In this event, students from all three high schools performed together for the first time in front of an extremely crowded audience. Performances from the event ranged from dancing, musical performances, and even a stunning high flying yo-yo performance. And although the collaboration was a success, there were power issues and parking mishaps that occurred before the event even started.
“Yeah there were problems with the power, we didn’t really know about it so we were a little disorganized, but we manage to find a generator so we had the lights up and the vendors manage to sell their commodities to the people,” says Kagman High School counselor Jay Sanchez.
While there are plenty of high school students, some people wondered about Tinian and Rota’s absence.
According to Sanchez, “This event’s experimental. We’re getting our feet wet. We don’t look down on them or anything, it’s just that this is the first time we’re doing something like this, we’re just straightening some tiles out so if we have another ‘Collaboration,’ we can be prepared for any problems. Now that we know about the small things that went wrong in this collaboration, we’ll gladly extend an invitation to the Tinian and Rota schools.”
The event was lively with many people coming and going to watch their schoolmates perform and outdo other performances. The event was a competition, not between schools, but between classes; the sophomores obtained 4th place, while the freshmen nabbed 3rd, the seniors grabbed for a close 2nd, and the juniors won 1st place.
There may be disputes but Sanchez was nonetheless impressed by everyone who performed: “My favorite part of ‘Collaboration’ were the performances actually, we had so many talent and I was blown away to know that we got that kind of talent here on island.”
One junior, Lina Manalili of Marianas High School, recounts her practices with the other schools.
“I had a lot of fun working with the other people in school, I learned a lot from them, they showed me all these different dance styles and I also made some friends,” she says.
For those that missed the first ever Generation Collaboration, a DVD is currently in the works by MHS’ Video Production II crew.
Generation Collaboration film director Jessie Savellano says “a lot of people are currently getting on my case about the DVDs, about how they want one right now. For those impatient folks out there, please hold on. It should be ready in a few weeks. Pricing and availability information will be announced in the future.”
