Writer In Residence - Bernadette Hall
Bernadette is a nationally recognised writer, best known for her poetry. Her sixth book “Settler Dreaming” was short-listed for the Tasmania Pacific Poetry Award in 2003. Her seventh “The Ponies” was published this year to critical acclaim. This recent work arises from a trip to Antarctica in 2004 on an Arts Award which she shared with her collaborator, the Dunedin artist Kathryn Madill.

Bernadette has mentored writers and poets in the school. She has also shared her expertise with the English Faculty, lead a seminar for the scholarship English group, run a poetry writing workshop for GATE, and, to top it all off, organised a series of lunchtime readings in the library. The teachers and students who have worked with Bernadette have been challenged and inspired in the teaching of poetry and in their writing. She enjoyed her stay in the Kings Room in Te Koraha, even managing to fit in time for her own writing.

We were lucky that Bernadette was been able to fit in her residency here, between being Writer In-Residence at Victoria University last year and heading off to Ireland in July to take up the Rathcoola Residency in County Cork .

Performing Artist - Patrick Duffy

The school was buzzing with excitement and a nervous sense of anticipation as rehearsals for our senior production of Macbeth got underway.

Shakespeare’s classic tragedy of ambition, Macbeth, was given a new twist with an all female cast, a chorus of ‘witches’ and a set and masks professionally designed by our Performing Artist in Residence, Patrick Duffy.

Patrick is an actor, director and designer who has been creating a deconstructed and dark set, which includes the idea of the witches being the manipulators of the main characters. Actresses were
swathed in elasticated material and fixed to scaffolding as though they were puppets.

Patrick also spent his residency sharing his ideas on set design and mask making with some of the Drama classes.

Patrick created a set of masks for the main witches – a process which was time consuming but effective and which transformed the girls into skulllike creatures who were in control of the action on the stage.

To make the masks, girls had their faces wrapped in a plaster bandage to create a life-like mask of their face. This was then used as a mould for a plaster head to be made, which was the framework for the masks to be fitted around.

The overall effect was an absolutely stunning and challenging piece of theatre.

In 2009, Patrick joined us again and was designer of many of the costumes for our Senior Dance Production, nimbus.