Last week, students, families, friends, and teachers of Iroquois Ridge gathered at our school for one of the first school-wide events of the year- Fall Fest. The hours of work Student Council and the clubs of our school put into it payed off, as the night was a success.
Even as Fall Fest was beginning, students were excited for the events of the night. Many fondly remembered performances from previous years. Acadia Costigan, a grade 10 student at the Ridge, said the musical performances were one of her favorite parts of last year’s Fall Fest. Others, like Sohpei Wu, who was running a booth for the DECA club, were looking forward to the Scary Movie Night afterwards. “It’s a good time for everyone to bond over a bad scary movie,” she commented.
The performances, for one, were quite the success. A number of Ridge students shared their talents onstage, through a wide variety of musical acts. Claudia Rando, a grade 10 who performed twice this year, found it to be a really fun experience. This is the second year she’s performed at Fall Fest. Claudia really enjoys playing music - as she puts it, “When you perform with people you’re a part of something more than you can imagine.”
Ridge musical talent was not the only thing to take the stage this year. Mark Correia, an Oakvillian professional magician and comedian [humorist] (most recently famous for the viral video “Pokemon Go Problems”) performed at Fall Fest this year. This was the big-ticket event of the evening, and one of the events the planners at Student Council were most excited about. Thomas Desmarais, the deputy of student council, was particularly excited for the magic show. He says he’s tried some performance magic himself, and was looking to pick up a few tricks from Correia. After the performance, Thomas said he was “pleasantly impressed” with the magician, finding the show very entertaining. Indeed, most of the audience seemed to agree with him- the magician built up their anticipation masterfully, through false starts and self-deprecating jokes, making his tricks seem even more impressive. It’s obvious that he’d been performing magic for a while. For the last trick, he performed the straightjacket escape that made Houdini famous- it’s a trick that he’s had to practice a while to perform. In fact, he holds the world record for the longest time in a straightjacket.
Correia himself enjoyed the event very much. He almost went to Iroquois Ridge himself, for high school, and had visited the school many times. He’s performed at many schools and corporate events, but seemed particularly pleased with his audience at IRHS. “People can be mean at high schools,” he said after the act, “but the audience was very supportive.” Finally, he gave a message to all aspiring performers: “Do what you love.”
While these performances were going on, Ridge clubs and a few community groups were gathered in the street to find new members and raise funds. Nyle Arora, who was at the Ontario Student Leadership Conference (OSLC) booth, thought that the night had been an overall success. Nyle was raising funds for the the Student Leadership conference in Niagara Falls this November, where they are raising money for the Canadian Red Cross. Another booth set up this year was for Arts Council, the Ridge’s newest student-run council, who were offering free face painting.
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| Photos courtesy of Arts Council |
The movie later in the evening, The Conjuring 2, seemed to be a hit- or, at least, it sounded like it to anyone who was anywhere near it. The audience was constantly screaming in surprise or horror, at least, and friends were chatting happily.
While all this was happening, Student Council was cleaning up the event. Some members of StudCo shared their thoughts on the evening. Shannon Copeland, one of the co-PMs of Student Council, has attended Fall Fest for 7 years in a row. Although she was busy almost the entire time overseeing and organizing the event, she still enjoyed the festivities. This is her last year at IRHS, and while she was disappointed that some events (read: pie-eating contest) did not happen this year, the event was a great success for the school community.
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