Today the participants had their lunchtime free so that they could work on their final projects and presentations. After their afternoon lessons a STEP workshop was put on for those thinking of applying for maths at Cambridge. For everyone else there was the opportunity to try his or her hand at punting in the warm afternoon sunshine. The remaining 20 participants had time for a last-minute talent show rehearsal.
The highlight of the day was definitely the talent show. Acts were performed by participants from all over the world making the show a wonderful and entertaining display of talent and culture. The first act was the mentors with a dance off between the green and blue groups. Having put in many minutes of preparation, the dances got underway with only a few seams. In a closely fought battle featuring songs such as ‘mask off’ and ‘umbrella’, it was declared a tie by the judges. Having set the bar suitably low for the participants, the mentors made way for the air band ‘No Dignity’. Wielding their imaginary instruments with vigour, they rocked the house out to ‘Song 2’ by blur. The next act made up for the severe lack of class we had seen so far. The audience was spellbound by Ruilong’s Piano performance and he played much of his music from memory. In a rapid change of pace, Katyayni then exploded on to the stage with her Bollywood dance.
The dance was to a song which literally translates as ‘to be speechless’, and sure enough the audience was not only speechless but cheering wildly to the powerful drums and fluid movements. The next act was Eileen and Mattieu on the flute and piano respectively. Initially Eileen played a peaceful tune on the flute as Mattieu accompanied, and then Mattieu impressed the audience with his own solo composition. This was followed by Chunyun’s ‘handwriting’ performance, where she gave the audience a taste of Chinese culture as she wrote traditional Chinese script wearing traditional Chinese dress and with traditional Chinese music playing. Leonor followed this up with her fantastic rendition of ‘I’m yours’, singing beautifully despite the fact that half the audience appeared to be clapping along to a different song. Act number 8 was Theodore with a gentle rendition of Chopin’s ‘To the moon’. The next act was a last minute entry as Yusuf gave us a taste of his culture by singing a Turkish song.
Next was Arthur performing his own composition and our final piano piece, ‘the question’. Following that was our second stunning singer of the night, Julienne. Her moving rendition of ‘read all about it’ left much of the audience quite emotional and a bit teary! Ka Wing at act number 12 started the crescendo that would be our final few acts. Her energetic modern jazz dance solo revitalised the audience. The bar was thus set quite high for Brittany who rose to the challenge with her competition gymnastics routine, wowing the spectators with her displays of balance and strength. The penultimate act was a deep performance of the slave song ‘Old man river’. Pablo’s powerful singing and humility particularly impressed our judge Ore.
And the Winner Is?
The climax of the talent show was finally delivered by Erin and friends with ‘the most road thing you’ve ever seen’. Bedecked in bling and their finest snapbacks, they danced to ‘Addison lee’, with CJ donning a fetching blonde wig and performing as the Maddison talked about in the song. Finally, yours truly was lured onto the stage and asked to sing along to ‘crazy love’ by Beyoncé. As I didn’t know the words I did what I could: throw some serious shapes. Although neither skilful, dignified, nor pleasant to watch this did ensure that none of the participants could possibly be labelled as the worst act![templatera id=”12765″]
