Arts
A vibrant, integral part of our community and student life.
From Maternelle to Grade 12, our students foster a love of learning and aesthetics in the arts through a flexible and highly-personalized Arts curriculum that integrates French national and IB standards.
At French American and International, our values of Respect, Integrity, Inclusion, Collaboration, and Curiosity permeate all levels of a student’s artistic journey as they become discerning observers, listeners, critical thinkers, and performers. Our Arts Pavilion is our home for the arts and a testament to how integral the arts are in our daily life.
Our faculty are all independent artists, performers, film makers, costume/set designers, editors, choreographers, and dancers—highly trained and globally-minded in outlook. We collaborate continually with other schools, organizations, festivals, and offer a wide variety of engaging masterclasses, workshops, and events to our student body and wider communities in addition to our daily curriculum.
Events & Box Office
Don’t miss any event! Box Office offers advance online sales for events. There will be many opportunities to watch our talented students perform in plays, musicals, dance and choir concerts this year. Click the link below to order tickets for any upcoming events!
Music
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Lower School
In Lower School music classes, students learn how to use percussion instruments, play and sing together, and develop their musical knowledge.students listen to music and analyze it to have a better understanding of the composition process. Discovering how the instruments are made and the families they belong to is also part of the musical learning process. Students also work on vocal technique so that they become aware of the extent of their voices and acquire a "repertoire" of songs.
Music has lots of virtues—it is a way to help the students to express themselves, cooperate, be creative and develop critical thinking. Our musical activities are adapted to each grade, and help the students to be more comfortable and free to express themselves through musical creation with instruments, writing songs, or rapping.
Music brings people together, and the end of the year show is a perfect example of this. Students understand all the challenges of the creative process by being directly part of it and the biggest reward is sharing all the work they have done with their family and friends.
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Middle School
In Middle School, the course is structured through four main areas of skill-development; each is cultivated throughout the three-year program.
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Musicianship/Ear Training: sight-reading using the fixed do solfege system, speaking rhythm and singing melodies, rhythmic and melodic dictation.
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Music Theory: note and rest values, time signatures, rhythmic/melodic notation: pitch, rhythm, dynamics, articulation, texture, and tempi in various meters.
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Music History: knowledge of important periods in music’s historical development, including the work of key composers and musicians in a range of genres. Through critical listening and discussion, students analyze the role of music in past and present world cultures.
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Ensemble: by listening, watching and imitating, students undertake a hands-on approach to playing in an ensemble. They learn effective playing/singing techniques, how to create and improvise rhythm, and how to sing songs with accompaniment. Ensemble work also cultivates team building, respect, focus, listening, problem solving, and other important life skills.
- High School
Adjacent to our filmmakers, our high school musicians occupy the ground floor of the Arts Pavilion and take advantage of our pianos, practice rooms, rehearsal, teaching, and recording spaces. Students perform in a series of student-led and faculty-led concerts and events, including Songs for Senegal, Winter and Spring Concerts, student recitals, recording projects, composition showcases, and the Spring Musical. Whether working on solo pieces or with student bands, orchestra, chamber music and choirs, our students bring a wealth of experience and culture to the program. Our Conservatory Program offers masterclasses and workshops, visiting artists and events, free to students and our adult community.
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Students form bands and ensembles, rehearsing and performing in a series of concerts and events.
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Students compose and record using Sibelius software, Logic, Spitfire Audio samples, and an array of other digital audio workstations (DAW’s).
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Students work on multi-disciplinary projects such as scoring for film clips.
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Students develop their score reading, theory, and ear-training skills through classroom activities and the EarMaster app.
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Students gain an appreciation for music of many styles, techniques, cultures, and traditions.
Visual Arts
- Lower School
Lower School students practice several types of visual art, such as drawing and painting, using many different tools and media. They combine techniques and procedures, doing collage, montage, and experiment with photography and video. As students progress, they participate in inquiry-based learning and problem solving while creating their art. They are also encouraged to seek and explore their own questions within the framework of the art or artists the class discovers. Art class in the Lower School gives students a window into the rich and interesting world around them. In the art room, they develop a practice of looking closely and questioning their own thoughts and processes in art. They have the opportunity to express what they perceive and imagine and explain their projects using the appropriate vocabulary in French. Some of the art projects also support classroom projects and projects made in Music class.
- Middle and High School
In the three-year Middle School program, students build a foundation in the elements and principles of art, art history and analysis, and conceptual thought. In Grade 6 and Grade 7, students familiarize themselves with artistic vocabulary and demonstrate their knowledge through small projects in a variety of two and three dimensional media. In Grade 88th grade, students work on longer term projects surrounding a conceptual theme, such as “art, architecture, and urban space,” exploring the connection between art and society across cultures. Art in The Middle School course is taught in French.
Our high school students work in a variety of media ranging from oil paint to charcoal, photography to sculpture. Studio hours are held at lunchtime and after school to enable students to work on projects beyond the classroom. In our Arts Pavilion, In the gallery and other spaces around the Pavilion, students showcase their work year-round, and more specifically during art shows and festivals held throughout the year. Seniors studying art in the International Baccalaureate program also display their projects in an IB Showcase in March.
