PolyArts
Advanced Art
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Advanced Performing and Visual Arts classes at Poly provide numerous opportunities for students who wish to hone their craft and pursue the arts in college and beyond. In addition to courses in our visual arts and dance studios, we offer independent study for students with special interests. Our students are taught by professional visiting artists, take part in arts partnerships with local museums, and may take advantage of study away programs. These creative options enable Poly students to expand their skills, explore their own creative vision, better understand the world, and develop their skills and techniques as they reach individual artistic goals.
AP Art History
In Art History, a college-equivalent survey course, students explore the nature of art, art making, and responses to art from prehistory to the present developing an in-depth, holistic understanding of the history of art and architecture from Asia and Africa to Europe, the Pacific, and the Americas.
AP Studio Art: 2D Art and Design
Students produce a portfolio of drawings, paintings, or prints in Studio Art: 2D Art and Design that represent a range of visual concerns and methods.
AP Music Theory
Students who are mastering an instrument take Music Theory to fully explore the concepts and compositional systems that underlie their practice. They learn harmonic practices, sight singing, musical styles and structures, basics of composition, and more.
Upper School Advanced Ensembles
Advanced Concert Band, Advanced String Ensemble, and Advanced Concert Choir tracks are available to interested students enrolled in these performance ensembles. Placement is determined by audition and is granted only to the top 30%. Advanced track students will also prepare new repertoire, be eligible for additional performance opportunities, and, when applicable, work on college audition material.
Advanced Dance
Advanced Dance is where students further develop technique, performance, and choreography skills across a variety of styles including ballet, jazz, musical theater, modern, and world dance.
Advanced Arts Electives
For those who’ve already taken Introduction to Acting, Acting or have commensurate experience (Department Chair approval pending), students will take a journey to develop their acting techniques by studying monologues and scenes from a variety of plays, while developing their ability to create a character. To prepare them for future spotlights, students also learn skills to help them in auditions as well as techniques for acting on film and musical theater.
Advanced Acting
Searing monologues, character development, scene work, audition skills and practice, are just a few of the techniques students pursue in Advanced Acting with our accomplished faculty and guest teachers.
Advanced Ceramics
Expanding on the ideas and skills gained in Beginning Ceramics, students develop creative thinking and personal expression as well as skills, techniques, and the understanding needed to create quality work. They explore and expand on a variety of ceramic techniques, including more complex hand-building, sculptural ceramics, and wheel-throwing, as well as decorating techniques such as carving, imprinting, sgraffito, colored slip, slip trailing, and patina.
Advanced Drawing
Students concentrate on developing the skills to explore how they can most effectively create a unique personal style. Working from still life and from models, drawing under both natural and controlled conditions, this course continues the study of various techniques and media, with an emphasis on drawing from observation, the development of composition, and an exploration of personal imagery. Critiques, demonstrations, videos, and slides and exhibition opportunities throughout the semester enhance students’ experiences and work.
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