EF Academy celebrates the arts
written by IBYI student, Dongpeng Li
Last month, students from EF Academy New York celebrated our annual Arts Night show for this semester. The entire Art Night was made up of two parts: A performance of music and drama, and a combined exhibition of art works from the art classes and the fashion club. Some of my own work in photography was exhibited as well. This exhibition will last until the end of this semester.
The art classes and music classes prepared a lot for the Arts Night. Taking the art class as an example, we saw people working on their paintings throughout the whole week before the show started. The art rooms were always full of people after school during this period of time. The same is true of the music classes. “We had practiced the songs we performed for more than three weeks in class,” said Jerry Xia, one of the guitarists at the performance: “To be honest, I think this performance really meant a lot for the music class since it was the first time that the music class could ever put up a band and come up with such a nice performance on stage. The band collaborated really well on stage and the illumination in the theatre was fantastic in terms of creating an atmosphere. I was really proud of everyone who participated that day.”
Besides the musical performance, the art exhibition was attractive as well. Personally, I participated in the art exhibition as a photographer. This was the very first time for me to exhibit my work in a public setting. In my opinion, it was pretty much a big project as 30 of my photos were exhibited and I literally carried them all the way from China when I came back from my summer break in September. It took me a lot of effort during the past two years of my photographic career to make this come true and photography has become part of my identity as I move along the way. It is undoubtedly interesting to see how I have grown from a complete beginner to who I am today in photography during the past two years. I have come along this way all on my own. Therefore, I think that this experience is able to prove, at the very least, that nothing is not achievable as long as we put forth the effort.
The Arts Night show also created a huge impact on students all over campus. Axsel from Norway was one of them. “I was really amazed by the shows” said Axsel, “It was the first time that I realized that we have so many talented people in this school. They obviously demonstrated great ability and the work they presented were amazing. I am so glad that was surrounded by so many talented people.”
The Art Exhibition of the art show will continue on at least till the end of semester. Therefore, feel free to check it out before you leave for Christmas if you haven’t yet!