Arts Curriculum

Where do ideas come from? What kind of impact do I want to make in my community? In the interest of instilling skills that will serve students during their time at Bay and beyond, this 9th-grade core course focuses on building creative and artful thinking, and then putting it into action. Through projects that focus on design, experimentation, and collaboration, students examine how the creative process works, both collectively and individually. Required 9th grade course. No prerequisite.

Every human-made object we interact with on a daily basis from phones to cars to furniture to buildings has been intentionally designed by a person or a team. What are the steps and considerations that comprise good design? How can a thoughtful and intentional design process shape and improve the experience for people who use that product or that place? This course sequence introduces students to the world of graphic design, product design, and environment design. Using “design thinking” as a methodology, students will design and produce a series of projects that will challenge them to solve specific goals. Students will produce deliverables that are functional, aesthetically pleasing, and as a result will elevate the experience of the user, audience, or consumer. Students will learn technical drawing skills, 3D rendering, basic construction and fabrication of product models, prototyping tools, graphic design software, while progressing into a greater emphasis on basic engineering principles and overall function.

This course sequence introduces students to the theater arts and guides students toward understanding how they can communicate authentically through theater performance. Students do not need any prior experience in theater to be successful in this course and, after completing the course, will feel increased comfort expressing themselves verbally and artistically. Day to day classwork includes exploring movement theories, vocal training, and studying improvisation as both a channel for creative energies and a forum for experimentation in character and scene development. Performances include developing and giving a morning meeting type talk and performing 2-3 monologues (one original). Informal class work is used to hone performance and presentation techniques. Students develop the skills necessary to critique and evaluate the success of performances by classmates, professionals, and themselves. Progression into the second semester asks students to develop technical theater skills, including the fundamentals of directing, with a focus on 20th century dramatic texts, reading plays and scene study.

In this class, students are introduced to the tools and methods of drawing. Students hone their observational skills and learn about the dry media, such as graphite, charcoal, and ink. Through looking at how other artists have captured the world around them, and by exploring the many ways drawing materials can express form, emotion, and context, students develop their own approaches to depicting images on two-dimensional surfaces. Projects include self portraiture, detailed studies of natural objects, and observations of light and shadow on a still life. Students develop compositional understanding by applying the elements and principles of design to their sketches and drawings. Experimentation, critique, reflection, and a consistent practice are essential qualities of the artistic process; students build upon each project, uncovering their own personal aesthetic. Progression into the second semester features an increased challenge to make individual choices about mediums and surfaces, engagement in reflection and critique, and exploration of historical and contemporary artists.

In this course, students get to play music. Traditional jazz instruments like guitar, bass, drums, keyboard, saxophone, trumpets are most welcome, but so are less common jazz instruments like flute, violin, cello, vibraphone, marimba, mandolin, ukulele, and there's even been a Japanese koto. Vocalists are welcome. No prior knowledge of how to read sheet music is required as most jazz is played by ear. Improvisation is key to this class as it is to jazz. When not playing music, students will be listening to music and discussing how music works. Students can learn to write their own music and have the band perform their compositions. As a beginning jazz class, performances are usually off campus, allowing for exposure and interaction with professional musicians. Progression into the second semester features private lessons in the student's instrument of choice, with a focus on sight-reading and ear training.

Music Production 1 is an introductory course involving audio engineering and music production with digital audio workstation software, such as Logic, and a MIDI keyboard. The first major project for the course is a music autobiography, in which students practice and demonstrate proficiency in recording, editing, and mixing. Through the second project, students produce and mix one full song. Throughout the engineering and production process, students learn about the fundamentals of sound and the history/structure of various types of music genres. Finally, specifically in the production process, students learn about song arrangement, crafting a compelling rhythm section and memorable melody, chord progressions, and how to use effects to add texture to their songs. Progression into the second semester features additional production and mixing skills, mastering songs of their own creation and optimizing studio and listening room setups. Upon completion of the course, the students’ work is released on Bandcamp and SoundCloud albums.

Students are introduced to a variety of skills starting first with black and white acrylic. Students then start mixing color to create newly invented hues, applying layers of paint to build complexity, and developing compositions using a variety of wet media. After gaining confidence through observing a still-life on paper and representing form, light, and shadow, students move onto other surfaces such as canvas and wood panels. Subjects for investigation run the gamut, from landscape to abstraction and self-portraiture to free-form expression. Developing the skill of constructive criticism runs through the course, taking the format of both group discussions as well as one-on-one written observations of the strengths and areas to improve in a fellow artist’s paintings. The sketchbook practice is a large part of this class with work at home (often in watercolor) assigned. Progression into the second semester features a deep dive into Color Wheel Theory and developing a portfolio, allowing students to work experimentally, moving between realism and abstraction. The class will also study a range of historical and contemporary artists, and explore multimedia approaches to the 2D imagery, integrating printmaking and collage techniques into their painterly experiments.

