculum are programs that encourage students to produce authentic self-expression, the confidence to jump into the unfamiliar and strange, and the ability to be self-aware and self-critical. We celebrate multiple perspectives and emphasize the connectedness between the various arts and other academic disciplines.

Essential to our arts program is the confidence that substantive arts education is an essential component of a Santa Fe Preparatory education and that every student will find success and satisfaction in making and doing. Many of the most complex and subtle forms of thinking take place when students have an opportunity either to work meaningfully on the creation of images and objects or to scrutinize them appreciatively. To this effect, our arts faculty develop specific curricula that animate students’ imaginative capacities and promote their ability to undergo emotionally pervaded experiences.  Our goal is to inspire and encourage the artist in every individual. Over the course of any given school year, the Visual Arts program attentively instructs well over seventy-five percent of the student body and creatively engages the entire school community with special shows and interventions. To learn more about our individual disciplines, please contact Art Chair Matt Mulllins.