HOME Education

SJA Jeju resumes its Annual Festival of Arts

2023.05.08 18:18:49 SoYoung Choi
546


[Photo Credit to SJA Jeju Instagram]

St. Johnsbury Academy Jeju (SJA Jeju) has resumed its Annual Festival of the Arts, which was temporarily halted due to the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic. 

First established in Vermont, USA, SJA Jeju is a PreK-12 international school branch of the SJA located in Jeju, South Korea. 

Students from a wide range of ages across elementary, middle, and high school participate to showcase their art.

Though SJA Jeju’s Annual Festival of the Arts is a week-long festival, the displays of the arts are a culmination of a year of hard work from both students and teachers, such as filmmaking, drama, music, and visual art. 

The 2023 festival was held from Monday, April 17th to Friday, April 21st in SJA Jeju Performing Arts Center (PAC) building.

Elementary, middle, and high schools performed separately on the assigned dates. 

The performances took about an hour: high school music on Monday, elementary school music on Tuesday, high school film on Wednesday, middle school music on Thursday, and the middle and high schools’ drama gala shows on Friday. 

The flexibility of the performers strengthened the connections with the audience, which made the occasion all the more joyous. 

Specifically for high school Strings, when their audience consisted of lower elementary school students, the ensemble played Ah! vous dirai-je, maman and Old MacDonald Had a Farm instead of Romanze from Eine Kleine Nachtmusik and Allegretto from Symphony No. 7.

For the elementary school music performance, two students sang “Not Sorry” by YoungJi Lee with school-appropriate lyrics. 

The two singers engaged the audience by encouraging them to sing along with them and to lead applause. 

In addition, at the beginning of the drama gala shows on Friday, four high school students danced “As If It’s Your Last” by Blackpink. 

Chillax News, SJA Jeju’s student news production made up of high school students and organized by a high school filmmaking teacher, released its latest episode at the beginning of the show.

In addition, the middle school drama production team held a Q & A session for students to freely ask questions to the casts, and gave prizes to the person who asked the best question.

The Arts festival further offers the Artist in Residence (AiR) program, which invites one or more artists from multiple disciplines to the school. 

For this year’s festival, SJA Jeju hosted Samantha Blumenfeld, a screenprint, new media, and installation artist in Seoul.

Each student who enrolled in art classes in the current academic year had a chance to learn and create screen printing artwork from her. 

Students’ screen printing artworks were exhibited in the PAC building along with various other artworks. 

The whole school community enjoyed the festival with various shows.

The first Annual Festival of the Arts was held on May 26th, 2018, and the second arts festival was held from May 20th to May 24th of 2019.

SoYoung Choi / Grade 11
St. Johnsbury Academy Jeju