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New Rangi Ruru Performing Arts Building Opened by Dame Malvina Major

Thursday 18 June 2015, 7:04PM

By RedPR

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Local music legend Tom Rainey getting down and funky
Local music legend Tom Rainey getting down and funky Credit: Neil Macbeth Photography
Dame Malvina Major being shown the new Rangi building
Dame Malvina Major being shown the new Rangi building Credit: Neil Macbeth

CHRISTCHURCH

A brand new Performing Arts Building at Rangi Ruru Girls' School has been officially opened by Dame Malvina Major. 

With the cold and wet weather, speeches were held inside the oldest building on the school site (St Andrews Church at Rangi Ruru), before the ribbon was officially cut from the doors of the newest building.

Principal Julie Moor acknowledged the team work and dedication of everyone involved, which brought the building to completion on time and budget.

The building is part of Project Blue Sky, a multi-million dollar campus redevelopment which started at Rangi soon after the 2011 February earthquake in Christchurch.   http://www.rangiruru.school.nz/project-blue-sky

http://community.scoop.co.nz/2014/04/one-of-nzs-oldest-schools-opens-nzs-newest-buildings/

Tomorrow (Friday), The Merivale Lane Theatre, within the Performing Arts Building, will host a sold out season of Julius Caesar, the school’s first senior production on site since the September 20120 / February 2011 earthquakes. 

Directed by the school’s Theatre Arts faculty head, Robert Gilbert, Julius Caesar has a cast of 44 girls and explores playground politics in what he describes as a volatile, arresting production of the Bard's most famous discourse on loyalty, tragedy, and power…….. but with a modern twist.

“We have reimagined the setting in 'Roma School for Girls', where Caesar's murder becomes a metaphor for the kind of backstabbing one might find in a modern high school. Shakespeare's themes are starkly and tenderly heightened by the backdrop of a girls' school, with the addition of a live rock band, and the emotional nuances inherent to women playing formidable characters at their most vulnerable,” he says.

In recent years, Rangi Ruru has joined with Christ’s College for a co-production, all of which have sold out and received critical acclaim (Jesus Christ Superstar (2012), Romeo and Juliet (2013), and Cats (2014)).

www.juliuscaesar.school.nz

www.rangiruru.school.nz