At the beginning of April, the grade 4 class took a trip to Golden Gate Park to visit the de Young Museum of Fine Arts in San Francisco. The trip was used to expose the students to excellent art and then have them develop their writing skills by describing it at length for their English classes. But the trip was not all school work; fun and appreciating art were also key parts of the trip.
After studying the art under the supervision of Colin Goodwin, who teaches grade 4 English, and other teachers, the kids completed a treasure hunt in the Oceanic Art room to learn about Polynesian culture, tying in to the novel “Call it Courage” that they are reading in class.
This is the second year of the trip and hopefully the tradition of fun, art and writing will continue in the following years.
At the end of April, the grade 4 class explored nature, California history, and Native American history in Coloma. The three day, two night trip was highlighted by a hoedown with a live performance from the band Slim Pickens, where all of the students danced, and a talk given by Native American speaker Kimberly Shining Star. Around a campfire, Shining Star recounted old stories of the Nisenan tribe and taught the students about her culture.
The students were able to tie in the information they learned in history class about the California gold rush with real life experiences when they panned for gold in the American River. They also had the opportunity to learn about the local flora and fauna as they hiked to the top of Monroe Ridge.
For more information about the trip, contact Kristin Giammona, elementary school division head, at kristing@harker.org.
In early April, The Harker Conservatory premiered the American leg of its gritty, aggressive production of Stephen Schwartz’ “Pippin” for the upper school’s 2011 spring musical. Directed by Laura Lang-Ree, performing arts department chair K-12, the troupe will travel to Scotland in August to perform the show at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, the largest international performing arts festival in the world.
A meditation on the struggle to lead a meaning-driven life, “Pippin” smashes together a coming-of-age tale, wherein Pippin must swim though an endless ocean of hopeful-yet-unsatisfying choices, with a mid-life awakening, where, awash in apathy and disappointment, a despairing, confounded Pippin must reconcile his lost promise with a domestic lifestyle he had condemned. Finally, with an end-of-life letting-go, Pippin finds his choices made and his time running thin.
Just as the real-life Pepin, the son of Charlemagne and prospective heir to the Holy Roman Emperor, grew up with a duality and uncertainty regarding his coming adulthood, torn between the potential to inherit a vast religious legacy and the danger that his deformities and disabilities might rob him of a bright future, so too our Pippin is caught when his ambition, immeasurable talents and desire to live out an extraordinary life struggle to find an outlet.
And, just as the historical Pepin would be thrust into a journey that would see him conspire to assassinate his famous father, fail and be pardoned, and live out the rest of his life as a monk, so too our Pippin embarks on a long and epic journey through warfare, romance, politics, family, scholarship and solitude in search of meaning, fulfillment and an opportunity to flourish.
As a young man, praised for his mounting and lofty intentions, Pippin joins his father and brother in a holy war in search of esteem, glory and thrills. However, he finds himself alienated from his military peers and personally unsuited to the horrors of battle. After consulting with elders, Pippin conspires to assassinate his father and slides into a political future casting himself as a problem solver who can float above traditional problems. Alas, unequal rights, taxation and military preparedness are more difficult problems to solve than he had imagined. Pippin’s promise turns to disappointment and he abandons a civic life to continue his personal search for fulfillment.
The text of Pippin was chosen by Lang-Ree for its appeal at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, where the production can speak to an international community of adventurous and bold globetrotters searching for their place in the world and “resonate with our young American and European audiences who, like Pippin, are trying to find their way in these times of global economic depression and civic revolution,” she said.
The production showcases the depth of Conservatory members with a compelling and edgy choice that Lang-Ree expects will draw in a sophisticated audience at the festival, an influential meeting place and launching pad for theatrical trends.
Lang-Ree noted the production connects with its audience through humor; indeed, “Pippin” is ultimately a lively, comic affair.
During the campaign, Pippin’s alienation from fellow soldiers is illustrated when he diverges from his crew’s war song in an enthusiastic, lonely, bursting, incongruous solo. In the stylized battle, loose limbs fly from every direction and after the fray, in a moment of poignant reflection, Pippin consults with the severed, though pleasant-mannered, head of one of the battle’s casualties.
Yet hilarity often turns to heartfelt longing. After Pippin gives up on his long quest, he finds himself emotionally shipwrecked and personally abandoned – dirty, lonely, and apathetic – before he is discovered by a kindly young widow – Catherine – a single mother whose son has an endearing pet duck nearing the end of its life. While the prop duck wins the audience’s hearts and smiles, a romance blossoms between Pippin and Catherine.
