Gecko Factor is an annual event held at the Overseas School of Colombo by the Student Government Association (SGA). It is a talent show for the students and teachers of the community, and have a variety of performances that run throughout the show. As a tradition, the seniors of OSC take part in this event by doing an act collaboratively and together as a grade. We decided that the Class of 2020 will also be a part of this tradition as perform a dance at Gecko Factor.
Personally, I am not one to be in the spotlight during performance because usually, I am the spotlight (quite literally). In the past, I have supported the plays, musicals, concerts, and many other performances for the school as the Head of Lighting. I direct all the lighting cues and coordinate the color schemes to match the scene, tone, or mood of the performance. However, this time, I was a performer which was quite a new experience for me as I do not usually take part in many arts.
At first, I was quite skeptical about being a part of this performance but thanks to the support of my peers in the grade, I decided “why not”. The experience brought our grade closer together as we shared many memories from the dance practices and creating the piece together. There were times where a few of us felt overwhelmed and somewhat embarrassed by the actions and movements of the dance, but knowing that we were all in this together kept each of us going. We each supported each other and worked individually (one-on-one) or in smaller groups to learn the dance and improve upon our mistakes. There were moments where we were not in sync but thanks to the push of the dance coordinator (Rashmi) we were able to work past it and perfect it.
This experiment did help me learn a skill I had not worked on for years, which was: dancing. When I was younger, I was a ballet dancer and pursued it for about 5 years. Later on, we had a Movement unit each year in gym class, where we had to compose a dance using certain techniques and specify a theme or genre. Here, we worked in groups and the majority of the time, the dances were quite basic and simple so it would be easier to learn and harder to mess up. But, the Gecko Factor dance was much more complicated and intense than many PE dances I had performed before, which made it challenging but much more fun. The actions and movements from each part of the dance involved different sets of people and had a variety of genres (from rap to Sri Lankan baila), but showed the audience a good taste of our grade.
We had many practices throughout the two weeks before the performance and by the end of each one, the dance had looked a lot better. I personally thought it was quite a well-coordinated dance and integrated many components in order to represent the characters of our class. We worked together and supported each other until finally, the night of Gecko Factor had arrived. Although we were all quite nervous, we let the joy of dancing with our grade one last time take over our moves and we gave OSC a show. Even though we did not win Gecko Factor, I think we can all agree that this was one for the books.
The linked video is the final performance of our dance on the night of Gecko Factor: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1rHS2Odn9UBPRqtNBnOxiVoFp5xrTccKZ