The LPS Showcase: The Students and Talents; Huge Success of the First Talent Showcase
By Joseph Fernandes and Ranfis Villatoro
This is a transcript of a students’ podcast:
This is Ranfis Villatoro, and Joseph Fernandes, with the story on the showcase at LPS SJ which occurred on Friday, January 10th. The showcase was an opportunity for the students of LPS to show off some of their incredible talents and skills, and an invitation for fellow students, their families, and other families, to view the work of students. A total of sixteen performances took place, kicking off with a piece by Amanda Carter, better know to us as Skittles, followed by Ivy Torres, Rachel Baeza, Armond Witherspoon, Sean Powell along with Kelcey Simbulan, Alfredo Martinez, the Martial Arts Club, and Jeo “Thumpa” Bautista along with Chris “Saucey” Smith, before an intermission. The intermission was followed by eight further performances, in order, Luis Gutierrez, Liz Burwell, Chris Luna, the Graffiti Art Exhibition, who’s artists were Johnny Gonzalez, Leo Benitez, and Edgar Lopez,followed by another performance by Jeo Bautista, Ashley Ornelas, Melanaite Tohi along with her family, and the closing performance being Amandalina along with Ixchel.
We talked with Mr. Smith, one of the audience members and he had plenty of positive responses to the show. When we asked him if he thought the showcase was entertaining, he had quite a good response for me. ”Yeah, the showcase was very impressive. You could sense watching; I was a member of the audience; you could tell from watching that students had done a lot of work to prepare for the showcase. Mr. Robinson especially was excited to see the students up there. We also asked him what he liked about the showcase and it’s performances. ”I liked how much variety there was. That we could have students that were being honored for being good artists, students that were singing, students that were plying music. So it’s nice to see in the showcase not the same thing, but lots of different kinds of activities.”
We also asked him what got him to go to the showcase as well. ”It was really well advertised, and I had a few students from my classes that were going to be performing so I wanted to see them. At the same time I was just kind of curious to see what the showcase entailed, and I know we’re going to have a spring showcase and I wanted to have a reference to where I can compare the two. But this is a really strong performance to begin with, so the Spring one should be even better.” We asked if he would change anything about the showcase, what would he change. ”There wasn’t any one thing that I would have had the students differently. But I think, for example, our school could help support the next showcase by getting some additional curtains, maybe getting more lights, maybe getting a new sound system. Those kinds of things that would have helped the performers perform better, but otherwise I wouldn’t have changed anything.” Overall, his view of the showcase was very positive and he thought it was very impressive. ”Overall i’d say that this was a great example of how we can get students, and families, and teachers, and everyone more involved in our school. Also it was a chance for us to be proud of our own students and what we do here. Having it in LPS four was cool that we could have families come, students come, they could use Rosales’ room to get ready, and then we could watch them show off their skills, and I thought that was really cool, and I’m looking forward to the next one.”
Mr. Andy, our Drama and sophomore english teacher headed the production of the showcase, getting the help of students to set up and advertise the showcase. Before coming to LPS, Mr. Andy took high interest in performances using poetry, despite his coming to LPS he still continues to write plenty of poetry not only for himself but for others as well. Mr. Andy did have a bit to say about how he got in to drama before he came to LPS. ”Actually I had never done drama until I got to college, and I when I got to college, there is an organization called Rainbow Theatre on the campus of UC Santa Cruz. It’s the only multi cultural theatre troupe in all of California, and alot of my friends had really found their purpose for school, and for learning, and for life through this theatre group. Because they not only did plays, but when went to schools and tried to get young people thinking about expressing themselves, which is right up my alley. So because I had been a performer, performing my poetry for years before that, it was sort of a natural progression into Drama, that’s where it started.” Mr. Andy also had a bit to say about how he came up with the showcase. ”Well pretty much, I knew that I was coming here to teach drama and I was coming here to teach english. But I also knew that, through Camp Every-Town, I knew that there was alot of students who create, who make music, who like to write poetry, who could dance, and they weren’t able to be in my Drama class, and I knew that if we were going to put on full plays that it probably would be most of my drama class that could be part of it. So I wanted to think of something that we could do that could get everybody involved on campus who wanted to make art, and could do anything they wanted. So there was the idea of the showcase, so that’s pretty much where it came from, because we wanted everyone to have an opportunity to express themselves.” We also asked Mr. Andy about the talent on stage, if there was any that the school did not recognize. ”Yeah I think definitely some of the talent on stage during the showcase, some of the school knew about that. But just the fact that drama class is the only art class here, I think there is some of the artwork that people didn’t know they created. They didn’t know that Alfredo or Chris Luna wrote poetry. So I think that it was a mix of both people who we knew created, and people who folks had no idea created and got up and read poetry or singed.”
SHOWCASE from Page 1
We also asked him how he felt about the showcase and it’s participants. ”I loved the showcase. I just loved seeing how into it alot of the students got who were performing in it, and how excited they were getting on stage and how excited some of their friends were to see them on stage. I liked the performances alot. I thought they were great, I thought they stood up and it’s not easy, it’s such a hard thing to stand up in front of your whole school and perform, and to share yourself, whether your singing, whether your dancing, whether you’re reading poetry. So I’m just proud of all of em, every single one that was up there.” There was quite a bit of equipment that went in to the showcase according to Mr.Andy. ”Equipment, lets see, we needed easel pads for the Graffiti showcase, for that we also needed pens, we needed big light stands, we needed amps, and big speakers, we needed a mixing board for all the sounds, we needed stuff to create the backdrop for the stage. That was most of it, but yeah alot of stuff, alot of equipment goes into the showcase. Mr. Andy did perform one of his own pieces for the showcase, reading a poem during the Graffiti Art Exhibition. We asked if he would perform again, given the chance. ”Probably, the reason I performed then is because my fourth period Drama asked me to, so if they ask me again i’ll perform again. I’ll probably do another poem, I might do a song, but i’ll probably do another silverware poem.” Our last question to Mr. Andy was whether there would be another showcase, so those of you not so sure, listen up! ”There will be, so this year there will be another one in May it will be a spring showcase, that was our winter showcase, and if everything works out we’ll have one or two next year.” So if you’re looking forward to performing in another showcase, talk to Mr. Andy and be on the lookout for announcements and details about the showcase next month. ”Come to the Spring Showcase, it’s gonna be off the hook!”
All together, the showcase had a very good turnout and had varying performances all who did very well in their respective arts. While there is no announced date on the Spring Showcase at his time, we imagine that it will be announced early May or late March barring unforeseen problems. So bring out your poems, songs, dances, routines, or whatever you would like to perform in the Spring Showcase and get ready! This is Ranfis Villatoro and Joseph Fernandes.
admin @ March 23, 2009