Reddam kids take to the stage

On 17, 18 and 19 September, over 400 young and budding dancers, actors and musicians from the school’s junior preparatory took to the Reddam House Waterfall stage to put on their talent showcase performance, entitled Imagine That.

Over the three evening performances, the Grade 1s, 2s and 3s adorned colourful costumes and showed off what they had learned in their performing arts specialist classes while their families cheered them on from the audience. Each class performed their own short skit, with beautiful dances included as well.

Because there are so many children in the junior preparatory, the school decided to put the same performances on for three nights in a row, allowing different classes to perform each night.

“This means that a new group of children were on stage each night,” explained Gerda Steenkamp, the deputy head of the junior preparatory. “That means that everyone gets a turn on stage, that they all get good roles and that there’s more space in the auditorium for their families to come.”

Since the children began rehearsing at the start of the second term, Steenkamp has seen a marked change in the children.

“I have really seen the children grow in confidence and self-discipline, it’s been unbelievable,” she told the Fourways Review. “The confidence you can see by how comfortable they are on the stage, and the self-discipline came through when they were waiting quietly for their turn to go on stage.”

The concert saw six short skits performed. First, the Grade 2s performed Pirate Joe, which saw some unhappy pirate crew members figure out what to do with a bossy ship captain so they can finally stop scrubbing the decks (‘Pirating is supposed to be fun!’).

Then the Grade 1s, living in their tropical island paradise, had to think fast when a storm threatened their home in their performance Paradesia. A fun new twist was put on the classic The Old Women Who Lived in a Shoe by the Grade 3s, who faced a strict housekeeper hired to help their poor mother out.

Grade 1s dressed as Africa’s wildlife found a way to make sure they could hear the king of the jungle coming in How the Lion Got His Roar by stinging the beast with bees. The Grade 2s performance of the Chicken Hearted Fox took the audience to Farmer Giles’ farm as two foxes learnt that stealing is wrong, while the Sultan and Princess Yasmin had a heck of a time finding Yasmin a suitable husband in The Snake Charmer.

Each grade also had a chance to show off their dance moves. The Grade 2s danced to How Far I’ll Go from the Moana soundtrack, the Grade 1s danced to I Just Can’t Wait to be King from the Lion King soundtrack and the Grade 2s performed to A Whole New World from the Aladdin soundtrack before every single child came out for an encore sing-along of Pharrell Williams’ song Happy.

When speaking to the Fourways Review, some of the children who performed on 18 September said that although they had been a little bit nervous before they got on stage, once they were in front of the lights it got a lot easier.

They also sent out a very special thank you to their teachers for helping them put such a lovely performance together.