The Vietnamese Student Association (VSA) won 1st place at the Moon Festival Dance Competition on Saturday, Sept. 24, 2024, at Andrew Hill High School, according to VSA’s Instagram.
The dance competition was between many different Vietnamese Student Associations across a variety of schools, VSA treasurer and dancer Vy Pham said.
It was open to people of all ages, packed with food, and had different vendors selling an as- sortment of things, she adds.
“People were celebrating the Moon Festival that week, and f-amilies all came together to have fun,” Pham said. “It’s kind of like a night market and they witness our performances.”
VSA started preparing the choreography for this competition before the school year began, VSA dance lead Jenny Le said.
“We started preparing in late July,” Jenny Le said. “And I think we started practices around the beginning of August.” There were three different acts in the VSA performance, Jenny Le added. “Dance would go first, and then lotus would be next, the boy’s act would go last,” Jenny Le said.
“The boys danced on their own.” During their performance, VSA encountered unexpected audio issues, Pham said. “In the beginning the music glitched,” Pham said.
“We were dancing and we stopped, and then the music played again and we kept going.” VSA advisor Kent Mitchell was invited as a last-minute judge for the competition, he said.
He tried to be as conservative and fair as possible when judging his own club, and was more cautious when awarding points to his own club, Mitchell added. “I was trying to find an area to be critical,” Mitchell said. “In the wow-factor of the category… I gave them a three out of four.”
Rubrics were sent to all the participating schools, which outlined the various categories the dancers would be judged on, Mitchell said. “There’s a whole choreography category,” Mitchell said. “Props and costumes were another category.”
VSA used the rubrics to improve their performance, VSA co-dance lead Scarlett Le said. “The other schools had a lot of stuff going on stage,” Scarlett Le said. “Ours was more simpli- fied, so you could see what was happening.”
Two days before the com- petition, VSA had completely changed their choreography, Pham said. They stayed longer on Thursdays and Fridays to have everybody nail down the new choreography, she adds.
“On show day, we were still rehearsing,” Pham said. “And I was nervous because we changed the parts and stuff, and ‘what if we forget something?,’ but it ended really well.”
Seeing all the other performances, VSA only expected to only win third place, Jenny Le said. “None of us expected that we would win first,” Jenny Le said. “I don’t know, we won somehow.”