End-of-Year After School Performance

6/23/2008

Looking around the auditorium of the Honickman Learning Center/Comcast Technology Labs the night of the Second Annual After School Program Performance, it was impossible not to notice the look of pride on every audience members' face. Parents, siblings, grandparents, friends, teachers, administrators, and volunteers filled the space, with the standing-room section continuing even up the staircase that leads down to the auditorium floor.

The performance, titled "Children are the Future", was designed so that the students at CPS would have a chance to show their parents what they had learned at Aftercare over the past year. Much to everyone's delight, the children also showed their immense talent as performers.

The show began with the singing of the classic patriotic song "You're a Grand Old Flag"--with a twist. After completing one round of the song, the children all called out, "Remix!" and began again, this time with sophisticated syncopation under the direction of Aftercare's Ms. Chrystina Volcy. The audience erupted into applause.

The students then left the stage, and each grade quietly and somberly walked back out to demonstrate what they had learned in their martial arts classes with Mr. Ali King. In between each combination, the students turned to their teacher, thanked him (in Japanese), and did the same to the audience. Their masterful display of self-control drew gasps from the crowd.

The children's serious faces did not fade as they went into their next number, a singing and stepping routine. The students sang and danced to "The Black National Anthem." The song, also known as "Lift Every Voice and Sing", was written in 1900 by James Weldon Johnson. The inspirational lyrics sounded even more powerful when sung by 48 dedicated, driven children:

Let our rejoicing rise
High as the listening skies,
Let it resound loud as the rolling sea.
Sing a song full of the faith that the dark past has taught us,
Sing a song full of the hope that the present has brought us;
Facing the rising sun of our new day begun,
Let us march on 'til victory is won.

After this fiery singing, the audience was treated to a touch of grace, in the form of a ballet performance by the CPS girls. Performing to the song "The Greatest Love of All" and under the direction of Afterschool ballet instructor Brenda Williams Taylor, the girls' performance poignently portrayed the older students helping the younger ones to learn what they had learned.

Also poignant was the next piece the students presented, a mime set to the song "Lean on Me." Choreographed by Ms. Chrystina Volcy, it portrayed the students coming to the aid of a stricken fellow child.

The show ended with a bang as Mr. Ira Bond introduced the final piece: each class's exhibition of the West African dance they had learned from Mr. Bond, accompanied by a group of drummers including the instructor and Ms. Lynette Rembert, the Afterschool Program coordinator. Pre-kindergarten danced to a song called "Zamba", kindergarten to "Solee", first grade to "De Di De", and second to "Sunew". The performance, vivid, complicated, and marvellously vibrant, succeeded in taking the breath away from every person in the audience. After the performance, there was a moment of silent awe before the colossal crowd erupted into tremendous applause, and the students' smiles stretched from ear to ear.

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