Students from the Musical Theater and Dance classes recently went to visit the Stage the Change Conference at the Tilles Center here on Long Island. The conference’s mission is to encourage students to have a strong social voice through their artforms and use their art/craft to stage the change.

In the morning after a brief breakfast, students were shown several powerful and impactful performances and pieces from high schools all across Long Island. Each piece had a theme/message based on social topics concerning society today–self-image, addiction, smartphones, etc.–and ranged from dance to monologues. Our fantastic Northport dancers performed as well! (Great job!) After the morning show, students broke off into different classes and sessions for all different subjects, such as acting, dance, writing, and film. Students were then brought to have lunch and converse with their peers and classmates about their first session. One thing that many students enjoyed was seeing their friends from other schools and meeting other students at the conference who all enjoyed the same activities. After lunch, students went to their final elective. The end of the day was closed with a guest speaker.

Overall, students seem to really have enjoyed this conference where they could voice their opinions, speak openly about controversial topics and other big things impacting their generation, and learn more about how to use their performances to make a change for good in the world. Stage the Change was a great way to show students how to be the change through theater, film, dance, and writing.