Another MUN event in Shanghai

We have a very active MUN Club in Hangzhou this year, largely thanks to the vigorous leadership of Emily Duncan. Last weekend we visited Shanghai again to attend a one-day conference hosted by Dulwich College Shanghai, the inaugural Shanghai International MUN (SHIMUN), organised by two outstanding young Dulwich students - Pan Ling Wan and Johnnie Yu. 

Many thanks and congratulations are owed to Pan Ling and Johnnie and their admin team for setting up such a great event inside the space of barely three months!

And we are naturally rather chuffed that our Adam Guo (prominently featured in the middle of this slideshow!), the representative of Djibouti, was acclaimed as the 'Best Speaker' in the General Assembly.

The other members of our delegation were Emily Duncan, Flora Xiao, Enrique Chuidian, Natalie Chak, Katherine Ye, Lauren Mok, Tippy Pei, Dominic Law, and Sabrina Chan. MUN newcomers Chee Ling Wu and Stephanie Wu helped out in admin roles, and Jacky Tam took photographs for the conference press team.

There are also some pictures from Sunday, when we took advantage of some spectacular early summer weather to stroll around the French Concession (ending up at the delightful Garden Books) - after having a very big lunch. 

Slideshow by Mr Murphy

The music is generic iTunes/iPhoto "slideshow music", so hopefully not infringing anyone's copyright.

Science Fair

Here are some images from our recent Science Fair, held just over a week ago on a gorgeously sunny day which felt like the cusp between late spring and early summer. 

This impressive exhibition was the culmination of a week-long Science-led 'Inter-Disciplinary Experience' in which our students had buddied up with an opposite number from our Chinese host institution, Greentown Yuhua Middle School, to work in pairs on self-devised projects which combined science with another subject discipline - such as music, art, maths, or English literature.

Filmed by Mr Murphy

The music here is Birdland, composed by Joe Zawinul and performed by his band Weather Report. 

(And in the first half of the film there is an unnamed groove laid down by our very own African drumming troupe.)

Fashion Show

Last Friday, students put on their own catwalk fashion show in the theatre, as the climax of our week-long Design IDE. Hangzhou Motu Creative Company staged the event for us, and modelling consultant Ms Annie Jiang coached our models in the art of the flouncy walk and the moody pose. [Some fun stuff from rehearsals the day before can be seen here. And the whole show is now posted here.]

Filmed by Mr Murphy

The art of the catwalk....

On Thursday afternoon, students took over the Library to practise strutting their stuff for the catwalk show of self-designed clothes that would be the climax of our week-long Design IDE the next day. Modelling consultant Annie Jiang put them through their paces. 

[If you are narcissistic - or masochistic - enough to want to see even more of this, there is a 'complete' version here.]




Filmed by Mr Murphy

Mr Murphy - caught reading

To publicise the 'Caught Reading' photo competition my Library Committee is running at the moment, I made this little slideshow of pictures of myself reading a number of books during the recent Easter vacation. I really will read pretty much anywhere! In a cafe, in a bar, in an ornamental garden, in the shower.... in the middle of a marathon?!

A slideshow by Mr Murphy

The music is Hey Now by the jazz pianist Red Garland and his Trio

Maths in the open air

On our last two days before this year's Easter break, students went out to two nearby scenic spots in Hangzhou, the Xixi Wetlands Park and the Bagua Tian, to practise their maths with a number of practical challenges. We were lucky that Spring was just blooming... although the weather did turn a bit grey and drizzly on the second day, down at Bagua Tian (it was difficult to work out the height of the adjacent mountain using trigonometry when its upper half was completely obscured by low cloud!).

There was added motivation for these tasks this year, because our Maths teachers had threatened to quit teaching and find new jobs if students couldn't reassure them that mathematics is useful in the real world!

A slideshow by Mr Murphy

The music is Take Five by the Dave Brubeck Quartet.

Oh dear - it was rather naughty of me to use the Dave Brubeck piece! It is of course still under copyright, and thus the slideshow is blocked by Youtube in some countries.

Here is a revised version with a classical Chinese erhu piece, 蝉院鐘声, accompanying it (which I am pretty sure is not copyright-protected - or not aggressively so).

You can see a film made by some of last year's students during the same activity here.

It's all about the journey...

This is the best project completed by last year's Film class students on their final study unit on 'Journeys': the simple subject of a student running a few laps around our sports field becomes a rather broader and more resonant evocation of our campus life.

I was particularly impressed by the range of different shots in this short film; there was a lot of clever dolly work, improvised using one of the wheeled chairs from the Library.

A film by Brian Lau, David Zhang, and Jasper Ng (the runner)

The music is Techy by Marcus Neely

Maths teachers in crisis

There's something amiss with our Maths teachers... they seem to have lost their faith in their subject... 

Perhaps our Maths IDE this week can save them???

