Trust me, when it comes to participating in school concerts, I would be one of the last people to volunteer for them and it is due for a number of reasons. One of them is that I was a quiet shy person and I hate to set aside time to do the rehearsals. Photo by cottonbro from Pexels
Last week, we attended a concert by my mom’s kindergarten. She works there as a helper and we tagged along as she need transport. Further, it was a good opportunity to expose my son to such an event and get him to help around.
As I was watching the kindergarten concert, I reflected back on my own involvement in school concerts. Although I was mainly involved as a backstage helper (the most wanted job back then was the job of pulling the stage curtains for each performance) for most of the school concerts, 3 particular concerts stand out in the list of concerts I was involved in.
Kindergarten: The year 1979
I was “forced” to get involved in the kindergarten concert – all six of us were forced to do some stupid dance.
What I remember very clearly was the part where the teacher put on lipstick on every one of us before the performance. Of course, I resisted but being small, I could not fight off the teacher and I ended up having the “yucky” lipstick on my lips. However, it did not stay for long as I conveniently wiped it off my friend’s white jippa while we were lining up to come up to the stage (sorry friend, it was a do or die situation back then)
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Trust me we were very tempted to try some of the crazy moves but we did not want to break our hands and neck in the process. Some of these moves already existed since the 1980s.
Standard 5: The year 1984
I was roped in by my wacky classmates to present “break-dance” for the year’s concert.
I still remember my class teacher telling us that he is ok with the idea as long as we don’t break our own necks in the process. We had a “crash” course on how to do the “break-dance” by one of my classmates’ elder brothers and we spend a couple of hours watching some break-dance movies (one of them is the 1984 Breakin) for tips and more importantly to learn new moves.
Even though our practise sessions were difficult – rushing to my friend’s house for practise after school, it was worth it because it ended to be the best performance in the concert for that year.
Form 3: The year 1988
We did a short sketch based on the movie “The Good, the Bad and the Ugly” where I played one of the cowboys in the bar that got shot by the bad guy who in turn will be killed by the “hero”.
My class monitor, who was also the head prefect, came out with this idea. On the concert day, he narrated the story to the audience while the rest of us played out the story. The climax was when the bad guy (played by my good friend Jayanathan) was shot – he died in slow motion – doing funny movements in the process. It was so funny because it was done without any preparation.
Final Say
In a few years’ time, my son will be having his own kindergarten concert and I am sure he will have his own story to tell about it. Until then, reflect back on yours and see which part you played in your school concert.