Arts
At Notre Dame Academy, the arts are an integral part of the curriculum – an essential ingredient in a fully rounded education. Each year, our performing and visual arts program provides opportunities for students of every grade level and ability to explore the nature of beauty and creativity and to express it in their own lives.
Through performance in dance, theater, band, chorus, and orchestra and their creative productivity in visual arts, students share their gifts with each other and with local audiences. Participation teaches students to trust each other, affirm each other’s gifts, and take risks. They develop the memorization, expressive, and presentation skills that produce self-confidence. Year after year, NDA students win awards in the visual and applied arts and in performance.
Arts Courses
The Visual and Performing Arts Department has as its goals and objectives the use of the artist’s skills and training process as tools for life. A few of these objectives found in all Arts courses include tapping the creativity in the individual, developing skills of concentration and focus, valuing risk-taking as well as learning the world through a variety of artistic media.
All Students are required to take the Creative Arts class during their 7th, 8th, 9th, and 10th grade.
Designed to introduce students to the visual and performing arts and to encourage students to experience these arts as participators, this course is team-taught by members of the various arts departments. Students are introduced to the masters of dance, visual arts, music, and drama while they themselves learn some basics in acting, dance and music performance, and explore pottery, print making, painting, drawing, and sculpture. This course culminates in the spring with an art exhibit of student work and a performance involving all the arts.