“The holiday dance is our opportunity, as dancers, to really get everyone in the spirit of Christmas for holiday weekend....we kick off with a fun performance on Friday that always has exciting costumes. We create a story centered on a Christmas tradition.”
So what hallowed Christmas tradition did the school center its celebration on this year? This year's selection was the well known and beloved tale of Santa's workshop being taken over by eminent domain for oil and the resulting 'Occupy North Pole' movement helping Santa regain his workshop:
Here is the storyline of the 'Occupy North Pole' saga:
This year’s dance theme is based on an original story written by Barbara Kibler, who has been a George School dance teacher for twenty-eight years. The action takes place in the North Pole with Santa Claus and his elves losing their workshop as a result of eminent domain. Soon, the elves’ work is outsourced and the workshop is taken over by a new corporate conglomerate, whose acronym is GREED. The sad and unfulfilled executive in charge begins using background checks to determine if children have been naughty or nice.
From this plight, Occupy North Pole is born.
This is an interesting interpretative program based on a Christmas tradition. Aren't Christmas traditions usually centered on tales of peace, love, joy, compassion, giving and worship? The revisionist Christmas tradition in this school centers on a story of greed, evil capitalists, outsourcing, and revolution.
Ho Ho Ho. The Occupiers have rescued Santa and his elves from the evil doers. Whatever would Christmas be without these protesters? The Occupiers are the "saviors" and have allowed Santa to open once again to make toys for children world wide. Hallelujah.
I'm not sure whether to be impressed that a school still does a Christmas program, or depressed to think this is what passes for a Christmas program these days.
ReplyDeleteNo 99%ers can afford the tuition at the George School:
ReplyDeleteBoarding Students — $45,710
Includes tuition, room and board, and some materials/lab fees.
Day Students — $31,780
Includes tuition, all meals, and some materials/lab fees.
So this is rather hypocritical, to say the least.
Hmm. Opportunists with still no synced message...I mean, their message is all over the place!
ReplyDeleteThe last I read this morning, occupy protesters were keeping food-stuffed trucks from getting to the hungry.
http://moonbattery.com/?p=5825
http://www.examiner.com/conservative-in-spokane/students-persevere-to-feed-hungry-oregon-despite-occupy-portland-protesters
As a 2011 graduate from George School, I can tell you, Wyatt, that the vast majority of George School's students are from the 99%. Many students do pay full tuition, but they do so essentially to subsidize those who cannot. I received need-based aid for all four years, and I was good friends with a kid who had a 100% scholarship.
ReplyDeleteThe school's actual cost for educating each student is between $55-65,000 per year.
George School's tuition, while quite high, is not one-size-fits-all, and it is an exceedingly left-leaning, pro-99% environment. The only better value I can see is a place like Lawrenceville, but it depends what you're after. George School's tuition was a sound investment for me.
I can hardly wait for the scene where someone defecates on Santa’s sleigh, violates one of the reindeer, and removes lice from the elves’ ears.
ReplyDeleteI just wanted to comment that many of the students on stage are "99%ers". George has one of the largest high school endowments and is extremely generous with financial aid and scholarships. More than half of the students at George School receive some sort of aid. I know of at least 2 people on that stage who aren't paying a penny.
ReplyDeleteSo the scholarship students are getting their "liberal, Socialist, anti-war, anti-Capitalist" indoctrination at a reduce price...how generous of the Quakers!
ReplyDeleteThis is B S , You have the Teacher picking programs like this . I agree 100% with Anonymous.
ReplyDeleteGeorge School has a variety of "holiday programs" including Meeting for Worship, which I believe (unless you think Quaker silent worship and reading from the Bible is a problem) you all would find really beautiful. There's a dance. There's probably other presentations too. This is a school, and please tell me all your high school teacher-created performance were Broadway-quality... Come on folks.
ReplyDeleteI won't pretend the price tag for my high school (I'm '83) isn't a weird sort of problem. Like a lot of well-endowed schools, GS pays out a LOT of scholarship money, but there is still rumbling within the wider Friends (Quaker) community about Friends schools living up to our sects values of simplicity and equality. Part of the problem is, Friends schools have done such a good job teaching kids, they become highly sought-after, and when a resource becomes scarce and competetive, it's hard to keep it from becoming the province of the well-off.
All that said, do you really want critics picking on YOUR school's locally-written pageant/choral program/dance performance? I mean, I know you may think your kids are God's gift to Broadway, but 99% (no, a different 99%) are really and truly amateurs. They're having a great time and thank goodness there are still high schools (not specialty arts conservatories, but general high schools) that actually HAVE a dance program.
You can choose a brain washed right oriented Christmas show or one done by forward thinking politically astute Quakers. I'll take one that reflects the direction the country is headed, and I like folks with their eyes wide open instead of those remembering "the good times" and forgetting those who suffered under those visions.
ReplyDeleteAnonymous - You are actually rather correct in your characterization of Quakerism being “politically astute.” Quakers today make a pledge towards “social justice” which is a mission of the progressives and was spoken about ad nauseam by Jeremiah Wright in his church that Obama went to. It is NOT a bible based Christian concept.
ReplyDeleteThe Quakers, or Society of Friends, who came and settled Pennsylvania, believed everyone was equal and were thus pacifists in the American Revolution. I do not think, however, that they would recognize the current attempts to provide social justice by evening out the distribution of wealth as being part of their faith. If they did, they never would have colonized and controlled Pennsylvania as they did for several decades after William Penn became governor. They had no problem with working hard and keeping the fruits of their labors.
But if believing that this show “reflects the direction the country is headed” means that the country is headed towards everyone being busy bodies interfering in everyone else’s business to get it to run the way THEY think it should run, then I hardly think this was a show in line with true Quakerism. Their belief in a personal relationship with God, where the holy spirit speaks directly to everyone, is one of the main reasons they refused to pick sides in the American Revolution. Everyone must follow the path God has laid out for them, and it is not men’s purview to judge the path of others. They certainly wouldn’t pick sides in the Santa/Corporate debate and would never support violence on behalf of their position.
[pry's face out from beneath palms]
ReplyDeleteI've been avoiding watching this video, afraid that it would be as sickening as I could imagine. Unfortunately when I first glanced at the story I skimmed so quickly that I didn't realize that it was a 'dance' performance.
It is more sickening than I could imagine. The idea of it as a play was bad enough, but to amp it up into music and dance - that doesn't make it 'light' or 'cute' or 'socially conscious', it's more like mainlining ideological lies deep into the minds of the kids involved. This is the most despicable form of political indoctination... it thoroughly tops out my disgust-o-meter... it has as much to do with art as any of its predecessors in soviet or Nazi propaganda 'art' ever did.
German modern dance and the Third Reich
"...few people know the fascinating story of German modern dance, which was the great exception. Modern expressive dance found favor with the regime and especially with the infamous Dr. Joseph Goebbels, the Minister of Propaganda. How modern artists collaborated with Nazism reveals an important aspect of modernism, uncovers the bizarre bureaucracy which controlled culture and tells the histories of great figures who became enthusiastic Nazis and lied about it later... "
I'm sure Anonymous will enjoy this, if nothing else, he certainly deserves being convicted by Godwin's law.