Tsinghua International School (THIS) held on May 22, 2026 its annual Arts Festival, a daylong, school-wide celebration of the arts that also served as a quiet testament to student growth.
This year's Arts Festival theme, "Together We Grow," echoed the school's annual keyword, "Growth." From the first jazz notes upon arrival in the morning to the final curtain of the SpongeBob musical in the evening — THIS was immersed in art and in growth.
Overture: Art Begins at Doorstep
Early in the morning, as students walked through the school gates, the improvisational jazz from the school café greeted them. Stepping into the academic building, a transformed art space unfolded before their eyes: a poster designed by 1P student Ethan Zhang had "leaped" off the page into a 3D installation standing in the center of the lobby. This piece, champion of this year's Arts Festival poster competition, was also used for the Arts Festival's posters, promotional brochures, and the design of the Primary Division T-shirts.
That day, Primary students wore tie-dye T-shirts they had made themselves during art and STEAM classes. Even the school bell was replaced by the theme drum music from SpongeBob, filling every corner with rhythm and color.
Morning Concert: First Symphony in Rain
The morning concert, originally planned for outdoors, was relocated to the gym in anticipation of rain, following a pre-established contingency plan. Thanks to the PE Department's flexible coordination and the support staff members' swift execution, the concert took place as scheduled without disruption.
The Secondary Division's concert band, jazz band, and trumpet ensemble performed a medley of this year's wonderful pieces. A true annual highlights program, the concert featured classics from the Winter Concert, Spring Concert, China Day, and World Culture Day, including Aggressivo, The Forbidden City, and Shostakovich's Waltz No. 2. The ensembles also featured new works such as Misty, Concert Fanfare, From the Start, and Sweet Caroline.
Notably, the trumpet ensemble included members ranging from sixth-grade beginners to experienced high school players. This wide span of ages nevertheless performed with seamless chemistry, showcasing the power of cross-grade collaboration. The concert lasted about an hour. Although performed by secondary students, Primary teachers and students were fully immersed throughout. As the performance drew to a close, the school anthem rang out, and the entire school spontaneously joined in. At that moment, the gymnasium echoed with one voice and one sense of belonging.
Diverse Workshops: Students and Teachers as Co-Instructors
After the concert, the Arts Festival moved into the workshop session. These workshops, designed jointly by students and teachers, showcased what is learned in the classroom as well as hidden talents. Considering age differences, the workshops were divided into Primary and Secondary sections.
Primary Workshops were organized by the six Spartan Families, with students rotating through three projects:
"Flipbook Machine": Students drew and assembled a gear-driven device for stop-motion animation. Despite the limited time, the children screamed with excitement as they saw their hand-drawn figures "move" through the rapid flipping of pages.
"Handmade Instruments": Using ribbons to attach bells to wooden boards, then decorating with colored pencils or markers, students made hand bells. Interestingly, the second graders used the very instruments they had made in the morning during their afternoon performance.
"Path of Growth": On wooden boards pre-cut by Art teacher Ms. Augustina Droze and STEAM teacher Mr. Paul Moon, children drew half a face, with the parting of the hair as the "path" and their dreams at the path's end (the top of the head). The board's stand naturally formed a nose, making the work both three-dimensional and playful.
While the Primary workshops focus on broad-based introduction and group participation, the Secondary workshops place greater emphasis on diverse options and individual expression. From hands-on crafts and improvisational music to body movement, dance, drama, sports, life skills, and creative writing — every student can find their own artistic voice here.
Many touching moments emerged from the workshops.
Science teacher Ms. Jasmina Blazheska, from North Macedonia, led students in Balkan dance, telling them: "Balkan people love life, on happy days, we can dance all day long."
Another science teacher, Ms. Nathalene Gardner, taught students to make soap from scratch.
College counselors Mr. Reagan Li and Mr. Sam Han organized a "Dress for Growth" workshop, teaching students how to tie a tie. Many boys admitted that they had never untied their ties before, as parents or teachers had always tied them; after learning, they exclaimed excitedly, "Now this is real growth!"
