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Ask any BIS student which event they look forward to all year, and the resounding reply will be MADD Fest! Forget Coachella, MADD Fest is the most vibrant and fun celebration of music, art, dance and drama, at least in namma Bengaluru! BIS students get extensive exposure to the arts through the year, and MADD Fest attempts to encapsulate the spirit of that year in art all the way from PP to grade 12. Our theme this year was Summer of ’69, and the Visual and Performing Arts Department began the herculean task of curating students’ artwork and performances well in advance.
Throwing open the floodgates to everything we had planned at one go would have been like dropping someone smack dab in the middle of a Pollock painting. So, the Arts Department decided to use a tier process of display- first artwork, then music and dance followed by theatre. MADD Fest 2019 began with a ribbon cutting ceremony in the parking lot of the school, and from there began a museum style walk-through of the entire body of student artwork on display that took parents from the parking lot to the cafeteria and then to the amphitheatre.
This carefully planned walk-through gave parents the luxury of moving at their own pace, lingering over pieces that caught their eye and truly getting to appreciate our students’ talent and the tremendous work that the Arts Department puts in to hone and nurture it.
Of course, the carnival atmosphere ensured that even though this was as structured as a walk through the Louvre with a map in your hand, it was still loads of fun! You could pop out for refreshments near the school gate and take your pick from burgers to pizzas to sushi, and then head back to the exhibits.
Grades 1 and 2 set up a puppet theatre, and like theatre veterans, put up a bravura performance of Jack and the Jellybeans every fifteen minutes. Attending parents were thanked with no less than three jellybeans. Once parents were done with Jack (and with jellybeans in their mouths), they could engage with a range of fascinating work put up next door by 12 IB. From a thought-provoking AV experience entitled ‘Femininity-A Girl’s Perspective’, to a stained glass installation that used the coolest stained glass sunglasses you will ever see, to portraiture of friends and family through the years; our IB students did us proud.
Giving tough competition to the IB students were the tiniest of the lot, our PP artists who created Frida Kahlo paintings.
Also, in order to give a complete picture of the wide range of artwork that our students do all year, we organised running displays. So, in addition to one artwork on display per student, there were also projections of work done from the beginning of the year. This included Cubism, Calabash, Bengali scroll painting and Madhubani. Paintings inspired by Joan Miro and Fra Angelico shared space with collaborative work like murals and cave art. Alongside all these wonderful paintings were beautiful pottery samples from EY, ES and MS.
In oder to prepare parents for the next phase of MADD Fest, the amphitheatre stage served as a transitional point. Students paid homage to the Friday Jam tradition at BIS by putting up a stream of brilliant musical performances for an hour, and it was then time to move to the massive stage put up on the PE field for the official inauguration. Check out the details of the music, dance and theatre performances in our next post!
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