Music, Theatre, Art Students Visit NYC
The American Airlines terminal at Hartsfield Atlanta Airport was the scene on April 12 as 20 AIS juniors in the IB Music, Theatre or Art programs departed for New York City. This was the seventh annual trip taken by the IB arts students, and this year they were accompanied by Mr. Rob Warren and Ms. Sherry Weeks (Theatre), Ms. Olivia Lorton and Ms. Louisa Brown (Art), and Dr. Ron Howard (Music). The group stayed at the Hostel International on the Upper West Side and engaged in four full intensive days of study, research and sightseeing throughout Manhattan.
While the entire group participated in the same events, on occasion they split into separate Music/Art/Theatre groups. The Music students enjoyed a performance of Stomp, with choice seats less than five feet from the edge of the stage. They also toured Lincoln Center, visited the Steinhardt Center (where they took in an incredible high school rock band performance at a local competition) and had an evening at the opera, seeing a production of Bizet’s Carmen, by the New York City Opera.
Art students visited numerous exhibitions and galleries, most notably the Whitney Museum, the Guggenheim Museum, and the Museum of Modern Art, as well as a visual performance ensemble, the “Blue Man Group.”
Theatre students attended a play, Doubt, and all students met together to see a Broadway musical, Sweeney Todd, and toured the Metropolitan Museum of Art. All students engaged in cross curricular projects involving the links and ties between the three arts, culminating in individual assignments upon return to Atlanta.
The students’ first event upon arrival in New York on Wednesday night was a 24-second ride to the 86th floor observatory of the Empire State Building. In addition to the artistic, theatrical and musical engagements, the students and their instructors also visited the site of the World Trade Center, Greenwich Village, Fifth Avenue, SoHo, Chinatown, and dined in Italian, Indian, Dominican, and American restaurants. The group returned home early on Sunday evening, exhausted but fulfilled with all of the cultural events of the week.