Band and dance students displayed their talents in the first combined Fine Arts Showcase at Chemainus Secondary School.
There was a packed house in the school’s multi-purpose room for the evening performance.
“It went really well,” said dance teacher Kim Magnan, who’s in her first year at the school. “They’ve never done it as a Fine Arts Showcase. It’s always been just dance or just band.”
The Grade 8 and concert bands, under the direction of Siobhan Anderson, performed during the first half of the show, interspersed with a solo dance and a couple of other numbers. The second half of the program featured Magnan’s dance students in a variety of duets, a solo and larger group number.
Magnan formerly taught at Pacific Christian School in Victoria before getting into personal training and instructing adult classes at the Cowichan Aquatic Centre in Duncan. She jumped at the chance to return to teaching.
“The timing was right,” she indicated. “The district jobs were coming up.
“It’s kind of been nice to get back into teaching at a school as opposed to rec centres.”
Magnan is teaching English, drama and Coast Salish classes during the school’s second semester.
With such great support for the Fine Arts Showcase, “I think in the future we’ll probably try to run a daytime (event) as well,” she noted.
“It was kind of a gigantic learning experience for Siobhan and I and to see how it was going to pan out. We know we have the opportunity to do two shows now.”
Great community support through raffles and donations brought in much-needed funds for dance and band.
“That was nice, too,” Magnan conceded. “It definitely exceeded my expectations.”
The goal, she added, was “just to kind of bring a little more awareness to both programs.”
Magnan has a Grade 8 drama class for the second semester and Anderson is overseeing the drama students in Grades 9 through 12. Programs will culminate with a drama production in May that Anderson is directing and Magnan hinted will be a musical theatre piece.
