Visual Arts
Arts
The aims of the DP Visual Arts are to encourage and enable students to:
- Enjoy lifelong engagement with the arts
- Become informed, reflective and critical practitioners in the arts
- Explore and value the diversity of the arts across time, place, and cultures
- Express ideas with confidence and competence
- Develop perceptual and analytical skills
- Make artwork influenced by personal and cultural contexts
- Become informed and critical observers and makers of visual culture
- Develop skills, techniques and processes in order to communicate concepts and ideas
Assessment
Exhibition (40%) The final examination involves an end of course exhibition curated by the student themselves. The exhibition contains studio work created over the two years. Students will write both a curatorial rationale as well as a short statement for each of their exhibited pieces.The exhibition will be internally assessed and externally moderated.
Process Portfolio (40%) Students will submit a process portfolio showing their experimentation, artistic inspirations, reflections and overall development of studio. The process portfolio is externally examined.
Comparative study (20%) Students will analyze and compare artworks by different artists. The artworks should be from different cultures and contexts. The comparative study is externally examined.
Course Structure and Description:
Diploma visual art is a 2-year course chosen by the student as their group 6 subject. In this course students explore theoretical practice, art-making practice and curatorial practice. Students are expected to inform their work using both primary and secondary sources. Meeting artists and going to exhibitions outside school is expected. The culminating event of the course is a self-curated and assessed exhibition showcasing two years of study and studio practice.
Theatre
DP Theatre
DP Theatre Overview
The DP Theatre course allows students to explore theatre-making through four interlinking perspectives; the role of creator, designer, performer and director. Within these areas, students will apply research, theory and practice in order to create and present work that is influenced by traditional and modern conventions used across the world.
Theatre students need not have had experience in Drama in order to complete the DP Theatre course successfully, though it may help to ease student transition. Students who have studied music or visual arts earlier in MYP are welcomed in DP Theatre for the skills they bring to Theatre, a form of creative expression inclusive of all the arts. Requirements for the course: an interest in theatre, a willingness to engage in practical exploration and an open-minded approach. As the DP Theatre course puts emphasis on understanding and creating theatre, it is not a requirement that students have strong performance skills.
Assessment
Task 1: Solo Theatre Piece (HL only)
Students research the work of a theatre theorist they have not previously studied in order to create and perform a piece that is based on an aspect of their theory. The performance is developed through an understanding of the theatre practice and a practical exploration of the theorist’s techniques. The students submit a written report containing the research into the understandings of their chosen practitioner along with an explanation and analysis of their solo theatre piece.
Task 2: Director’s Notebook
SL 35%, HL 20%
Students will select a published play text that they have not previously seen or read. Through research into the cultural/theoretical context of the play, students will explore possible ways of staging two moments. They will explain their directorial intentions as well as the production elements that may be used in order to convey particular moments of atmosphere, tension, emotion or that communicate the meaning of the play.
Task 3: Research Presentation
SL 30%, HL 20%
Students will deliver an individual presentation which will outline the theory and practical exploration of a theatre tradition that they have not previously studied. Through research of the cultural/theoretical contexts they will focus on one performance convention from the tradition and demonstrate its use in performance.
Task 4: Collaborative Project
SL 35%, HL 25%
Students collaboratively create and present an original theatre piece which will be performed for a live audience. Throughout the project, students research the work of professional devising theatre companies and explore ways they can incorporate their artistic choices and contributions into their own devised work. Students create a portfolio, which documents the rehearsal process, the ideas and techniques that used in staging and designing the piece.
Music
Music
The study of Music enables students to recognise and discuss musical elements found in a diverse range of musical genres thus developing greater sensitivity to and curiosity for the music that surrounds us. Students also develop an appreciation of the way in which music connects with other areas of knowledge.
Course content
The coursework components, performance and composition are developed continuously through DP1 and DP2, culminating in the final submission of portfolios in February of DP2.
Both HL and SL will study music from a wide range of cultures, different points in the history of music and different styles. They will also have to study, in depth, two set works chosen by the IB every two years.
This year we will be studying: Bach’s Brandenburg Concerto No. 2 in F Major and Zoltán Kodály’s Dances of Galánta.
HL only
Solo performance: vocal or instrumental (20 minutes)
Composition: three compositions to be notated and recorded
SL only
Students select one of the following:
Solo performance: vocal or instrumental (15 minutes)
Composition: two compositions to be notated and recorded Group performance: membership of an ensemble including at least two public performances.
