According to deputy headmaster Rui Morais, the St Peter’s drama department was once confined to nothing more than a single classroom, from which drama teachers Lizeth Roux and Dario Doneda ran a small tuckshop to raise funds for the department.
At the start of 2004, art teacher Avril Swanepoel joined St Peter’s and so began a new era of artistic endeavor at the college. “In a small studio, Avril inspired our budding artists to produce remarkable works of art,” Morais said. “Her passion and commitment for visual arts is evident in the quality of the work produced by our pupils over the years.”
Izak Botha was the next part of the creative puzzle. Botha introduced dance both as an academic option and a co-curricular activity. He inspired the St Peter’s dance team to win the very first inter-high dance competition they participated in.
The St Peter’s music department took off when Vaughan van Zyl was appointed director of music at St Peter’s. He was then joined by Angie Mullins, who is the current head of music, and since then the music department has not missed a beat. However, music was always practiced in makeshift classrooms built in the school hall.
“Our college was fortunate enough to have some outstanding sports facilities, but our arts and culture facilities left much to be desired,” Morais said. ‘It has been a long-standing dream to build a facility of sorts to house this ever-growing department.”
After many consultations with Doneda, Swanepoel, Botha and Mullins as well as the school’s council, architects and contractors had the idea and the Madd centre was born.
The centre boasts a dance studio, visual arts studio with a dark room, drama studio, orchestra room, theory classroom, an Apple Mac studio, percussion room, nine sound-proof music practice rooms, an external amphitheatre, a mini-amphitheatre and a ‘Madditorium’.
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