Through a series of projects, students learn how to operate a digital camera, manipulate images using a variety of techniques and processes, and organize and output their work. An introduction to composition using the elements and principles of design helps students create images that are harmonious and unified. Assignments incorporate a variety of approaches and themes including straight photography, composite imaging, special effects, and time-lapse video production. Progression into the second semester features learning the mechanics of a digital SLR camera and an exploration of photojournalism, the essence of motion, portraiture, historic revisitation, and digital darkroom processing. The course culminates with an in-depth, independent study of one's own choosing.

What tools are used by filmmakers to create memorable and meaningful stories? How does one go about planning to make a short movie? This course in video-making is an introduction to the basics of camera mechanics, visual language, film grammar, and storytelling. Students learn the skills necessary to accomplish basic pre-production, production, and post-production processes. This is a chance to gain access to state-of-the-art software and hardware to create original work in a powerful visual language. Progression into the second semester features a focus on collaboration and crew roles, gaining experience by taking on a variety of roles including director, camera operator, lighting, sound, and production assistant. Advanced editing skills are introduced using the Adobe Creative Suite.

This course helps students achieve greater vocal independence, confidence, inner hearing, and quality tonal production. In this course, students study a variety of musical styles and work as an ensemble to perform and share music with friends, family, and the community. Students memorize their music and follow conductor cues. Through group exercises, individual practice, demonstrations, and warm-ups students become more comfortable in their vocal range, focusing on proper breathing, and blending pitch. Students learn the mechanics of proper voice control, including how body position and posture can improve their singing ability. Each student experiences a unique and positive atmosphere in which they learn to be a better performer. Progression into the second semester features studying a wider range of genres and musical styles, while learning how to sing expressively, as well as the important psychological aspects of singing. Singers will regularly perform in class in front of their peers, with larger community performances explored.

Can art change the world? History and current examples show that it can, and that the effects are profound. This integrated course combines political, social and art history with hands-on studio art experiences to explore the ways in which the arts are a tool for social change. The course is team-taught by two teachers, one with expertise in art and one with a background in social studies and history. Students will research historical and contemporary social movements and produce original artwork reacting to a range of issues. Topics may include: labor and class; civil rights and racial equality; feminism and gender; the environment; youth movements and culture; war and violence. Artists may use written or spoken words, posters, painting, photography, and performance. The course is project-based; students build skills and content knowledge through authentic, flexible, student-directed projects. Prerequisite: Humanities 2

Building on students’ experience from Drama 1, the focus of this course is advanced scene-work and character preparation. We operate like a theater company, with students taking turns directing and designing for one another. As a class, we will read plays from 20th and 21st century playwrights and then lift the text from the page to the stage for each one. By doing so, and playing a range of roles in the ensemble and in the plays, students become well-versed in analyzing text for performance and become resourceful, reliable collaborators, picking up some theater history along the way. [This course is an Honors course; see Honors information for details.] Prerequisite: Drama 1B

Building on students’ experience from Drama 1, the focus of this course is on advanced scene-work and character preparation, especially in original, devised, and improvised works. In addition to studying Keith Johnstone, Tectonic Theater Company, and other postmodernist theorists and work, students will create original scripted and unscripted work for performance, some of which may be semi-autobiographical in nature. As working theater artists, who may also be visual, vocal or other kinds of artists as well, students are a part of a theater ensemble that is committed to creating and performing original work and lots of it. Ensemble members are expected to: Keep an open and curious mind. Generate, share, and test ideas. Support others’ work. Create something every day. [This course is an Honors course; see Honors information for details.] Prerequisite: Drama 1B

This studio course provides students with the opportunity to broaden their art making experience at an independent level. Being encouraged to paint or draw in a series, mix media, work with innovative paint application, and consider working with collage and assemblage, students will further extend the possibilities of what painting and drawing can be. The course offers exposure to the art world through multiple field trips to local contemporary art galleries, readings, visits to museum collections, and local artist talks and critiques. As a culmination of the course, each student curates and installs an exhibition of their work. Taking this course provides time for students to expand on visual themes of their choice, learn how to document/photograph work, create a portfolio and sketchbook archive, and develop an artist statement that genuinely illustrates who they are as visual thinkers and makers. This course has a required figure‐drawing component featuring nude adult models; these sessions will extend through lunch or tutorial one afternoon per week. [This course is an Honors course; see Honors information for details.] Prerequisite: Drawing 1B or Painting 1B

*Note: Students may retake this course for credit with the permission of the Dean of Academics and Innovation.

