Departments & Courses
Visual & Performing Arts
SHC Graduation requirement: One year
UC/CSU admissions requirement: One year
Seniors who participate for all four years in VPA programs may be eligible to graduate with the SHC Arts Distinction award.
Our Mission
SHC’s Visual & Performing Arts Department asks students to work individually and collaboratively to create projects and performances that express individual gifts and talents while offering service and joy to others. By critically analyzing artistic mediums from a variety of cultures, time periods, and movements, students acquire a depth and breadth of understanding about themselves and the human experience.
Our Goals
- Create in a variety of mediums.
- Cultivate an appreciation of fine arts.
- Develop techniques with which they can effectively express themselves in a physical and spiritual manner.
- Explore questions of beauty and communication in human experience.
- Practice time management, problem solving, perseverance, and design thinking both individually and collaboratively.
- Plan and implement projects that bring joy to others and promote an understanding of the diversity of our human family.
- Reflect on their own creative development as well as on that of other individuals and cultures.
Courses in this Department
An advanced level course in dance technique and composition, this course follows a rigorous curriculum building on the curriculum taught in Advanced Dance and Composition 3,4. This course is designed as a continuation of dance education that will allow students a deeper understanding of dance, along with developing technical accuracy, performance experience, and choreographic prowess. Through multiple methodologies and techniques, students will perform advanced dance movement and repertory, and will choreograph their own material in a variety of styles, refer to historical and cultural aspects, and form and defend their personal preferences using dance theory and aesthetic valuing. Performance and choreographic opportunities include an informal workshop presentation during the first semester and will culminate with a student performance which will showcase the students technical growth and original choreography.
Advanced Dance and Composition Honors is an honors level course designed for high school juniors or seniors who successfully complete lower level dance classes including Fundamentals of Dance Technique, Advanced Dance and Composition 3,4, and Advanced Dance and Composition 5,6. Honors students must also also audition for and be admitted to SHC’’s pre-professional performance dance ensemble. Honors dancers utilize a wide variety of styles that include ballet, jazz, modern, contemporary, hip hop, musical theater, and world dance. Weekly advanced technique classes refine and develop student’s physical alignment, technique and vocabulary. Coursework combines technique classes, dance rehearsals, historical research, analysis, critique, group work, and pre-professional development. Honors students will demonstrate advanced technical dance skills in a variety of styles and demonstrate clear artistic vision and interpretation in performances and choreography they produce. Choreography created will demonstrate originality and sophisticated use of choreographic principles as well as proficiency in a variety of styles. Students continue to use dance notation during the creative process.
This year-long course provides intensive and increased independent study in drawing and painting. Individual style, technical skill, and a strong conceptual approach prepare the college-bound student. Critical direction is provided by the instructor. The projects will be complemented by analytical reading, writing, vocabulary, and tests. The creation of a portfolio requires students to work on projects outside of class time so please schedule appropriately.
Note: Summer assignment required. Materials fee required.
Prerequisites: Art 1,2 and Art 3,4 or approval from instructor.
This course will facilitate students in creating a photography portfolio. The portfolio will be submitted to the College Board and will include quality (demonstrating excellence), concentration (in-depth exploration of a particular style of subject) and breadth (showing experimentation and experience a variety of photographic styles and subject matter).
Notes: A digital camera is required for this course; course includes a summer assignment.
Prerequisite: Recommendation of the Digital Photography teacher. If a student wishing to take AP Photography has not taken Digital Photography, that student must have his/her portfolio evaluated by the AP Photography instructor.
AP Art History is a course that develops students’ understanding and knowledge of diverse historical and cultural contexts of architecture, sculpture, painting and other media. Students will examine and critically analyze major forms of artistic expression from the past and present and from a variety of cultures. Visual analysis of art is the primary tool that will be developed but understanding the how and why of how works of art function in context will also be important. This course is designed to prepare students for the AP Art History exam, and a life-long enjoyment of visual art.
Note: this course includes a summer assignment.
Prerequisites: Cumulative 3.25 GPA recommended.
AP Music Theory integrates aspects of melody, harmony, texture, rhythm, form, musical analysis, elementary composition, history and style. Musicianship skills such as dictation, sight singing, and keyboard harmony will be an important part of this course. The students will also learn to read and write musical notation. It is assumed that the student has acquired basic performance skills in voice or on an instrument. The ultimate goal of this AP is to develop a student’s ability to recognize, understand, and describe the basic materials and processes of music that are heard or presented in a score.
Prerequisites: One year of Choral or Instrumental ensemble and/or Music Appreciation. Exceptions for students able to demonstrate foundational musicianship acquired through private study. Students seeking an exception must obtain approval from Mr. Kerschner, Director of Choral Music.
Note: this course includes a summer assignment.
This course will cover the basic elements of digital photography and design. Students will study the formal, expressive and aesthetic properties of photographic art. They will closely examine the history and development of photography including its relationship to the scientific/technological and European cultural views of the 19th and 20th centuries. Students will analyze the works of African, American, Asian and European and Latin American photographers, with special attention to cultural similarities and differences in representation. Student will be able to link photography to other art forms and disciplines. Students will learn to use manual settings on digital cameras, Adobe Photoshop Elements to save and edit images electronically and various techniques of printing and displaying black and white and color images. Students will learn the basic composition and technical elements of photography and design such as rule of thirds, depth of field, image orientation, color and lighting. Students will produce work that demonstrates an awareness of these elements and work towards development of a distinctive personal style.
Note: This course fulfills the one year VPA requirement on List F for the University of California.
This course satisfies graduation requirements for both Religious Studies and Visual & Performing Arts. The course explores the timeline and events in the rise of Christianity, while developing critical skills and aesthetic vocabulary in order to understand how art was (and is) a vehicle for religious expression. Students will study important historical works of art and will create art in a variety of mediums as they respond to the methods, materials, and styles of those works. As they deepen their ability to perceive and to analyze art, students will be expected to articulate their own artistic opinions.
Note: this course meets UC Visual and Performing Arts criteria ("f") and satisfies SHC’s Religious Studies graduation requirement.