News Centre

Stage Challenge 2017

This year, Head Girl and contemporary dancer, Gemma Deftereos, Year 13 Hip hop dancer, Nathaniel Vaimoso and I had the privilege to put together Sancta Maria College’s 2017 Stage Challenge Performance.

Both teachers and student leaders alike wanted this year’s stage challenge to be the best that the school has ever produced- but boy, was it hard! Mrs Verna Oliver, the director and manager of SMC’s previous Stage Challenges, decided that this year she would change things up and pass on the entire responsibility to us, the student leaders.

This meant that we were put in charge of choreographing, theme, costuming and were essentially given the whole task of planning and producing our performance. With the pressure on us, the journey towards our performance was certainly extremely stressful. We had practices from 3:30PM -5:30PM every Monday from February to July, as well as 6AM rehearsals every Monday once we got closer to the performance date.

However, it was the cast’s determination to show up to every practice that was the defining factor that allowed us to create something we are very proud of. Fortunately, Mrs Olivier also assigned Mrs Amber Stevens as our adult mentor and organizer, giving us an extra adult on hand to help us put together what eventually was an unforgettable show.

Mrs Stevens was an amazing person on this journey. She was present at every practice, took charge of buying costumes, organized every single afterschool and weekend practice, organized fundraising and provided every single person involved with the emotional support we surely needed. On behalf of us leaders and the full cast of Stage Challenge 2017, I can say that we could never have pulled the performance off without her.

Every year the winning schools always come up with the most creative costumes, the largest sets and the most mesmerizing lighting. However, what truly brings a stage challenge performance together is the message of the performance itself. Gemma, Nathaniel and I paid very close attention to this and it took us over 3 months throughout term 3 and 4 of 2016 to come up with this year’s theme.

It was after many meetings and discussions that we finally decided to base this year’s performance on the theme of child abuse. We chose this theme mainly because NZ is one of the highest rated countries for child abuse in the world. It is such a major problem in this country, but it is also never openly talked about as it is usually such a disturbing subject. This is why we needed to raise awareness of it.

The performance was based on a little girl called Moko who was abused within her family and was harmed so violently that she died because of it.

The show was split up into 5 different scenes. The opening scene was of Moko in her room playing with her soft toys that suddenly come to life and support her, which showed her innocence and happiness.

Next, we had a scene that sharply contrasted this where her parents are having a party in the garage, with Moko interrupting their dancing. As a consequence, the family and party members abuse her violently, throwing her body around and strangling her ferociously. She is then thrown onto the street where she is saved by angels who support her again and try to protect her before she dies.

The performance ends with a march of the entire cast, showing that innocent children are being abused throughout NZ and that we need to do something about it.

The day of the performance was amazing. The vibes of the whole cast radiated energy and fun. The other schools were very supportive and we even had hip hop dance battles and dance circles during our breaks with many other schools. One of the most friendly and memorable moments for me was that whenever a school came running back to their room having just performed, all the other schools would make a long tunnel with their arms, congratulating them and making them feel welcomed back and supported.

Stage Challenge 2017 is definitely an experience to remember. Even though we didn’t get a placing, we all believe that we succeeded in our goal of raising awareness of our theme and putting our heart and soul out there on the stage. That is what the world of performing is all about.

Cameron Carter-Chan

search

recent posts