English Language Arts (ELA) teacher Rachel St. John's juggling workshop was also a hit as the usually serious teacher turned out to be a juggling master, leaving everyone pleasantly surprised.
Student-led workshops were equally impressive: Oliver Tsui and Dylan Li's "Creative Music," Ayanvitta Kalsi and Emily Yang's "Crochet 3D Animals," and Emma Gao and Hon Hoi Ku's "Slime Making" all brought endless fun and laughter.
Afternoon Performances: A Stage for All
The Primary performance began in the afternoon, as the young artists finally had their moment in the spotlight. The stage that day was not just for an audience, but for peers witnessing each other's growth. Students performed by grade level, presenting choral and instrumental pieces (recorder, ukulele, etc.). From the first tentative chorus to the first complete instrumental ensemble, every note marked a brave step from the classroom to the stage. As the Arts Festival theme "Together We Grow" suggests, every Primary student was a beam of light, and together they illuminated the entire auditorium.
One of the choral songs, Born to Make Music, declared: "We were born to make music. We were born to sing a song. We were born to sing out loud." The entire audience was deeply moved. It is worth noting that every Primary student had the opportunity to perform on stage, and all repertoire and rehearsals came directly from daily music classes. Primary music teacher Rebecca Werner single-handedly took on repertoire selection, arrangement, costume design, rehearsal direction, and conducting. Her dedication once again earned the deep admiration of the entire school community.
The Secondary performance then took the stage. This year's lineup spanned vocal music, instrumental music, drama, and dance: the choir and acappella group presented new repertoire prepared especially for the Arts Festival; the Chinese Band and Chinese Dance Team showcased the beauty of traditional culture; the modern dance group (MGNET) interpreted adolescent artistic expression through creative choreography; and several students presented carefully polished solo and ensemble pieces.
Many performances were deeply rooted in daily classroom learning. Several choral and theater pieces came directly from this semester's studies, and like the band performances, these presentations also served as summative assessments for performing arts courses. Every grade level of drama classes participated fully: sixth grade, seventh grade, and High School drama presented newly prepared works, while eighth-grade students took on lighting, sound, and backstage technical work, applying their classroom learning to actual performances.
Student clubs were equally indispensable. The Chinese Band, Chinese Dance Team, and modern dance group rehearse weekly after school throughout the year, and have become a long-standing tradition of the Arts Festival. From stage to backstage, from repertoire selection and choreography at the start of the semester to the final run-through before the performance, the months of dedication came together here. The Arts Festival provides students with opportunities for cross-grade, cross-disciplinary performance and collaboration, allowing them to share their artistic creations with the entire school community.
The Performing Arts Department has expressed its hope to continue expanding the platform of the arts festival in the future, creating opportunities for more students to publicly present their creative work. After all, the meaning of art lies not only in the final applause, but in that shared journey along the way. Mr. Adam Matejek, head of the department and instrument teacher, feels deeply about this. He believes that the arts festival should be not just a showcase of achievements, but a response of recognition and encouragement to every instance of quiet dedication.
Art Scavenger Hunt: Art Around Every Corner
In the afternoon, sunlight streamed through the corridor windows as the Gallery Walk began. Students, holding specially designed worksheets, wandered across campus in small groups, searching for traces of art like treasure hunters. The walls on either side of the hallways turned into flowing canvases: the Primary students' paintings burst with color, their naive brushstrokes hiding boundless imagination; the secondary students' photography and prints were more restrained, their contrasts of black and white and layers of light and shadow conveying young people's observations and reflections on the world.
At the stairwell corner, the ninth-grade collage works were especially striking — old magazines, tickets, dried flowers, and handwritten notes pieced together narratives about "growth": one recorded a journey, another treasured a photo with a friend, another was simply a brief inner monologue. These seemingly scattered fragments came together to form the collective memory of a generation.
At the art reception area, the Parent Council had prepared light snacks. As students nibbled on cookies and juice, they chatted softly about what they had just seen: "Have you seen the watercolor on the third floor?" "That photograph of the rain on the playground is so beautiful…" The sounds of conversation, laughter, and footsteps intertwined, turning the entire campus into a flowing art salon.
