By Suzanne Weerts
Special to myBurbank.com
Everywhere you looked at Jordan Middle School on Friday, April 12th, you caught glimpses of the past. Silk and velvet-clad “Juliets” wielded rapiers preparing for combat against, not Romeo, but was that Leonardo da Vinci?! Jesters, knights and Kings, mingled with fair maidens as they all learned Elizabethan Dance or acted out a scene from “A Midsummer Night’s Dream.” It was Renaissance Day on campus, and history came alive for the school’s seventh graders in interactive workshops, a professional play, a feast of foods that might have been served in the sixteenth century, and a jousting spectacle performed by knights on horseback.
Topli Petko liked the play the best, “The acting was awesome, especially the fight scenes,” said the seventh grader, who battles hard on the soccer field and may one day be an actor himself.
Lovely young maidens Cameron Flores and Beth Wilke also enjoyed the sword fighting, “It was an awesome day and I loved learning how to use a sword and then getting to see the actors demonstrate what they showed us in class right on the stage,” said Wilke.
Assistant Principal, Alex Senar. agreed that the play was a highlight of the day. “It had a lot of action and made Shakespeare current for middle school students,” he explained, “It was ‘edutainment’ in that the kids were having so much fun they didn’t even notice that they were learning.”
After the play, students, staff and parent volunteers feasted on herb roasted chicken legs, meat pie, roasted carrots, “sallet” with fresh flowers, strawberries and gingerbread. They then gathered around the lower field to watch the Imperial Knights demonstrate their expert horsemanship, hand-to-hand combat and extreme full-contact jousting, all while conveying the importance of staying in school, staying away from drugs and following their dreams.
