What is P.A.C.E.?

PACE, the Performing Arts Curriculum Experience, at Mamaroneck High School, Mamaroneck N.Y., is a curricular elective program which offers students four progressive years of study in theatre, dance,  and music. It also offers the opportunity to learn through extra-curricular performance and production projects. In 1981, PACE – along with the high school’s art department—was named one of the ten best public school arts programs in the country. This award was conferred by the Rockefeller Brothers Fund.

The Curriculum

The PACE curriculum grew to suit the needs of a comprehensive high school - one whose students were more likely to go to a liberal arts college than to a conservatory or technical school. Thus besides artistic training, we emphasize cognitive and social development. In dance, for instance, students study technique, but the highest goal is choreography – a much more complex cognitive and social endeavor than simply learning to behave like a dancer. Similarly, theatre students study acting, but the curriculum builds to the higher-level skills required in directing and playwrighting.  Music students first learn vocal production, then percussion and end with song writing. Besides providing thorough training in performance skills, PACE emphasizes clear thinking, articulate speech, problem solving, teamwork, and responsibility.

The PACE Student

Students find that PACE classes involve them totally- mind and body – therefore provide a welcome change from routine academic study. They learn to value expressing themselves in a disciplined, artistic way. And, equally important, the students find in PACE a home within a large institution. They make friends who share their values and interests.

A senior in PACE has spent three years working in all three arts areas and one year majoring in one, sometimes two, of them. Typically, she or he will have had practice in these theatrical skills: sound and movement, monologues, acting scenes, work with masks, comedia dell’arte, and verse, as well as realistic and absurd acting styles, directing, playwrighting, set design and construction. In dance, students study choreographic craft, including solo and group compositions, modern technique (Limon- and Bartenieff-based), and functional anatomy germane to the technique. Also they learn contact improvisation, performance skills and disciplines, lighting set-up for dance performance. In music, students study and practice vocal technique, and also perform with percussion instruments.  They develop an understanding of notation and music theory, and then apply that knowledge in writing original compositions.

For over 20 years, the PACE program has sent students on to liberal arts colleges as performing arts majors, minors, and/or sophisticated audience members. Many PACE graduates are professional actors, dancers,  and producers. Many are teachers. Most have graduated from the program with portfolios of original art work. All have left with strong powers of concentration, disciplined work habits, and an enduring love of the arts.

Extra-Curricular Activities

When the school day is over, students return to PACE for extra-curricular productions.  PACE offers its students many co-curricular activities which take place after school and in the evening.  A typical performance season includes a full length play, a program of diverse musical styles, a concert of student-composed dances, an evening on student written one act plays, a musical review featuring original songs, and evening of one-act plays and dances directed and choreographed by seniors, a showcase performed by 9th graders, one performed by 10th graders, an evening of collaboration by 11th graders and elementary students, and a farewell recital by seniors.

Further, students who also participate in PACE’s extra-curricular performance season (usually about 60% of enrollees) develop what feels like a visceral overview of the performing arts: they have simply DONE so many projects (from rigging a light, to conducting a rehearsal, to composing a song, to directing a one act play) that their behavior really is informed by a consciousness of all the elements of these art forms. We send them out into the world of college with the confidence that they will enrich the life of the arts wherever they go!

The PACE Staff

Martha Barylick has taught dance since 1975. A graduate of Brown University (B.A. & M.A.T.), she is also a Certified Movement Analyst.  She has taught at the Laban Institute in New York City and has been a consultant to school systems.  She has published articles in Daedalus and Movement Studies. You can get in touch with her at (914) 220-3235. barylick@mamkschools.org 

Bill Derby began teaching PACE Music at the Mamaroneck High School in 2000. A graduate of Bowling Green State University in Bowling Green, Ohio (B.M.), and Teachers College, Columbia University (M.A.), he is the Director of the PACE Music Program and he musically directs Soundscapes and Musical Collage, two annual PACE productions. Bill also accompanies the Musical Collage annually, and has served as the Musical Director and accompanist of several musicals including Guys and Dolls, The Wiz, and Anything Goes. He studied voice for eight years, and has sung as a tenor soloist/ section leader in many community groups including St. John’s Episcopal Church of Larchmont, Sts. John and Paul of Larchmont, Tarrytown Christian Science, and Wilton Congregational. A published composer and arranger, he teaches music composition and theory in addition to vocal music production as part of the PACE Music curriculum. He can be reached at (914) 220-3235. derby@mamkschools.org.

John Fredricksen has been teaching drama in high school since 1978. A graduate of the University of Connecticut (B.A. & B.F.A.) and of New York University (M.F.A. in Educational Theatre), he is past  President of the New York State Theatre Education Association and has been on their Board since 1983. Currently he is the chair of the NYSTEA Student Conference.  This statewide three-day event gathers over 700 students and teaching artists to participate in over 150 workshops in theatre.  In 1989 he was named one of 31 national "teachers of the year" by the Center for Civic Education and was profiled by the Disney Channel’s "Salute to the American Teacher".  He has done extensive work with the NY State Educational Department, most notably as one of the authors of the Learning Standards for the Arts. You can get in touch with him at (914) 220-3235.  fredricksen@mamkschools.org 

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P.A.C.E. Theater

PACE Photo Albums Online:  Dance and Theatre Workshop '05, Musical Collage '05: Truth an Lies, Soundscapes, Kinesthesia 2005 and the fall play "The Gut Girls"    Also available:  Last year's "Dance and Theatre Workshop" Photo Album