2020 Virtual Spring Arts Festival

Under the direction of TASIS Founder M. Crist Fleming, a passionate advocate of the arts, former faculty members Horst Dürrschmidt and Fernando Gonzales established the TASIS Spring Arts Festival in 1974. Held near the end of each school year, the festival is, in addition to a community-wide celebration of the arts, a final assessment for students in visual arts, theater, and music. As Visual Arts Department Chair Martyn Dukes explained at the start of the 2018 festival, “The Spring Arts Festival sets out to recognize the arts and to celebrate and support the unique contributions that the arts and humanities make to TASIS life. The Spring Arts Festival gives us the opportunity to showcase, through performance and exhibition, the arts from across Elementary, Middle, and High Schools. It involves virtually every TASIS student, and in so many ways the Spring Arts Festival is not unlike an enormous end-of-year exam for you all.”

While important safety measures prohibited us from holding the 2020 Spring Arts Festival in its traditional form, Mr. Dukes and Performing Arts Department Chair Samantha Forrest were resolute that the show must go on, and they worked with a determined group of educators and a talented pool of student artists to provide our community with a variety of uplifting content from May 21–24.

See the full schedule below to learn what was included in this year's inspiring festival!

Festival Schedule

SNDC Living Room 

Thursday, May 21

10:00
TASIS Community Sings “Stand by Me”
Performing Arts students and faculty members from all three divisions collaborated on this moving performance of Ben E. King’s classic. 

  • This video premiered on the TASIS YouTube channel at 10:00 CET on Thursday, May 21. (Click on the Performing Arts tab atop this page to find a direct link to all the videos that were included in the festival.)

13:00
Virtual Art Exhibition
We unveiled the fine work produced by Elementary School students (guided by Ms. Caroline Rossi), Middle School students (Ms. Simona Bellini and Ms. Brigit Hurst), and High School students in the disciplines of drawing and painting (Mr. Martyn Dukes), photography (Mr. Frank Long and Ms. Kim Nelson), architecture and design (Mr. Mark Aeschliman), and ceramics (Ms. Hurst).

  • Click on the Visual Arts tab at the top of this page to see all the student artwork galleries.

17:30
Living Room, A Virtual Dance Concert
Directed by Ms. Julie Frazier-Smith, Sweet November Dance Company took on the challenge of presenting a live dance concert. 

Friday, May 22

13:00
Middle School Drama Presentation
Mr. Matthew Frazier-Smith’s Middle School Drama students submitted original films for the first ever “Zoscars” (Zoom Oscars). Enjoy clips from these award-winning films as well as some special moments from the “Zoscars” Award Ceremony.

17:00
Middle School Musical Performance
The show must go on! Under the guidance of Mr. Frazier-Smith, the cast of Alice in Wonderland Jr. rallied to share a virtual performance of one of the more upbeat, toe-tapping numbers from the show.

ALL DAY
Virtual Art Exhibition
Click on the Visual Arts tab at the top of this page to see galleries of outstanding artwork produced by student artists in all three TASIS divisions.

 


Poster created by Fran Suarez ’21

Saturday, May 23

11:00
Instrumental and Vocal Studio Performances
High School, Middle School, and Elementary School students from the studios of Ms. Gloria De Piante Vicin (piano), Ms. Dessislava Deltcheva (violin), Mr. Alessio Di Tonno (guitar), and Ms. Samantha Forrest (voice) performed remotely for the TASIS community. 

13:00
Singin’ in the Rain: The Talking Man
Although our stage performance of the High School Spring Musical could not happen this March, we would like to share a segment of the production intended for film. 1927 Hollywood is the setting of Singin' in the Rain, and early in the plot, a movie studio head plays a film sent to him by a promoter of a new-fangled invention, the talking picture. This is that film, as storyboarded and shot by student filmmakers Kelly Zhao '21, Alua Tursynkulova '21, and Giovanni Garbuio '23; and acted by our own Dr. Christopher Love as the Talking Man.

ALL DAY
Virtual Art Exhibition
Click on the Visual Arts tab at the top of this page to see galleries of outstanding artwork produced by student artists in all three TASIS divisions.

Sunday, May 24

10:00
Music and Theater Awards
Performing Arts Department Chair Ms. Samantha Forrest and High School Theater Director Valerie Bijur Carlson presented the High School’s Co-Curricular Music and Theater Awards for both the fall and spring semesters.

Watch the presentation

13:00
IB Theatre and Drama 2: Holographic Reality
High School Theater Director Valerie Bijur Carlson’s IB Theatre and Drama 2 class collaborated on all aspects of this IB performance assessment, which explores human action through a variety of theater styles. See the program to learn who was involved in the production, which was originally performed in front of a live audience of TASIS faculty and administrators in the Palmer Center in January 2020. The recording includes excerpts of the lively post-show discussion between the student directors and audience.

17:00
Finale Concert
The 2020 Virtual Arts Festival concluded with a concert featuring solo performances from Kelly Zhao ’21 (piano), Autumn Bachofen ’21 (violin), Sayaka Shiraishy ’23 (piano), Miguel Mattos Calonge ’21 (guitar), and Rie Tomita ’21 (piano). Performing Arts Department Chair Ms. Samantha Forrest also guided student musicians through choral and solo excerpts from Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Phantom of the Opera.

ALL DAY
Virtual Art Exhibition
Click on the Visual Arts tab at the top of this page to see galleries of outstanding artwork produced by student artists in all three TASIS divisions.