Seminars and Workshops

Maritime Conservatory of Performing Arts
The purpose of the collaboration with the Conservatory is to develop appreciation as well as enrichment. All students take part, and have the opportunity to experience first hand the discipline of dance. If a strong connection is made the staff helps the student to explore further opportunities. An example of dance workshops offered are ballet, hip hop, jazz, theatrical, Flamenco, English Country dance each a 5 week program.

Music Appreciation Workshop
Dinuk Wijeratne was the resident conductor of Symphony Nova Scotia and is the music Director of NS Youth Orchestra. He is a composition student at the Royal Northern College of Music where he graduated with a first class honours degree in 2000. In addition to being a composer and pianist, he is preparing to begin a post graduate study in composition at New York’s prestigious Julliard School of Music. He also is a Jazz improvisor through working with his teacher Simon Parkin, and won the Sema Prize for Jazz improvisation from Victor Mendoza. Needless to say we are very honoured to have him working with our KVA students.

Theatre Workshop
Gregory Heyn, a multi-talented experienced director, and writer prepares students for the Drama Winter and Spring Performances as well as the Halifax Fringe Festival and Liverpool Festival. A project is underway where several grants have been issued for a special production, Opus for a Miracle. Several groups are taking part such as several members of the NS Symphony, Northwood Players, NS Opera Society, 2 local schools auditioned including professional and amateur actors. It will be submitted to the Atlantic Film Festival in the fall.

In “The Kids of Swing” author/director, Gregory Heyn, combined, the music of Swing Era with song and dance to create a montage of lively, haunting, tragic, and sometimes funny excerpts using the actual words of Veterans and their loved ones.The music of Benny Goodman and Glenn Miller provides a nostalgic backdrop and as the characters describe life in bustling war-time Halifax.

Veterans recall their experiences overseas and after their return. In candid and blunt language they discuss the horror of combat, the loss of friends, camaraderie, and the after-effects of war upon their return home.

Ikebana - Japanese Flower Arranging
Students have the opportunity to learn the basic principles of heaven, earth and man. They are encouraged to beautify their homes and school with seasonal arrangements. There are plans to build a special shelf where an arrangement would be placed daily in the school's main lobby. An apprenticeship was set up with a commercial flower shop for a semester at the request of an interested student.

Art Workshops
Students took part in a 2 charcoal drawing workshops. Their paintings were then bound into a book to be placed in archives. The last class of the workshop was devoted to bookbinding. Students brought in personal papers to be bound, and created their own books. They have also had sketching, calligraphy, painting with water and acrylic colours. Dejan Sokolovic is our instructor.

Calligraphy Workshop
Students start with italic calligraphy and practice the alphabet with nibbed pen and ink and then make nibs themselves creating a dramatic effect of their mastery. They also practice using serifs, connecting letters and writing short practice paragraphs about the history of italic cursive. Next they copy haikus and at the end write and share their own original haikus.

Animation Workshop
Interested students took part in an 8 week 3d animation workshop offered by the DaVinci Institute where they learned: navigation, 3d space, transforms and basic modeling, clones, mirroring, modifiers, mesh modeling, converting 2d to 3d, sound, pose to pose, lighting and rendering. Their final project was their own video to VHS tape to take home.

Web Page Design
By student request, a formal web page design class has been created. In tandem with this, the same students are working to create and publish a student journal, both e-based and in conventional hard copy for distribution.