Creating a culture of creativity, artistic freedom, and camaraderie, all hallmarks of virtually all performing arts classes, does not come easily.

It is a space that all of the performing arts teachers at the Vashon Island School District work hard to deliberately create, throughout all the schools, in order to provide a safe and inclusive space for all students to find their voice, through singing, music, acting, stagecraft, or whatever their interest might reside.

“What I love about performing arts classes, be it band, orchestra, choir, or theater, you’re doing something so different than the rest of your classes during the day,” said McMurray Middle School and Vashon High School (VHS) band teacher Britt Dahlgren. “It is a necessary part of the student’s day to get out of that logical thinking, and grants a reprieve from the stressors of other subjects, but it also presents a challenge in a totally different realm.”

Performing arts options are woven into the schedules of each school at VISD.

At Chautauqua Elementary, every class sees Erin Kealy for music throughout the year. McMurray students can choose between band, taught by Dahlgren, or choir, taught by Kealy. At the high school, students can take band, with Dahlgren, or immerse themselves in theater, taught by Andy James. (See page 10 for news about the VHS theater program’s latest production, “Alice in Wonderland.”)

The skills learned at each level vary widely based on development, from cross-lateral movements at the elementary school level to reciting lines in front of an audience at high school, but each teacher will cite the same importance arts provides in an educational setting: a different and necessary space for students to succeed.

“You create a sense of belonging in a group, outside of a sports context, and that is the hallmark of a performing group and ensemble,” said Kealy. “You can be an excellent artist and that can be isolating in the social setting at a school. If you can sing, play an instrument, or perform in a group, you can find that team feeling of success without being an athlete. It is important for all students to have that feeling in their lives.”

That feeling of a group, working together as an ensemble, is very much on display in a theater setting. At VHS, students put on three productions throughout the school year. Each production requires a variety of skills, from acting, to building sets, to state management, to creating costumes.

James centers his classroom as a space for students to explore and discover what they are good at doing.

“The theater setting is one of the few places anywhere, not just in schools, that you have people chipping in from such an enormously diverse range of skills,” explained James. “To have all of those skills physically converge into one place and make a production happen is an ecstatic experience. It is hard in a general education classroom to charge students up like that and I’m not sure you would want to. But in the theater setting, it is a beautiful thing because it is so energizing and memorable.”

Study after study has demonstrated that the inclusion of music and art in education helps students succeed in other classes. And many of the district’s performing arts teachers found success, voice, and community in arts throughout their lives, and would like to replicate that space for Vashon’s students.

“I loved my music classes when I was in school and it was something I could go into, feel comfortable in, and work really hard at,” said Dahlgren. “I struggled with math, and I’m always the first person to tell my students that. Plus, learning music helped make math a little bit easier.”