Lights, music, fabulous performances and enthusiastic audiences! The Annual Music Department Concert has returned once again with high anticipation on the evening of November 13th. The marble stage has transformed into a grand staged fit for the occasion and ten performances of different styles presented some of the most memorable songs from our beloved musicals. The outdoor environment of the event tested the temporary resilience of the performance team as well as the skill of adjustment to any unexpected situations. A special thank you to the SCIE music coordinator and teacher, Ms. Molly, for organizing this event and Jason and Tom for hosting the show. It is undeniable that everyone who performed have worked extremely hard in perfecting the details to bring the audience an unforgettable experience.
Tom (left) and Jason (right)
Ms. Molly
The eventful night started off with “Do You Hear the People Sing”, one of the principal and most recognizable songs from “Les Misérables”, performed by the SCIE orchestra. The high level of talent and teamwork of the orchestra most definitely created a grand opening.
Following that is the wonderful acapella performance who performed various songs. Their beautiful clear voices filled the stage as they sang with smiling faces.
The beloved classics of “When I Grow Up” and “The Lonely Goathered” from the musicals “Matilda” and “The Sound of Music” respectively sung by the G level students created a lively atmosphere filled with joy and enthusiasm.
Following that were two songs from “Beauty and the Beast”: “Be Our Guest” and “Beauty and the Beast” performed by our G2 students.
Sprinkles of cash and a dash of comedy was presented by the humorous performance of “Money Money Money” from the musical “Mama Mia”. The clever acting, dashing costumes and confettis of money wowed the audience as they applauded with satisfaction.
Another highlight of the evening was the dramatic “Phantom of the Opera” from the musical itself performed by our A1 students Luna and Danny. The style of dress and their brilliant opera singing talent successfully recreated the original scene from the musical.
Next up was Francesca’s fantastic solo performance of “She Used to be Mine” from “Waitress”. Her voice greatly moved the audience with its purity and honesty and has also skillfully overcame a few slight technical issues.
To wrap up the night, the last two performances: “ All I Care About is Love” and “All that Jazz” from “Chicago” invited the dazzling group of dancers from Sparkling Dance as they performed with charisma and confidence.
The concert is undeniably an event which received large amounts of praise and left the audience wanting more. We are most definitely eager to see its return next year.
My essay is on the recent development of China’s mental health care system and how it can help address this question. Though, I actually parried the question raised by the prompt, and I did not in the end emphasise too much that more care should be devoted to the socially vulnerable. Rather, I intended to underscore the complexity and ambiguity in any employment of these two notions — “socially vulnerable” and “responsibility” — in the concrete working of society. Through my study I discovered that the train of legislative efforts made in the 1980s to 2000s to legally recognise, to enhance public knowledge of, and to erect new asylums for, “the mentally ill,” in fact coincided spatiotemporally with government efforts in putting new agendas of foreign policies and city development to work. Thus, the recent development of China’s mental health care, from scratch to full maturity, is not solely the consequence of “humanitarian effort,” but also of some other ulterior motives. In my conclusion, I hinted that any answer to this question would entail empirical investigation into the concrete working of social institutions, and depending on the nature of this “socially vulnerable” group, claims of “responsibility” may be leveraged as veils for other purposes.
Before starting my research I did not by then have a well-formed hypothesis, but I did have Michel Foucault’s intriguing study on madness in mind. Due to the rather peculiar nature of the object of my study, I was not able to apply the sociological theories (Marxism, Functionalism, e.g.) I learnt in class to my own research. I must thank my sociology teacher for his encouragement and provision of many textbook resources and classical studies done in the field of mental health care. In addition to that, he prepared a statement of the school for my application to conduct short interviews at a local mental health hospital — this application, however, though quite expectedly, sank into oblivion — without his help this project would be very difficult.
I made a documentary “The Definition” about the situation of elderly in Shenzhen to enter this competition. As I have some previous knowledge in filmmaking, learning from TBU studio, I though it would be meaningful if I combined my filmmaking skills with sociology knowledge. In the meanwhile, after learning the very first chapter of sociology, The Family, I found out that the situation of elderly in the UK is different from that of elderly in Shenzhen. For instance, elderly have the responsibility taking care of their grandchildren and dance in the park for entertainment is distinctive in China. Therefore, I decided to make a documentary to record the interesting culture.
I learnt a lot during the preparation for the competition. I learned a lot about how to carry out an individual primary research when I was filming “The Definition”, which helps a lot in my current sociology study. Also, I understood sociology theories better. For instance, postmodernism used to be only a vague theoretical perspective for me, yet it amazed me knowing that elderly people participate actively in public activities can be considered as view of postmodernism.
Most importantly, I realized filmmaking can make some impacts on people, portraying problems of society. Experience of BSA opened my eyes and led me rethink about my future major in college. I want use my skills and knowledge to help more people, so I will probably try a major with humanity and filmmaking combined instead of pursuing the dream of being an artist alone.
Learning sociology gives me a new perspective in seeing how the world works, and it also lets me care more about the vulnerability in the society. Thank you to my sociology teacher, Richard Driscoll, who gave me lots of inspiration such as filming the dancing in the park, which is interesting to British people, and recommenced lots of sociological books about the elderly.
By listening to his advice, “The Definition” eventually divides into two parts: one is about the elderly in nursing home and the other is about people dancing in the park. Also, there is many interviews in the documentary to give a more well-rounded perspective.
I would like to thank my Math teacher Michael Jin and my friend Franchaska, who helped me with the voice over. Also, thanks to my family members, especially my dear grandmother, who gave me lots of insights related to the issue of elderly.
I made this documentary just before the deadline, thus it’s not so perfect. I’ll probably elaborate some shots and reedit it in the future.
If you are interested, you can click the link below and watch it.
Teng Xun Video:https://v.qq.com/x/page/u0862usad2v.html
Bilibili:https://www.bilibili.com/video/av38188271?from=search&seid=10452775157822232568