“It’s time for an ovation.”

– Chinese New Year by Sales

Let’s give it up for the seniors of 2020!

It’s a basic tradition in OSC that the seniors perform a grade dance at the annual Gecko Factor, a talent show even hosted by the school’s Student Government Association to raise funds for the annual OSC prom night, the Oscars!

Let me tell you, dancing is my forte. No, I haven’t ever professionally learned to dance as some others in my grade but dancing runs in my blood. It’s the one thing, other than the love for chemistry, that both sides of my family share and having grown up around talented relatives who are exceptional dancers in Kandyan, ballet and hip hop, I have picked up a few skills here and there. So when the topic of senior dance arose, many of my classmates voted me as a choreographer and honestly, I was more than glad to take up that role. The skills I acquired back in PE when we had movement, basically dance, as a unit taught me enough about pre-planning, organizing and researching before teaching it to anyone else. But I was tight on time as Gecko Factor was literally two weeks after our IB mock exams which meant that I had two weeks to come up with a dance routine and teach it to my entire grade.

I knew it was going to be impossible to handle on my own so, with the help of Savindi and Disara, two of my classmates and also exceptional dancers, I stayed back after school, listened to various soundtracks during lunches and breaks, came up with a soundtrack and choreographed a dance routine. Trust me, it was seriously difficult. Many of the challenges I faced were dealing with using up the stage efficiently, positioning and transitioning of around 14 individuals and figuring out a routine of dance steps that weren’t too complicated for people who weren’t as keen to dance in front of an audience. on that note, one of the major challenges I faced was convincing the majority of my grade to participate. Many of them had their doubts and queries regarding how much stage presence they were given which led me to design stage positioning diagrams on paper to visualize how much time each person got at the center and front of the stage. I had to also accommodate the fact that some people wanted to do dance less than others, and so many different transitions had to be made.

The plan was to perform a dance routine of a maximum of four minutes to a variety of music choices. I consulted the grade and majority came to the conclusion of having an opening scene where from Sia’s Cheap Thrills music video soundtrack, followed by Drake’s Started from the Bottom, Far East Movement’s Like a G6, Designer’s Panda, Desmond de Silva’s Sumihiri pane, J Balvin’s Bola Rebola and finally Chinese New Year by Sales. Putting the songs together and creating the soundtrack was handled by Disara who was much more tech-savvy than I was. On the other hand, Savi and I designed the first half of the dance routine, figured out the entrances for the boys and girls separately and decided on the dance moves for the Sinhala classic Sumihiri pane. By myself, I figured out the dance moves to the rest of the song, with help from Milo who suggested the dance moves for the final song and eventually came up with a dance routine by the end of the first week after mocks. That Friday itself, I made many stay back and practice the dance. Honestly, that session made me lose hope altogether just because it was all too difficult to teach 14 people the same dance moves when they are of varying levels of skill and confidence when t comes to performing in itself. After three strenuous hours, we managed to get somewhere. Many changes were made to the original routine as I had to accommodate for different people’s suggestions which I did not want to dismiss because eventually, this was a grade dance and if they weren’t comfortable or satisfied with it, then what was the point of it all?

My intent was not to create a dance that would get us the prize or win the talent show but rather, create a routine that was fun and cool to look back on and entertaining enough for the audience to enjoy. I did shout and raise my voice more than thrice every practice and trust me, we did many practice sessions till the next Friday when we were supposed to perform. These sessions were intense and minor changes were made each time but what I realized was the most complicated was getting everyone on the same age because some people would come for some practices and not for others meaning that changes made were completely new to some individuals while others were aware of it. More than once, I honestly felt like crying because it was too much to handle and it really was a lot of commitment every day for two weeks straight.

By the Friday of Gecko Factor, I realized I had done everything to the best of my abilities and my grade members were also very excited about the whole performance. I did apologize to them individually for shouting more often than not and I was glad that all of them were mature enough to not take it to heart. The performance itself went really well and I finished before it even started. Again, another instance where the journey to completion was much more satisfying than the end product itself. We did not win the hearts of the judges but we did win the hearts of the crowd who went wild at our performance. Click here for a video recapping the whole talent show.

Overall, the experience was immense fun and a load of unnecessary stress but it was totally worth I got to see so many of my classmates step out of their comfort zone and enjoy dancing for the first time in front of an audience. Gecko Factor was definitely a major highlight in my senior year!