This course looks closely at the creative intersection of art and technology. In doing so, students develop projects that use, critique, and expand the notion and boundaries of digital art. Media in the class range from photos, motion graphics, and animation, to AI, video, and music. This is an opportunity to learn new processes and deepen existing skills. Students present and discuss a number of projects that either respond to ideas that arise in class or that develop ideas already in circulation in an individual's art practice. Students hone organizational skills in order to keep up with a thorough and progressive production schedule. [This course is an Honors course; see Honors information for details.] Prerequisite: Photography 1B or Video Production 1B or Music Production 1B

This is a performing ensemble class for students who are familiar with the basics of jazz improvisation and have completed the Jazz 1A/1B sequence. Students increase their repertoire of standards, hone their rhythmic and harmonic vocabulary, improve their performance skills, and develop their knowledge of jazz history. Students also hear live music at a jazz club at least once in the term. Participants in this course are expected to master a new tune and teach it to the ensemble during the course of the term. [This course is an Honors course; see Honors information for details.] Prerequisite: Jazz 1B or permission from instructor

*Note: Students may retake this course for credit with the permission of the Dean of Academics and Innovation.

What is it like to live the day-to-day life of creating, brainstorming and experimenting in one’s own studio? Students will spend time assembling innovations for an exhibition, a publication, a performance, or a product launch. This Immersive takes the concept of the “classroom education” and radically transforms it into “studio practice” – embracing the concept that a maker’s intensive inhabiting of a personal space enables their creations to go to a deeper place. Each student enrolled in the course has a dedicated “studio” and a wide array of walls, tables, floors and ceilings to call their own. The course starts with students exploring how their quirky obsessions can be realized in multiple dimensions and media: drawing, sculpture, poetry, film, acoustic musical performance or political theater, comic books or t-shirt-logos, with each student eventually distilling their initial experiments into a single medium for a 10-day-long “Final Exhibition” project. Rather than placing emphasis on the “how-to’s,” this creative studio course encourages students to dig deeply into their own practice of making: experimenting, reworking, fine-tuning. The student is the teacher, and the Bay faculty is the studio-assistant. Students enrolled in this Immersive should arrive on the first day with a sketchbook filled with ideas of what they’d like to build, to paint, to photograph, to write a story about, to compose a suite of songs to and this initial seed will grow into a wild forest over the course of the Immersive. Prerequisite: Drawing 1B or Painting 1B or Photography 1B or Video Production 1B or Design 1b

This course will provide a workshop environment for students to learn about social dances from the Caribbean region of Latin America, including: Salsa, Son, Bachata, Cumbia, Cha-cha-cha, Mambo, and Merengue. Students will learn to identify and dance to a variety of musical forms, gaining fluency in partner dancing skills, while learning about the social and cultural heritage of each form. For greater context, students will read, listen, view, discuss, and write about the history of Caribbean dances, their confluence of cultural influences, traditional roots, modern evolutions, quintessential songs, lyrical poetry, and musical storytelling. This course not only introduces students to the world of social dance but also prepares them to actively participate in, and contribute to, Latine communities through a shared musical appreciation and joyful expression of movement. The Four Domains of Global Competence—investigate the world, recognize perspectives, communicate ideas, and take action—will guide students’ project-based inquiry into why so many elaborately nuanced and detailed dances originated in the Caribbean, and how they have evolved to become some of today’s most popular partner dances worldwide. Students will perform rehearsed choreography and will also improvise (solo and with partners). They will learn how to identify a wide variety of musical genres, describe specific instrumentation, play distinctive rhythms with traditional percussion instruments, enhance their proprioception (body awareness), develop musicality, and dance in multiple roles as both leader and follower with consent and respect. No prerequisite.

In this course, students learn the art of filmmaking. Students go through the stages of pre-production, production, and post-production. As part of the course, students will spend up to a week on location learning how to shoot from a script. During this time, actors will gain first-hand experience on a set and in front of a camera, while crew members will learn what it takes to be part of a film team. After the shoot, students will return to school to edit the footage into a cohesive film. The course will culminate with a screening of the finished product at the Walt Disney Family Museum or a similar theater. Students will explore the role of the three act structure in telling stories in film, why film is the best medium for telling certain stories, the various aspects of the filmmaking process, how style, mood, and emotion can be conveyed through film, and who the intended audience of a film is. No prerequisite.

This course examines different family structures and dynamics through American visual art, literature, television, film, and various forms of nonfiction. Students explore how gender roles have changed throughout history and have been socially constructed. Exposure to the different interpretations of family encourages students to understand their own family makeup and their place in it. Class sessions include field trips, visiting artists, making art, looking at art, writing, reflecting, analyzing and decoding readings, and identifying the different constructs that exist in a household. Essential questions guiding the course of study include: How have artists, writers, film-makers, and musicians explored family dynamics in their work? How do various representations of family structures/dynamics help us understand our own definition of family and our role in it? Prerequisite: Humanities 2