Kuranui win ShowQuest again 

Kuranui College has won the 2019 Wellington ShowQuest competition, This is the second year running Kuranui College has been named first place winners in the competition. Second placed was Wellington Girl’s College  and third Hutt Valley High. The team also took home the awards for Best Choreography and Best Video Wall.

Showquest is a Wellington regional competition this year held at the Michael Fowler Centre. The teams each present a five to ten minute story in dance, music and video which is projected onto a screen behind the stage. The show has to be  entirely the student’s own work, from conception through to the  completed piece.

This year Kuranui’s theme was based on the historical dispute over Lake Wairarapa. Originally the lake had an abundant fish life which was important in providing kai to the many Māori who lived around it’s shores. Mid last century  a scheme to eliminate regular flooding and also establish more farm land saw the Ruamahanga river, which flowed through the lake, diverted. The local Māori lost a court battle to stop the scheme. 

Without fresh water running through the lake became stagnant and the once bountiful lake became lifeless. The Kuranui performance was a call to do something about rectifying the situation.

The video, much of it taken by a drone camera was of scenes around the lake which fitted in with the unfolding story. 

The Hutt Valley High dance teacher was full of praise for the performance saying that it was a well deserved winner. She said that while most performances relied on fairly established dance patterns the Kuranui’s was very  original which she thought was rather brave, which however they had pulled off extreemly well. She added that the story also  covered a specific local event rather than a general theme which was very good.

Co-captains Awhina Southey, Betsy  Laybourn and Amelia Butcher said it was important to the team for the theme to reflect their school community.

At the beginning of the year Awhina,Betsy and Amelia started planning a story line and accompaning dance coming up with an ambitions performance plan with a cast of over forty with the dance moves and the right music plus the video scenes. Emma Rose devised and set up the acompanying lighting. 

Students subsequently put in a huge amount of work into the logistics, costumes and make up. Then perfecting their performance, practicing at weekends and after classes and even during the last school holidays. As one commented ‘we got sick and tired of practicing a single move over and over again but on the night it was worth it when putting on the performance was really fun’.