The Arts Dinner on October 30 celebrated the depth and breadth of students’ talents as well as their dedication to the Arts.
Performances and displays on the night showed excellence across Cultural Performing Arts, Dance, Drama, Media Studies, Music, Speech and Debating, and Photography and Visual Arts.
The Outstanding Arts Service Award went to Jake Paxton.
The Dux Artiums for 2019 are Takunda Muzondiwa and Faolan Okan (pictured above), who also took home other major awards on the night.
Takunda, a triple Arts Lion awardee, completed NCEA level 3 Drama with an excellence endorsement and Drama scholarship as a year 12 student.
As a member of the Sheilah Winn Shakespeare team, she won a regional award for her performance and an opportunity to participate with the very best young Shakespearean actors in NZ at a workshop in Wellington in July. At this workshop, she was selected to be part of the NZ young Shakespeare group that will travel to London next year to perform at the Globe theatre.
An accomplished writer and orator, she was runner-up in the National Race Unity speech competition this year and her inspiring words saw her became an online sensation with over 1 million views worldwide of her speech.
She is also a member of the National Secondary School Champion Hip Hop Megacrew, the award-winning Jazz Band, MAGS Frontline Spoken Word team, and plays in both the Concert and Symphonic orchestras and is part of the Contemporary Choir.
At the Arts Dinner she was also awarded Best Actress, the Public speaking Award, Spoken Word Poetry Award and the trophy for Outstanding Extra-curricular Representation.
A Year 12 student, Faolan is an extension student in Dance and Drama and has this year achieved all available NCEA level 3 credits in both subjects at excellence. In 12 Media Studies he has also achieved all credits at excellence.
Faolan is an Arts Leader in Dance, and his choreography for boys which he also composed and played the music was selected to be in both the YouDance festival and the Tempo Auckland Dance festival, receiving outstanding reviews in both.
Faolan is a spokesman and dancer for NZ champion Hip Hop team The Swagganauts, who this year defeated 64 teams from 50 countries to be named world champions.
He is also the national NZAMD scholarship winner in Tap Dance.
This year, he has also found the time to represent MAGS in RockQuest, where he received the Rock Shop electronic performance award and a musicianship award.
Recently, he was also selected from a large number of young actors to take a lead role in a NZ on Air-funded short film about bullying.
At the Arts Dinner, Faolan also won Best Actor, Most Outstanding Male Dancer, Most Promising Filmmaker, and Creative Vision in Drama.
Director of Arts Co-curricular Jacqui Cesan echoed the sentiments of the other teachers on the night when she said the Year 13s would be sorely missed not only for their dazzling talents but also for their hard work behind the scenes that made productions and performances possible.
You can read a full list of award winners here