Comic, but crushing, Pippin leaves Catherine, unwilling to content himself with a domestic life: “Life is more than ducks that die,” he says. Catherine, who was introduced telling of her despair after her husband’s death and of how she picked herself up, is left repeating the refrain: “On the sixth day, I got up. There were things to be done,” adding a tearful lament: “He was the best to come along in a long, long while.”
Pippin’s journey is framed by a theatrical troupe of players who manifest for him the various vignettes he lives out. These sly and darkly irreverent players, directed by Lang-Ree to represent “the darkness in Pippin’s mind and the negativity that can eat away at all of us,” flesh out the environment of voices and dancers who surround the plot.
In the end, as the performance nears its conclusion, Pippin, faced with dying an unsatisfying death after never compromising the purity of his intentions, resolves to continue living, and to search for happiness and meaning in the human relationships he can revive with Catherine and her son. Yet, when the players are deprived of their fantastical and tragic finale – Pippin and Catherine, in a metatheatrical moment, seek to disable the production, shutting down the stage lights and willing the band to cease playing before permanently exiting the stage – the players find a new target to propel on a path of human existential searching: Catherine’s son Theo. Thus, with a bang of light and sound, in our performance’s closing moments, the story begins anew, and the cycle continues, with Theo as the newly appointed protagonist.
Wearing eyeshadow, dark, skinny jeans, and chains about his waist, John Ammatuna, grade 12, dazzles as the wistful, daring, sarcastic Pippin. The ensemble, performing in black leather and neon, dances amidst a hazy smoke pierced by green, purple and burnt orange beams of light, matching jagged, exact, aggressive, athletic choreography with buoyant character acting. The ensemble is led by Daniel Cho, grade 12, as the cunning Leading Player; Noel Witcosky, grade 11, as the shimmering Catherine; Adi Parige, grade 12, as Pippin’s father; Sean Martin, grade 12, as Pippin’s likeably dimwitted brother; Allike Walvekar, grade 12, as his wily grandmother; and Michelle Holt, grade 12, as his conniving stepmother.
The architecture, a whirling mix of gilded and bronzed wheels, cogs and gears, was created by Paul Vallerga of the performing arts department; lights were designed by Natti Pierce-Thomson; choreography was by Katie O’Bryon; costumes by Caela Fujii, and performing arts teacher Catherine Snider led the rock band in music she reworked to better match Lang-Ree’s steam punk vision.
In her program note, Lang-Ree framed the production as a contemplation of the “too-hyped American Dream,” where one man is “told that he can have it all if he just works hard enough.” “When you’re extraordinary, you think of extraordinary things,” Pippin tells us early on, lamenting “here I am, to seize my day – if anybody would tell me when the hell it is.”
As the production reaches its end, with our triumphant and defiant family drenched in an ethereal sidelight, and the leading player taunting Pippin, chanting that his “search for perfection was doomed from the start” – that after a life of wandering, nothing was completely fulfilling – we are left to hope that Pippin has found his extraordinary capstone after all, in the comfort of those around him, and the shared life he now embarks on. “I wanted such a little thing from life,” he said. “I wanted so much.”
Harker’s nursing staff, under director Debra Nott, ran the big Pertussis booster raffle in late April, rewarding Larissa Wen, grade 7 and Gerry Glasauer, grade 11, and their families, for having gotten their Tdap shots early. Proof of a Tdap shot is required by a new California law and Harker’s nursing staff is doing all they can to encourage students to take care of the obligation now to avoid an August rush. California schools, public and private, cannot not allow students without proof of the Tdap shots to attend classes.
Upper school vocal groups Downbeat and Bel Canto teamed up in late April for the annual “Songs Into Summer” concert, one of the last performances of the year from both groups and a fitting send-off for graduating seniors who performed with them during much of their high school lives.
Each group performed songs from their diverse repertoires, with some new songs thrown in to make the event extra special. Bel Canto kicked off the show with their performance of “Everybody Rejoice,” from the musical “The Wiz,” employing light yet infectious choreography and clapping. Downbeat followed with a raucous version of The Spencer Davis Group’s “Gimme Some Lovin’,” with the performers decked out in ’60s garb and dancing through the aisles on their way to the stage.
Rock and pop music were favored for much of the show by Downbeat, who also performed versions of “Dust in the Wind” by ’70s rock group Kansas and the Natasha Bedingfield hit “Unwritten.”
Bel Canto showed their love for the classics, including Mozart’s “Ave Verum” and traditional pieces such as “Shine On Me” and “Shenandoah,” which featured violin accompaniment by Downbeat member Alex Najibi, grade 11. Bel Canto also had wonderful accompaniment on piano from Ramya Rangan, grade 11, who has spent the entire year as the group’s accompanist.
