Written by: Ariel Connell, Staff Writer
Poly Visual and Performing Arts students visit Gage middle school as a preview for
high school recruitment.
On Friday, January 9th, our Poly VAPA students took a walk to Gage Middle School.
There, they put on two assemblies demonstrating their amazing visual and performing arts skills.
Performances were from three choir varsity ensembles- an excerpt from BeetleJuice Jr performed
by our PolyTheater department, our Orchestra, and none other than Poly’s historic Band and Color
Guard.
The performance began with a song “Crusin for a Bruzin” from Show Choir performing
students. They were able to beautifully perform the song with amazing choreography from one
of our student choreographers, Sydney Whitlock. Following that performance, Poly’s varsity
SATB choir, Chamber Singers, performed “Another Day of Sun” from the Oscar winning La La
Land. Olivia McPherson (11) explained, “To prepare, we worked all week on our new piece. Some of
the students had already known it from previous years, but the students who didn’t were able to
quickly pick it up, and we had a beautiful sound.” The third and last of our performing choirs,
Bella Voce, sang “For Good” from Wicked for Good. Student, Nixon Ballentyne (9) stated, “I
had a really good time singing for choir, I am also in the Marching Band, so I got to perform
twice for the middle schoolers. It was a really fun experience and I loved that song.”
Once our choirs were finished performing, students from our theatre department were
able to sing two songs, from two different casts from BeetleJuice Jr. The first song they sang
was “Say my Name”, featuring characters such as Lydia, BeetleJuice, and Lydia’s parents.
Lucas performing “Say My Name”
Directly following that, we had a performance from Poly’s zero-period orchestra class.
Their director, Mr. Calman, encouraged the Gage students to “Clap faster and faster until the
orchestra starts playing as fast as you clap”. The song they played was very common and the
probability that you have heard it is close to 100%, it is called “Can-Can”, composed by Jacques
Offenbach. The students were clearly unaware of this because they all let out a collective gasp.
Olivia Maciel (11) says, “I was so surprised, he didn’t tell us anything about that, but I was so
determined to play and it ended up being really enjoyable.”
Finally, to end the performance, the Poly Band and Color Guard played the songs one
may associate with Poly itself, Louie Louie, and Fight song. It ultimately ended the visitation and
the students seemed to enjoy the final parts, gaining much valuable insight into the Visual and Performing Arts that Poly has to offer for them as they enter into High School next year.