On Tuesday, March 22, the Fine Arts Academy put on their showcase. The theme was “Anatomy”, something that everyone in the academy interpreted differently. All of the strands were represented; dance, music, writing and visual art.

Sophomore Jane Wyatt, who performed a dance piece, thought that it was one of the best the academy has ever put on.

“I think that for me personally it was one of the best showcases I’ve ever done. I know it sounds bad but I worked harder on that showcase than I’ve ever worked on any showcase before,” Wyatt said. She chose to interpret the theme “Anatomy” in terms of the pieces and parts of a whole, in her case, a dance. Instead of performing a typical dance solo, she chose to reject the traditional anatomy of that style.

“I really wanted to be up in the audience’s face and break that traditional structure and form. First of all, [my dance teacher] Mrs. Corriston was like, ‘maybe you should shake your hips less’ but I was just like, ‘this is how it’s going to be, if you don’t like it, don’t put it in the case’,” Wyatt said. “I wanted to push the boundaries as much as I could. I also did that by getting off the stage, being in the rows, so I really wanted to just show the audience something different that they wouldn’t expect to see at a high school showcase.” Wyatt’s piece involved her dancing within the aisles and ended with her sitting in on of the seats in the audience. It wasn’t easy for her to access that part of herself.

“[I focused on] just kind of being really fierce and confident, which isn’t always me. It was a stretch for me,” Wyatt said. She wanted to access a more confident version of herself. Wyatt got a good reaction from the audience and her friends.

Freshman Genevieve Kennedy is in the visual art strand of the academy.  The experience is very different for visual artists than it is for performing artists.

“It’s really fun to go up there and present your stuff, but it’s kind of frustrating how we spend all these weeks doing this work and we only get 30 seconds to explain ourselves. I’m not complaining, I think we do get our fair share of time but on the other hand I feel like showcases are definitely more exciting for people who do performing arts,” Kennedy said. Her piece was entitled “Butterflies and Cobwebs” and was a statement about anxiety using literal anatomy.  

“Everyone experiences anxiety to some degree. Whether you forgot to do a project or something else like that or you’re anticipating going [out] for something. That’s a disorder I feel that’s not represented as much and I wanted to put something out there too for that,” Kennedy said. She herself has struggled with anxiety in the past, which made this project even more important to her.

“There was a point in my life where I felt like I might have had anxiety. I don’t feel like I do anymore but I felt like it was very hard to figure out whether or not it was [anxiety] because I hadn’t even heard of it before,” Kennedy said. She wanted to give the disorder some acknowledgement.

The Fine Arts Academy classes will now start preparing for their end-of-year showcases.