Downbeat’s much-anticipated performance of the Queen classic “Bohemian Rhapsody” didn’t disappoint. After rigorous practice, the group fired on all cylinders, bringing the art rock epic to life with great vocal performances and choreography, which included stomping and headbanging during song’s famous “hard rock” section, drawing cheers from the large audience.
The seniors in Downbeat (there were none in Bel Canto this year) were then recognized for their time and dedication with gifts from their fellow students. Next year’s new Downbeat members – Govi Dasu, grade 11, Rohan Chandra, Cristina Jerney and Indu Seeni, all grade 10, and Suraj Chandrasekhar, Shenel Ekici, Sean Knudsen and Namrata Vakkalagadda, all grade 9 – were also announced and given sweatshirts to christen their new membership, before the group performed Paul Simon’s “Bridge Over Troubled Water” to conclude the show.
Bel Canto is directed by Catherine Snider. Downbeat is co-directed by Snider and Laura Lang-Ree.
April was a great month for Harker’s middle school Latin students, who performed exceptionally well in the National Latin Exam, and also scored dozens of awards at the State Latin Convention.
In the National Latin Exam, Alayna Richmond and Austin Tuan, both grade 6, had perfect papers in the Introduction to Latin category. John Nicolas Jerney, grade 7, and sixth graders Kshithija Mulam, Anthony Luo, Aditya Dhar, Arjun Subramaniam, Venkat Sankar, Brandon Chow, Peter Wu, James He and Alexander Lam all received awards for outstanding achievement in the same category. Achievement awards for Introduction to Latin went to Ashley Zhong, grade 7, and grade 6 students Albert Xu, Brendan Tobin, Karthik Sundaram, Jackson Su and Manan Shah.
In the Latin I category, grade 8 students Billy Bloomquist, Richard Gu, Ryan Pachauri and Vivek Sriram received gold/summa cum laude awards, along with seventh graders Rishabh Chandra, Grace Guan, Sadhika Malladi, Kaushik Sankar, Elisabeth Siegel, Gurutam Thockchom, Robbie Underwood and Alison Wang. Silver/maxima cum laude awards were won by Celine Liang, Noko Stearns and Arjun Narayan, all grade 7. Michael Moncton, Kevin Chen and Malvika Khanna, all grade 7, won magna cum laude awards.
Aadyot Bhatnagar, Simran Singh, Sahana Rangarajan, Madhu Nori, Tiara Bhatacharya and Rasika Raghavan, all grade 8, won gold/summa cum laude in Latin II, where Sophia Shatas, Maya Nandukumar and Jackelyn Shen took home silver/maxima cum laude awards. The remaining of Harker’s 50 award recipients in the contest were magna cum laude winners Zabin Bashar, Allison Kerkhoff and Sahiti Avula, all grade 8, and fellow eighth grader Christopher Hildum, who won cum laude.
In early April, nearly 30 middle school students were in attendance at the State Latin Convention, held at Miramonte High School in Orinda, Calif. A total of 10 grade 6 students won awards in the MS1 category. Sean Costello took second in Latin sight reading. Aditya Dhar came in first in derivatives, mythology and Latin oratory and also won the individual academic sweepstakes at the MS1 level. Alexander Lam took second in derivatives, while Eric Pei earned an honorable mention in grammar. In dramatic interpretation, Venkat Sankar won first place for interpretation of a boy, and Amrita Singh won first for interpretation (girls division) while also taking third in grammar and Latin sight reading. Karthik Sundaram won first in strings performance, and Austin Tuan took second place in grammar.
At the MS2 level, Billy Bloomquist, grade 8, placed second in Latin sight reading and third in reading comprehension. Classmate Richard Gu took second place in reading comprehension and third place in mythology. Eighth grader Vivek Sriram placed first in no less than three events: derivatives, reading comprehension and Latin sight reading. Rishabh Chandra, grade 7, won first place in grammar and tied for third in reading comprehension with Bloomquist and Kaushik Sankar. Seventh grader Sadhika Malladi won first place in reading comprehension, tying with Sriram. Taking first in both pentathlon and essay was Elisabeth Siegel, grade 7, whose classmate, Allison Wang, took second in mythology and pentathlon, and third in Latin sight reading. The middle school quiz bowl team of Chandra, Sankar, Siegel and Wang took first place at the state level.
A total of four grade 8 students performed well in multiple events, including Anni Ankola, who placed third in the costume category (dressed as Charon) and earned an honorable mention in reading comprehension. Zabin Bashar won first in impromptu art and honorable mentions in both mythology and reading comprehension. Aadyot Bhatnagar came in first in reading comprehension and vocabulary and placed second in strings. Maya Nandakumar won first place in mythology and dramatic interpretation (girl) while placing second in vocal music. In addition to their awards in other categories, Bhatnagar and Nandakumar tied for first place in the individual academic sweepstakes at the MS3 level. The quiz bowl team of Bashar, Bhatnagar, Nandakumar and Rasika Raghavan took first place.