Afterward, students returned to their classrooms to watch a video compilation produced by the film class. The morning's jazz, the focused expressions in the workshops, the smiles and gestures on stage, and the visual and film arts all shone together in that moment. The Art Walk brought art out of galleries and auditoriums and into the corridors, corners, and stairwells of everyday life. Here, art was no longer an elevated exhibit, but something tangible, discussable, and shareable in daily life.
Carnival: A Joyful Field Market
The sunshine arrived after the rain, as if on cue. The Arts Festival Carnival was launched with enthusiasm on THIS playground, organized by the Parent Council. Earlier, the sudden downpour had raised concerns about whether the event could be held successfully. But before the carnival, the rain gradually subsided, sunlight broke through the clouds, and the field was bathed in golden light.
This year's carnival featured 22 booths in total, including the Parent Council Store, six student clubs, and 18 classes (some classes shared booths). Everyone sold small handicrafts and souvenirs from their countries and regions, as well as delicious, tempting foods at affordable prices. THIS teachers also stepped up as chefs: ELA teacher Craig Healy grilled up breakfast sausages that were made together with the Speech and Debate club; US math teacher Raysa Rodriguez made M&M cookies with the Baking Club; and Vietnamese-American math teacher and cooking teacher An Nguyen cooked his signature Belgium waffles. Parents also participated enthusiastically: Liu Peipei and her husband, who are from Taiwan, PRC, invited everyone to taste their homemade milk tea.
On stage, the school concert band and jazz band performed with passion, while Primary students presented renditions of the Zootopia 2 theme song Zoo, a solo dance, a violin solo, and other acts, adding to the joyful afternoon atmosphere on the field.
Charity Art Auction: Art Connects Across Distances
Amidst the bustle of the carnival, the Arts Festival also preserved a quieter, deeper layer of human compassion. The Charity Art Auction, organized by the Parent Council, raised funds for the ProRoot children's welfare organization in Dehong, Yunnan Province. Since 2014, THIS friendship with ProRoot has lasted more than a decade, with ninth-graders traveling there every year for their study trip.
This year, the second art auction, initiated by tenth-grade students, collected more than 100 works and raised over 37,000 yuan. Among them, a painting created live by art teacher Augustina Droze started at 1,000 yuan and was bid up to 8,000 yuan, becoming the highest-priced piece of the event. All proceeds will be donated in full to the charity agency to support vocational education for local children.
Grand Finale: SpongeBob Musical
Every year, the musical brought by the arts faculty is the grand finale of the Arts Festival. This year, students delivered a wonderful performance of SpongeBob, sweeping the audience into underwater joy.
Auditions began in mid-December of the previous year, and from January onward, weekly rehearsals became a special routine. Under the guidance of Theater teacher Erica Clare and Vocal Music teacher Tzu- Hsuan Ai, students learned singing, dancing, acting as well as collaboration, perseverance, and communication. Both on stage and behind the scenes, everyone was both a creator and a lead character. From set construction and technical support to costumes, props, and backstage coordination, this musical was built and run by the students themselves.
The stage is both a rigorous and a romantic classroom. Over the last six months, students demonstrated that true passion means being willing to invest both time and wisdom. As the curtain fell, audience members rushed onto the stage to take photos with their favorite characters and ask for autographs. The young actors wholeheartedly enjoyed the recognition earned through their efforts.
Epilogue: Art as a Way of Growing
From the first jazz note at dawn to the last light of the evening musical, from a splash of color on a tie-dye T-shirt to an imagined world inside a 3D installation, from a carefully tied necktie to a Balkan dance that crossed borders, from a handmade piece of soap to a painting created for distant friends. And on this day, every student at THIS was seen, heard, and celebrated.
The Arts Festival may conclude, but the theme of "Together We Grow" will not end. Art is never merely a moment on stage, but rather a continuous process of growth in life. Art allows us to discover ourselves through expression, understand others through collaboration, and connect with the world through creation.
This day was what an Arts Festival ought to be in everyone's heart.
This year, let us continue to grow together through art.
At Tsinghua International School, let art be our language of growth.
