September 29, 2014
YOPA!
YOPA!
Easy to exclaim, two syllables, a satisfying balance, YO – PA. Our students picked up on that early – YOPA! – with enthusiasm and maybe the occasional touch of sarcasm. It seems oddly fitting that declaiming the acronym (Year of Performing Arts) has itself quickly become something of a miniature performance piece. YOPA!
Friday, September 19th with the students, and last Tuesday night with the adult community, we proclaimed 2014-15 as a special year for celebration of music, dance, drama, and speech. We launched YOPA in conjunction with the opening of the public phase of the capital campaign to build the long-awaited performing arts center for Our Lady of Good Counsel High School. Our fundraising goal is $10 million and we go public with optimism. Through the quiet phase of the past year, more than 300 donors have contributed $7.9 million.
Two families stand out for their generosity, our Campaign Co-Chairs: Al ’66 and Kathy Checchi, and Dave ’75 and Lisa Higgins. Each family has made a commitment of $2 million to help us build this home for the arts. Their gifts are the largest in school history.
It is appropriate to have some speechifying on the occasion of a campaign launch. We were honored to have all four Chairs speak on Tuesday evening and provide their compelling case for finishing the vision for the Olney campus. Nonetheless, the best argument for support of the campaign came from seeing and hearing what students are capable of in the performing arts: our marching band drum line provided a rousing opening to the event; Hailey Giddings ’16 raised goose bumps with “I Dreamed a Dream” from Les Miserables; Speech Team champion Jack Elmendorf ’16 gave us a remarkable rendition of a Conan O’Brien speech; our string ensemble performed a beautiful and difficult Beethoven suite; and the newly formed YOPA Ensemble shared a medley of uplifting songs.
Our guests left the Kane Center energized and convinced that we are on track to build the structure that our students have needed and deserved since we opened in 1958.
At the pep rally for YOPA a few days earlier, I began my comments to the students by recalling my first line from my sole involvement with drama in high school: “A long time ago, in the days when dragons were still common, there lived a Duke” (from Robert Bolt’s The Thwarting of Baron Bolligrew). That was second semester, senior year, 1975. Between the students being amped up for the pep rally and the problematic acoustics of a high school gym, I’m not sure too many heard a word I said. To me, the simple recollection of lines learned almost 40 years ago point to the remarkable impact that the performing arts can have on those who get involved. I gave the performing arts a shot late, too late. Our plans for a performing arts center for Our Lady of Good Counsel High School will make involvement possible for generations of Falcons.
I could have gone on talking in this wistful mode but it was clear I was losing the crowd. Instead, abandoning the text, with about a dozen of my colleagues and under the leadership of fellow Kiwi and GC Economics teacher James Aitken, we made the case for performing arts with a performing art. In New Zealand, it has become something of a tradition to launch a challenging enterprise with the Maori war dance, the haka. We caught the students by surprise. As I am proud to share and will long remember, there was a standing ovation for an activity that involved me and dancing, something that will almost certainly never happen again. You can see the evidence here.
The year ahead promises plenty of passion, joy, creativity, and surprise on the stage and in the emergence, from a hole in the ground, of a brand new structure for the performing arts that will be the best of any high school in the region. We draw inspiration for the challenge of raising the necessary funds from the motto of the Xaverian Brothers, one that seems like it was written with our goals in the performing arts in mind: In harmony, small things grow.
Let’s get it done Good Counsel. YOPA! YOPA!