Harker’s middle school delegation at the convention won first place for spirit, aided by seventh grader Kevin Ke’s first-place-winning T-shirt design, and the first-place banner by grade 7’s Shannon Hong and Natalie Simonian, and grade 8’s Sophia Shatas and Allison Kiang. Harker’s chariot race team finished second, and the scrapbook created by Nandakumar took third place.
Grade 5 students are wrapping up their filming of scenes that combine work from their social studies classes and their computer science classes. Under the guidance of social studies teachers Tobias Wade and Jared Ramsey, the students have been researching famous American historical figures. Based on the research they have done, they have written scripts for short movies.
The goal of these movies is to introduce the historical figures and describe them in a creative way. The students are given a month to collect the footage they need for their final movies, which must run between four and five minutes. After recording the footage, the students will use iMovie to edit the recordings and put together the final movie.
The teachers hope the students will gain a solid foundation in multimedia, while reinforcing the information gained in the social studies classes. For more specifics on the projects, email computer science teacher Joe Chung at JoeC@harker.org.
Harker News Online (HNO), The Harker School’s online news publication launched in May 2009, posted its 1,000th story on April 29, 2011. Reporting on the day-to-day news and activities of this robust community of 1,700 students, HNO also includes over 300 photos and nearly 100 slide shows. Established in 1893, Harker is now the largest K-12 independent school in the state of California with three campuses – lower, middle and upper – with extensive academic, athletic and performance offerings. Due to Harker’s far-reaching programs and activities, such as global partnerships, community programs and national news, HNO was established to report news of the school to the greater community. For more information, contact news@harker.org.
The Harker Innovation Team submitted “Turn off the Lights,” a video about conserving electricity, to the LEAF ECOmmercial contest. Isaac Madan, grade 12, said, “The goal of our video is to promote lower electricity consumption by encouraging people to take action — particularly to turn off lights whenever possible.” Their aim was to take a large and complex topic, energy consumption and its environmental impact, and provide a simple way to address it – turning off lights. Madan hopes that this video would allow the viewers to take immediate action, consider their overall electricity consumption, and then find new ways to reduce their electricity use.
The ECOmmercial competition is a yearly competition that strives to bring together high school students with the goal of having a positive environmental impact. While the Harker team did not win the competition this year, they look forward to submitting more videos in the future and continuing to work on more competitive environmental and engineering projects.
Over the weekend, 15 Harker students traveled to the University of Kentucky to compete in the 40th Tournament of Champions. The Tournament of Champions (TOC) is an elite national tournament that requires students to earn qualifying legs at national circuit invitational tournaments during the school year. With each preliminary round akin to an elimination round at a regular-season invitational, Harker students competed in Public Forum, Lincoln-Douglas and Congressional Debate.
After seven preliminary rounds, four Harker Public Forum teams made it to the sweet 16 (octofinal) elimination round bracket. This is the first time in the Public Forum division that a school has made up 25 percent of the elimination round pool. Senior Ziad Jawadi and sophomore Reyhan Kader as well as sophomores Aneesh Chona and Anuj Sharma were eliminated in the round of 16. Juniors Rohan Bopardikar and Akshay Jagadeesh were the fifth seed going into elimination rounds and won their octofinal, however juniors Frederic Enea and Aakash Jagadeesh were the fourth seed and also won their octofinal round. This meant that Harker eliminated itself from the tournament with Enea and Jagadeesh advancing over their teammates to the semifinal round.
In the semifinal debate, Enea and Jagadeesh debated Ridge MP (New Jersey), a team that had been in finals of both the TOC and Grand Nationals in 2010. On a 2-1 decision, Enea and Jagadeesh advanced to the final round of competition. The final round, against a team from Lake Highland (Florida), ended in a 5-0 decision in favor of Harker.
This is the second time that Harker has won the Public Forum Tournament of Champions, with Kaavya Gowda ’09 and Kelsey Hilbrich ’10 winning in 2009. Harker is the first school in the history of the Public Forum division of the Tournament of Champions to win multiple championships.
The Harker Forensics Team thanked the entire Harker community in an email message. “In the final round of competition, Fred took a moment before his speech to thank all of the teachers, staff, and students at Harker and while you may not have been in Kentucky with us this weekend, the spirit of Harker helped propel these students to this historical level of success. Thank you!” wrote Carol Green, forensics teacher.