AUC’s Got Talent!

I’ve been meaning to write a post about last Friday’s AUC’s Got Talent but had been so busy this week (and mesmerized by Thế and Carlina’s voices) that I hadn’t had the chance. This is the second year that the Diversity council has held the show, as the culminating event to AUC Culture Week. The talent show helped raise $2700 towards a children’s charity here in St. Maarten.

On Friday night, I walked into Lecture Hall 1. The room had transformed into an auditorium, flanked by curtains, and decorated with balloons lit with different colored lights everywhere. The room was completely packed. Just a few minutes ago, I had bought a standing room ticket. All 300+ seated tickets had already been sold out. There were over 400 people attending the show. Given that there are 580+ AUC students here on the island, that night, a good portion of the school was in that room. I didn’t care. I wanted to see the show and the larger crowd the more lively the show. This year’s performers truly have been amazing, and there was quite a variety of performances. I had so much fun seeing all the different acts and hearing the funny and encouraging comments from our three surprise faculty judges, Dr. Nash, Dr. Shupe, and Dr. Atchley.

There were quite a few acts. Here are the ones that I remember:

• A ballroom/swing dancing team!
• A fiddling and guitar-playing country folk duo. The violinist is amazing and made the violin sound like a train.
• A Broadway Stomp, Beatboxing, Breakdancing comedic skit by the “Heartstopperz.” Their act was fun, impressive, funny, and creative at the same time. I was quite entertained.
• An amazing guitarist whose seemingly cool attitude makes his fast fingering seem easy. I know it’s not. His performance was jaw-dropping.
• A 13-membered Bhangra team dancing the moves of India
• A techno-mix-blue-man-group electronic drum duo, calling themselves “AV Node”
• A funny original poem about microbes written and recited by one of AUC’s very own professors, Dr. Lamon. We all loved it.
• “Lean on Me” by Sharon, AUC’s very own beloved lunch lady, loved by all the students and faculty.
• A really funny and quite accurate rendition of a Shaggy song.
• A blindfolded keyboardist playing the theme to Zelda. I thought it was funny.
• There were also two guitarist singing original songs. They were both quite good.
• There were also a few singers as well, performing a variety of Genres like 90s pop and hard rock.
• Last and not least, Thế Trần and Carlina performing a duet, “The Prayer.” Originally they were each going to sing in separate acts but after they met during rehearsal, they knew they had to sing together, and less than 24 hrs later, here they are, winning AUC’s Got Talent, winning both the Judge’s vote and the audience’s vote (and my vote of course). Congratulations you two! Y’all were amazing and we were all absolutely stunned!

I am truly amazed at how much talent a school as small as AUC can have. AUC’s Truly Got Talent!

These pictures came from Ryan Fisher, our school’s student photographer. For more of Ryan’s pictures from AUC’s Got Talent, please check out here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/41831007@N04/sets/72157623542619263/show/