by Jaylan Inman, 6th Class

 

Phoenix Rising is a dance group run by Cassandra Pinto at the Family  Redeemer Center.  Phoenix Rising started two years ago and several of the children in the group are pupils of St Francis NS. Recently Phoenix Rising represented St Francis N.S, for the TLT School Stars Talent Show, where all students sign up and do dancing, singing , acting, instruments and  Irish dancing. 

In the first round , there were about twenty-two acts in two days. In the first round, Phoenix Rising pupils dressed up as nerds with their hair messed up for the song called “FREAKS LIKE ME”. There was no audience because it was the first round, instead there was 2 judges. In every round, someone had to declare their act as well as their name, age, company and song .

In the second round, there were two judges called Elisha and Cillian . Over the two nights, there seemed to be about one thousand people in the audience in Drogheda. There were about a hundred and eighty acts throughout the whole week. Unfortunately, the people who were auditioning, didn’t get to spectate. Instead they had to go downstairs to the basement, waiting for about six hours until the show ended. Our group, Phoenix Rising, danced to “Wanna Be” from Spice Girls in the second round and managed to get through to the final. 

The night of the final round was even longer than before and the finalists had to spend almost nine hours waiting in the basement! This time, it was just the judges who got to have their say. The audience also got to pick a winner by voting on an app, ranking the performers from 1 to 5. There was a little trouble with the app but it all worked out in the end. The audience’s favourite was Cormac McDuphy, with Phoneix Rising coming in 4th (only missing out on 3rd by one vote!). The judges favourite was Beth Cameron.

 

Phoenix Rising

 

 

Phoenix Rising Stage School is small dance group who run out of the amazing Redeemer Family Resource Centre every Tuesday 5:30pm.  They have boys and girls aged 3+ The children learn dance through fun and positive environments.  Staff are super friendly.  No need to book, just walk on in. For more info contact Cassandra via WhatsApp on 087 342 2357