Roaring bands, loud music and great art have made Oceana’s Because Art Matters end-of-April event a huge hit over the years. This is the eleventh year that BAM has been held at Oceana High School, but it was almost the last.
Graham Cruickshank, faculty adviser, said that he was going to take a break for a few years because of the time required to organize BAM, but student government came up with a plan to continue to host BAM while making it easier on the volunteers.
Next year, Oceana students who are interested in BAM will be able to take an advisory class that focuses on the BAM project every day. That it won’t be considered an extracurricular activity will likely take a lot of strain off all people involved.
It takes months for the students to make BAM work. Many students take the experience seriously. One such student is Bill Song, a senior who built a
dragon sculpture out of just tissue paper, chopsticks, hot glue and string and volunteered over 12 hours on opening night.
“I put my heart and soul into my dragon,” Song said. “I want to do everything I can for the people.”
BAM is a performance- and visual-arts showcase that usually involves all of the high schools in the Jefferson Union High School District. It provides opportunities for student artists to show off their skills in dance-offs, bands and art competitions.
The plays at BAM are usually a big deal there, but the usual play was canceled at the last minute. However, this year’s BAM had more dance and music-performance pieces than it’s ever had. At least 12 bands performed, and all of them consisted of students from around the Bay Area. In addition to performances by rock bands, this year included a performance by the students of Academy Taiko with their Japanese drums.
This year’s BAM also included a performance by the dance group Junior FUSION, as well as fashion shows featuring shirt designs made by the silk-screening spring elective class. On one end of the cafeteria were the always-popular dance battles.
The Great Frame-Up Project was a new attempt to get people involved in the school and art community, in which anyone could take a paper and use the provided materials to create whatever drawing or painting they wanted. The picture would then be framed and glued to the wall of the cafeteria to stay for years.
While visual art was less abundant than in years prior, Oceana is thankful for the continuation of BAM, which provides student artists a venue to express themselves and share their work with the community.
Dylan Lavorini, now a Skyline student, says he still goes to the event because “it’s so filled with today’s teen culture.”