Celebrating the Arts with an Arts Afternoon

Greenwood staff and students enjoyed a wonderful Arts Afternoon on Friday, January 8. Guest speaker Britta B. started the afternoon with powerful and inspiring poems and was followed by Arts sessions and the first Greenwood Mic of 2021.

Greenwood had the honour of welcoming Britta B. to open our Arts Afternoon. Britta B. is a spoken word poet and shared some of her original poems with students and staff. Her powerful words and stories left everyone smiling and feeling inspired.

Britta has been writing ever since she can remember. She has a vivid memory of the first time her mom taught her how to write her name. “Just holding a pen in my hand felt like it was meant to be. It was magical and a pen is one of the purest forms of positivity,” she said. In Grade 5, her teacher wrote the word ‘poetry’ on the chalkboard and at that moment it clicked with her: “I write like that. I am a poet.”
 

Poetry was and still is an outlet and a place for Britta to investigate her thoughts. It’s a way for her to think creatively about herself and handle challenging situations. Many of the poems Britta shared were about her life experiences. While she was performing her poems for the Greenwood community, she asked that students and staff write down some of their favourite lines from each poem. She shared many powerful words; here are a few:

From her poem, Fluke:

“You are not a fluke”
“You don’t have to have sweet dreams, you are sweet dreams” 
“No one else can be you”

From her poem, Black Boots:

“If there was one thing I could give the world, it would be power and pride for who you are”

From her poem about identity, Where You’re From:

“Where are you from is such a loaded question”
“I come from the truth, my truth, I come from the heart”

Click here to learn more about Britta B.

Following Britta, students attended grade-specific virtual arts workshops. Our Grade 7 students enjoyed a ‘Culinary Creations’ session run by Sydney Smith ‘22, Hannah Hutzul ‘22, and Maurya Shah ‘22. Everyone had their ingredients ready to make chocolatey treats.

Mr. Brown showed our Grade 8s how to make percussion instruments using materials you can find around the house. They used pots and pans, empty cans, rice, beans, stones, kernels and more!

Our Grade 9s and 11s got crafty with paper and scissors. Angela Yang ‘21 taught our Grade 9s how to make origami. Meanwhile, Jonah Greenhut ‘21, India Morgan ‘21 and Robin Henshaw ‘21 showed our Grade 11s how to make 3D paper creations.

Teddy Vescio ‘21 shared her knowledge with the Grade 10s on how to do special effects makeup using Vaseline, Kleenex, red markers, paint and lipstick.

Our Grade 12s had a blast playing drama games run by Blake Haber ‘21, Humboldt Tresniowski ‘21, Justin Ferrera ‘21, and Gabriel Browning Rodriguez ‘21. They were full of laughs as they told impromptu stories using random images shown in the Google Meet.

After a wonderful afternoon of Arts sessions, students and staff enjoyed the first Greenwood Mic of 2021. We had many incredible musical performances and it was a perfect way to cap off the day.

Thank you to all who made our Arts Afternoon possible!