Disciplines

Dance

In its eighth year, The Hun School of Princeton Dance Company offers classes in jazz, lyrical and ballet each fall and spring. Since dance is a performance art, classes culminate in a presentation given in the theater each November and May. Members of the Company receive two athletic points each trimester that they take class. During the winter, dance is offered to the cast of the musical, and members of the Company are encouraged to audition. The Company is multi-level, and all are welcome, regardless of proficiency level. So that everyone can benefit from their talents, accommodations can be made for dancers who have rigorous outside dance commitments.

For information, contact program director Lisa Yacomelli.

Theatre

The Hun School of Princeton Theatre Program consists of three classes that are offered beginning at the 8th grade level and progressing through Freshmen year and Junior and Senior levels. The Janus Players produce three major productions each year, a comedy in the Fall, a winter musical and a drama or a classically-based play in the Spring. Athletic points are given for participation in the theatre program and approximately 50 students overall are involved.

For information, contact theatre director Aaron Bogad.

2005-2006 Productions
Fall Production - The Diary of Anne Frank
Winter Musical - Godspell
Spring Production - Lysistrata

Music

Course offerings include chamber music performance, jazz band, and choral performance.

For information, contact music director Mario Flores.

Visual Arts

Course offerings include architectural drawing, ceramics, drawing, painting, photography, three-dimensional art, video production, and woodworking.

For information, contact fine arts department chair David Bush.

 

Click here for news and information on upcoming performances and exhibitions.

 

Course Offerings

Middle School Art
The art curriculum is designed to enhance and encourage personal awareness skills through creativity and art appreciation. Students will explore and learn a variety of art activities and techniques, including drawing, painting, ceramics, sculpture, papier-mache, and color studies. Also included is a study of artists from the Renaissance to the present.

Middle School Music
The music curriculum includes vocal music performance, instrumental music performance, and general music. The general music component consists of instruction in composition, history, and solfege. Performing ensembles rehearse and perform on a limited basis.

Middle School Drama
The drama curriculum includes an examination of theater techniques and creative communication: acting, speaking, oral reading, improvisation, monologue work, and theater games. There is a strong focus on observation, sense recall, concentration, and vocal projection, along with an introduction to playwriting.

Introduction to Ceramics
This course introduces students to ceramics, and includes a variety of forming techniques, design, decoration, glazing, and throwing on the wheel. Students create sculptural and utilitarian pieces.

Introduction to Drama
This course introduces students to all practical elements of the theater. Students experience the footlights, not only as actors, but also through understanding the methods and approaches directors have used over the last fifty years. Phyllis Hartnoll’s text, The Theatre, is utilized in teaching theatre history in addition to theatre practicum.

Introduction to Music
In this introductory course, students will improve their listening skills, come to understand the basic elements that contribute to musical expression, learn about the history of western art music, deal with aesthetic issues significant to modern music, and become comfortable with self-expression in a musical context. Course activities include group and individual composition projects, in-class and independent listening and music analysis, study of the mechanics of music, readings on musical issues, class debates, attending concerts and writing reviews, and conducting research on a topic of interest.

Introduction to Visual Arts
This course is designed to teach students how to think, read, and write about art. Students are required to produce artwork in numerous media and complete a full sketchbook. They critique famous artworks as well as their own. Art vocabulary and art history are crucial elements of this course.

Introduction to Woodworking
This course stresses the safe use of hand and power tools. Students identify different types of woods used in furniture making and learn fundamental building techniques. Each student will create two original pieces.

Ceramics 2
Students explore forming techniques, including hand building, thrown, and cast forms. They may also work on advanced throwing techniques, including combination pieces with lids, handles, and spouts. Students are evaluated on creativity, form, function, and craftsmanship.

Architectural Drawing
In this course, each student completes a whole set of house plans and then selects an actual building site on which to build a dream home. Students learn the CAD system and participate in several field trips. Students study commercial design to experience working on group solutions.

Chamber Music Performance
This course aims to expose advanced players and singers to the experience of performing chamber art music, and to familiarize them with the chamber music repertoire ranging from Baroque to contemporary. Class time is divided between coached ensemble rehearsals, independent ensemble rehearsals, and individual practice. Students are members of The Hun School Chamber Players, an ensemble that performs on and off campus throughout the year.

Drawing
This course is designed to strengthen students’ observational drawing skills. Students draw each other, the still life, nature, from photographs, and from their imaginations. A wide range of drawing materials are used: pencil, ink, charcoal, pastels, crayons, and linoleum prints. Projects focus on color, perspective, and the effects of light. Students learn how different artists approach drawing and how to identify different styles of work.

Hun School Singers
This performance course is the basis for Hun’s primary vocal group, for which an audition is required. The ensemble performs a variety of styles, ranging from classical to jazz, folk, and pop, and has performance opportunities both on and off campus.

Jazz Band
This performance course is designed to expand students’ musical horizons. Students explore improvisation exercises and music theory. Field trips, master classes, and jazz studies are required. Students attend listening classes weekly to familiarize themselves with both classic and contemporary jazz.

Painting
This course concentrates on the techniques and processes involved in creating a painting. Students explore different media, study the processes of artists such as Ben Shahn and Howard Hodgkin, and study Realism and Abstraction.

Photography 1
In this course, students learn to operate a Single Lens Reflex 35mm camera and control all the functions of the camera. They do all of the film processing and darkroom printing to create black and white photographs. Assignments are designed to focus on one technique at a time, building on each other throughout the course. Once the basic processes are mastered, the topics covered move on to studio lighting, creative darkroom techniques, flash photography, and hand coloring. The history of photography is covered as well as a wide range of relevant techniques and vocabulary.

Photography 2
This class is designed to help students build a portfolio of work that will represent their vision of photography. Students are encouraged to define their own aesthetics and explore their own themes. Topics covered include color photography, digital photography, lith film, and infrared film. Students also explore specialized areas of the photography business like fashion photography, photographic illustration, and documentary photography. Within each of these areas, the work of famous photographers is introduced, with students learning to identify different styles of work.

3-D Art
This sculpture class acquaints students with the concepts and materials associated with creating and understanding three-dimensional art. The course presents students with a historical perspective by studying the rudiments of 3-D art from the initial reasons for the creation of sculpture up to contemporary uses. Artists of the 20th century are the primary focus, with students learning to recognize the works of 60 artists. Students will explore 3-D media possibilities through clay modeling, wood construction, alternative materials, direct plaster carving, environmental, and performance pieces. The class will take numerous field trips.

Video Production 1, 2
Students will develop both creative and technical skills in a production environment as they explore the four genres of video: narrative, documentary, experimental, and animation. They will write, produce, and direct their own video projects and study techniques in camera shooting and editing. Video Production 2 focuses on selected topics in more depth.

Advanced Scene Study
Functioning as a Master Class for students who have taken Introduction to Drama, this course is designed to encourage students to learn advanced acting techniques and method instruction through specific scene work. Focus is on professional standards, specifically, auditions, performance techniques, and survival skills in professional theater.

Advanced Studio Art Honors
This course is designed to continue to explore, in a rigorous manner, the concepts begun in previous art classes. Students are asked to expand their notions of what art is, as they become experimenters and discoverers. Working within developed ideas is stressed as students each learn their own process of formulating and developing thoughts and, subsequently, discover how to best manifest those ideas.

Advanced Woodworking
This course is designed to expand upon the basic woodworking skills. Students study advanced fundamentals of materials, tools, machines, and processes used in the safe construction of fine furniture.