An Alan Smithee film

Fat Chance

This was one of the best of last year's Film class efforts on their unit of study on Reality TV. They were asked to produce a series trailer illustrating a new Reality TV concept of their own devising. This scenario was a makeover challenge for an overweight youngster. This year's Film students have just embarked on the same task, so I shared this with them as an inspiration.

 A film by Joe Littler, Kameka Herbst, Hayson Chu, and Amy Hopkins

Hayson was the narrator/personal trainer, Joe the compulsive eater, and Vanessa Wat was his would-be love interest.

The sun always shines on CGF!

Well, it hasn't for the last few weeks! We've had a grim run of weather in Hangzhou lately, but this week the sun has reappeared and it has started to feel as though Spring may be just around the corner at last. This made for a particularly jolly outing for the China Grassroots Football crew yesterday, and Mr Pratt couldn't resist making another slideshow.

Slideshow by Mr Pratt

The music is Soul Machine by Manu Dibango

Hogwarts in China?!

There were many great moments in our Chunjie skit show just before the last vacation, but many people's favourite was this little 'Harry Potter' clip in which Coach Mentor He Guannan and his boys from dormitory S.202 compared certain of our staff to characters from the famous Hogwarts school. 
[I am flattered to be 'played' by the great Alan Rickman, though I really don't see the Snape connection!!!]

Retrospective

Last Friday, CIS Hong Kong, our parent school, held its annual dinner for its support staff. Our IT Manager, Edwin Chan, represented CIS Hangzhou at this event, and gave a talk about our progress over our first 18 months of operation (is it only that long??).

He put together this slideshow of his own and other staff members' photographs to illustrate his remarks.

Slideshow created by Edwin Chan

African Drums for the Chinese New Year

The finale to our Farewell Concert just before Chinese New Year was a routine by our ever-popular African Drumming troupe: Jerry Yang, Sabrina Chan, Victoria Ngai, Becca Guo, Constance Lam, Adam Guo, Wang Lu, and Pierre Biret.



Filmed by Mr Murphy

Lion Dances in public

Most of our lion dancers only did their routines for the rest of the school, but three of the best pairs - as voted for by their classmates - got to perform at a city centre shopping mall, alongside our charity craft fair, which was the centrepiece of our Chinese 'IDE' celebrating the coming Lunar New Year.

Performers:       Red Lion             Mia Kriegel and Tristan Wong                            Orange Lion        Chloe Lee and Isabella Boyne
                           Blue Lion           Sherson Ng and Andy Ji


Filmed by Mr Murphy

More music from our Chinese New Year celebrations

This is Andy Ji practising the erhu piece 良宵 (Liang Xiao - Beautiful Night) by Liu Tianhua, in preparation for a public performance in the outdoor plaza of the Euro American Center mall the next day, alongside our pop-up craft market there - the centrepiece of our Chinese 'IDE' to celebrate the approaching Chinese New Year.

And here's the actual performance at the plaza on Friday 6th February. (There is, unfortunately, quite a lot of background noise, but the sound recording has come out fairly well on this.)

Filmed by Mr Murphy

A cappella performance

Enrique Chuidian, Kate Bradley, Karis Tao, Isabella Boyne, and Jasmine and Georgina Savage rehearse an a cappella arrangement of the popular Chinese song Da Hai A Gu Xiang (大海啊 故乡, composed by Wang Liping), in preparation for a performance at our Chinese New Year's Craft Fair event at the Euro American Center shopping mall the next day.

And you can hear them performing it at the EAC here (although it's not a great recording, as it was in the open air and there was a lot of background noise).

Filmed by Mr Murphy

Chinese New Year Celebrations - Skit Show

Here is the final element of our Chinese 'IDE' at the end of our last session of school: a Saturday morning concert of music performances and comical skits, mostly prepared and performed in dormitory groups - part of our efforts to celebrate the imminent Chinese New Year. The MCs were Frances Amos and Tippy Pei.

This is just a selection of the highlights. You can watch the entire concert here. [Two other films about the earlier phases of this IDE activity can be seen here and here.]


Filmed by Mr Murphy

Chinese New Year Celebrations - Part 2

The second phase of our Chinese 'IDE' celebrating the Lunar New Year: students spent 4 hours in the plaza of the Euro American Center shopping mall - entertaining passers-by with impromptu performances and selling handmade craft products to raise money for charity.

[The 'flash mob' episode accompanied a rendition of the Zambian hymn Bonse Aba, but I wasn't able to get a decent recording of that live, so I have used a version sung by the Lenoir Rhyne Youth Chorus.]

The Part 1 film, on preparations the day before, can be seen here.

Filmed by Mr Murphy

新年快乐!