- French Bac / Option
In this two-year program, students will learn technical and conceptual skills that they will apply towards a six-piece portfolio of work. By learning the language of visual media, students will become attuned to the ways in which different materials and techniques can be mobilized towards the expression of complex artistic ideas. In the first year of the program, students will experiment with a variety of conceptual and technical prompts, while in the second year they will work more independently to develop a portfolio of work surrounding a conceptual theme.
Additionally, students will learn how to contextualize their work within a broader art historical context. Throughout both years, they will investigate the work of global artists in order to inform their own ideas and process.
Theater Arts
Performing, Design and Stagecraft
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Lower School
In Theater in Grades 3-5, our aim is to:
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Develop performing skills— voice awareness and control, body language, memory, interactions with fellow actors.
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Develop linguistic skills—the ability to dialogue in French at appropriate speed, and internalize idiomatic structures and expressions.
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Provide a safe space where students can express themselves freely without fear.
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Provide opportunities where students can perform and shine in the limelight while remaining team players who respect and support their co-actors.
The teaching methods include games and exercises performed individually, in pairs, and in groups, as well as long term involvement in the production of plays, which are to be performed by each class in front of audiences. Students learn how to act in front of a camera, and how to use their voice, eyes, facial expressions, and body language to tell a story via a recorded medium.
The topics addressed in class include:
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Improvising scenes with dialogue, or without resorting to words.
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Understanding the basic concepts of stage acting—entrances and exit, performing space, lighting, props, costumes etc.
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Trusting their fellow actors and feeling committed to, and engaged in, the group effort of a theatrical production.
The plays performed by the students are customized for each class to ensure that every student gets a speaking part. The casting of the students over the three years of the program is weighted to ensure that all the students who wish to play more involved parts get a chance to do so.
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Middle and High School
In Middle School, Theater is part of the 3 year curriculum. In each year of Middle School, students participate in theater performances through curricular theater classes.
In Grade 6, the curriculum is performance based, designed to give each student an opportunity to perform in front of an audience as an individual and within a performance ensemble. Units covered are Ensemble Movement, Monologues and Scene Study. In Grade 7, students study Shakespeare in performance, and begin by looking at the structure of Shakespeare’s writing (sonnets, iambic pentameter) and how his writing influences an actor’s interpretation. Then we apply this knowledge into a Shakespeare Scene Study performance. In Grade 8, students study playwriting and production. Grade 8 students will write their own short play (approximately 3 to 5 minutes) and then produce that play. Students rehearse in class, find/build props, create costumes, and other technical elements as needed. The Children’s Theater performance is designed for our young audience from Maternelle to Grade 1. Parents are welcome to attend and we encourage them to bring their inner child to the performance.
In High School, students explore theater as an interdisciplinary, collaborative art form through curricular work and extracurricular productions. In the process, they gain skills in performance as well as stagecraft, design, and production. They nurture their creativity, and also build skills in communication and collaboration. In High School, students pursuing both the International Baccalaureate and French Baccalaureate programs can study theater for all four years. Robust curricular programs train students to become well-rounded theater artists as they undertake a range of performance projects, including classical and contemporary plays, as well as original, devised creations.
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Back à Dos Theater Company
(Middle and High School)
Every year, our extracurricular theater company, Back à Dos, produces five major shows, in which students are involved in all aspects, including backstage support. The ethos and artistry of the company reflects the character of the school: bold, inclusive, international, multilingual, thought-provoking, and rigorous.
Big Love, Back à Dos Fall Play, 2016
Back à Dos Student-Directed One Act Play Festival, 2019
Happiness?, Back à Dos Theater, Middle School, Winter 2018
Ghost Quartet, Back à Dos Spring Musical, 2017
Winter Arts Evening, IB Theater, Winter 2018
The Kentucky Cycle, Back à Dos Fall Play, High School, 2017
The Visit, Back à Dos Fall Play, High School, 2018
For High School students, this includes: a fall play, a student-directed one act play festival, a spring musical, and a May project. Click here to see the plays in the 2021-2022 season.
For Middle School students, this includes a winter play. For the past five years, Middle School students have also participated in the Dallas Multilingual Theater Festival hosted by the Dallas International School in Texas. Students are involved in all aspects of backstage support. Visiting artists from local, national and international companies help students develop their skills through master classes and workshops.
Forty years ago, in 1979-80, Martha Stookey directed a first show, which would become the foundation of a new theater program at French American + International. Fast forward 40 years and Back à Dos company is still going strong with a community theater group that has adapted over the years, finding new ways to create quality school theater. Back à Dos celebrated its 40th anniversary in 2019. Learn more about this incredible milestone here.
Film
- Middle and High School
Our arts faculty enriches our student learning by inviting visiting artists in each artistic discipline to the classroom. This can take the form of a one-off visit, a weekend workshop, or a series of events over the course of the semester. In the film department we approach filmmaking and storytelling through a polyvalent perspective that includes: a historical lens, aesthetics, cinematography and the three act structure. Great stories tend to stand the test of time, and this generation of students holds the key to what stories are told as we move forward in this postmodern age.
Arts Conservatory
The Arts Conservatory is proud to introduce a wide array of after-school options for students, including 1-1 instrumental and vocal lessons, faculty-led specialist ensembles, and community events. Learn more here.