New Faces, New Visions
Following the departure and sabbatical of several faculty members, Deerfield’s Visual and Performing Arts (VPA) Department welcomed three additional faculty members, bringing changes to the theater, film, photography and fine arts programs.
Among the new arts faculty are Fine Arts Teacher Christopher Vivier, specializing in film and photography, Early Career Teaching Fellow in VPA Julia Hioe ’22 and VPA Teacher Michayla Robertson-Pine, working with theater.
Describing her arrival to Deerfield, Ms. Robertson-Pine said, “I was really drawn to Deerfield as a place that’s really people-forward, and I think it values students as full complex humans.” As a teacher filling former Director of Theater Catriona Hynds’ role, Ms. Robertson-Pine aimed to maintain the trajectory of her theater classes while bringing in the idea of physical exploration.
“I hope that, for my students, it is exciting to have a different teacher who has a different skill set and a different background … to add depth and color to their training,” she said.
By cultivating a “deep set of observational skills that allow [students] to empathize with people that are different from them,” Ms. Robertson-Pine hoped to build the students’ confidence as actors while enabling them to understand themselves better. “I think that’s what theater is,” she said. “The reason I love theater is the reason I love people.”
Alongside Ms. Robertson-Pine, the department also welcomed Mr. Vivier, who will replace former VPA Teacher Timothy Trelease in teaching film and photography.
Mr. Vivier explained that he has long been drawn to boarding school environments. “I’ve always found them to be vastly more fulfilling, not only because they are communal places by nature … teachers and administrators and students and families really get to work with each other on so many levels,” he said.
For him, the close-knit community and the multi-faceted relationships between students and teachers are extremely crucial for arts education: “It’s really essential for the students to have a deep sense of trust, and support and sort of a sense of being known.”
Mr. Vivier explained that, at the heart of his teaching, he hopes not only to empower students’ technical skills but also prioritize the building of students’ confidence and their own unique and creative voices. “There are always infinite possibilities as far as how one can express themselves,” Mr. Vivier stated.
As a new faculty member, Mr. Vivier has spent time learning the existing photography curriculum before targeting specific directions to explore. He explained how he observed student abilities and gathered information about the current program.
Looking ahead, he aspired to incorporate new courses that typically involve darkrooms. “I would love to expand what we do in the photography program in order to create a space where students have an opportunity to have a much broader sense of what’s possible within photography, because it really is a much broader creative space than people typically think of it as,” he explained.
Julia Hioe ’22 described being an arts teacher as her dream job.
A filmmaking and Spanish major at Tufts, Ms. Hioe looked for ways to balance artistic pursuits while being able to financially support herself. While applying to jobs and graduate programs, her former art teacher at Deerfield, VPA Teacher Mercedes Taylor notified her of an open arts faculty position. After that, “things did magically kind of just fall into place for me,” she said.
Ms. Hioe took her first art class during freshman year and found a place for herself within Deerfield’s visual arts program. She described that whenever she struggled at Deerfield, “the studios were always like an escape for [her].”
She described the studio as a place where she can fully be herself. This environment is one that she attempts to recreate in her classes today, saying, “studio comfort is number one.”
Looking forward, Ms. Hioe said that her goal is to “make art more applicable to all types of people.” To do so, she will try to “relate art in ways, make analogies and metaphors that people who are athletic will understand [and] people who are related to music will understand.”
For Deerfield Academy’s Arts Director Mike Pfitzer, one of his duties is to work with new faculty. “One of the hardest things about being a new person at Deerfield — student or faculty member — is that you’re trying to learn all about the community,” he said.
Dr. Pfitzer believed that the changes presented an opportunity to introduce new programs. “I think we are always open to … adjustments to our offerings and our programs, and our faculty leaders are very experienced as teachers and as program leaders.And so we lean on them to understand their programs and make the best choices possible for our students. It’s all about what the students need.”