Chinese New Year Celebrations - Part 1

A few highlights from our preparations for the Chinese New Year this year. We gave over the last few days of our Jan/Feb session to an 'Inter-Disciplinary Experience' (IDE) led by the Chinese Department: students prepared performances for a farewell concert, and created homemade crafts to be sold in aid of local charities at a pop-up market in a local mall the next day. 
There was also a keenly contested inter-dormitory competition for the best decorations and hospitality displayed to a visiting judging panel (Mr Karena, Mr Tam, Ms Lam and Ms Lee) on Thursday evening.

A further video or two with snippets of the Friday market and the Saturday skit show will appear in a day or two.


Filmed by Mr Murphy

Live Lounge 2015

On Sunday 1st February, just before our Chunjie break, we transformed our black-box theatre into a cabaret/café for the evening to host a 'Live Lounge' concert.

Masterminded by Katie Eu and Mrs Grace on behalf of the student Arts & Social Committee, the event had so many people coming forward to participate that it ran on on well past its planned 70-80 minutes.... and exhausted the batteries in both of the video cameras I was using to try to record the event. I replaced them as quickly as I could, but one performance - Enrique Chuidian and Camille Chiang singing a Jack Johnson song - unfortunately did not get filmed. My apologies.

The concert was so long that - for the purposes of editing and uploading the footage - I was obliged to divide it into two parts. The final 45 minutes or so (the overrun!!) can be seen below.

The films above were shot from various points around the room with a handheld camera. You can also see an alternate view of the show (again in two parts), shot from a static camera on a tripod at the side of the stage, here and here. The pictures from this second camera mostly turned out quite well, but the sound quality was rather poorer than on the handheld shots.

I have also posted all the individual performances separately: they can be accessed via this list of links (which also appears at the top of the sidebar on the right here).

Many thanks to everyone who took part, to our splendid MCs Jasmine Savage and Enrique Chuidian, to the hard-working stage crew of Jean Yap, Yew San Cheah and Tristan Wong - and to Katie Eu and Mrs Grace for their considerable organisational efforts over the past several weeks.

Filmed by Mr Murphy

Coming soon....

Live Lounge  - films of all the performances from our cabaret-concert a week ago should be ready by the middle of this week. I'll post a few highlights on here, and put a full link list up in the 'pages' section at the top of the sidebar.

And......

Chinese New Year celebrations  -  I should have a highlights reel (or two) of our CNY activities up on here next week, shortly before the New Year finally arrives.  Watch this space.

Going home

One of our most eager film-makers this year, Stephen Chan, isn't actually studying Film with me, alas. He shot this little film, 'Back', a montage of the journey back from Hangzhou to Hong Kong, on his camera-phone - on this year group's first trip back, for the half-term break in October. It's a journey most of our students will make at least five times during their year here. They're just about to do it again....


A film by Stephen Chan

The music, he tells me, is Channel 42 by deadmau5 and Wolfgang Gartner.

Thoughts on the eve of the Chinese New Year

At the end of Semester 1 last year I arranged for both of my Film classes to visit the Hangzhou No. 2 Old People's Home to conduct interviews with some of the residents - a kind of precursor to our recent 'Humans of Hangzhou' project.
Unfortunately, we were assailed by legions of gremlins on and after these shoots (everything from broken tripod mounts to faulty SD cards and hard drive meltdowns; it was a veritable Biblical plague of technical 'issues'!), and most of the footage we got was lost or proved to be unusable. We eventually managed to salvage this one reel of some of the old folk's closing remarks - their New Year hopes and wishes for the upcoming Year of the Horse (now very nearly past).

Lion Dances 2015

As part of our efforts to connect with Chinese culture, PE classes at the end of Semester 1 spend a month or so studying the art of lion dancing - a traditional centrepiece of Chinese New Year celebrations - and work in small teams to produce a performance. Here is a highlight reel of the final performances for assessment in class last Friday morning. The best pairs, as chosen by their classmates, will perform again during our New Year festivities this week.
The traditional percussion accompanying the performances was composed and recorded by Mr Karena's music students.


Links to full films of all the separate student team performances (in two views, one shot from a tripod and the other handheld) can be found here. [And links to some of last year's performances can be found here]



Filmed by Mr Murphy

Time to show our talents again!!

We're just about to hold our second annual 'talent show' here at CIS Hangzhou this Sunday evening - this year styled Live Lounge.
By happy coincidence, I just unearthed this reminder of last year's show. Some of my Film students, just embarking on their Semester 2 unit of study on 'Reality TV', decided to make this portrait of two of our performers, Kelly Kwok and Vanessa Wat, preparing for the big night. Although this was a non-assessed preliminary exercise, it ended up being one of the most charming and polished films we produced all year. I had thought I'd lost it - but it was merely misfiled.
Vanessa and Kelly sing the classic Fly Me To The Moon (words and music by Bart Howard - which can also be heard in this impromptu performance in a Shanghai park during last year's Project Week) and do a dance routine to Justin Bieber's Beauty and a Beat.


A film by Joe Littler, Kameka Herbst, Hayson Chu and Amy Hopkins