Secret texting at the school talent show!

Here’s the video of the 3rd grade dance act in the school talent show! An eighth grade girl choreographed it and coached all the 3rd graders through many practices. They dance to the James Bond theme, Soulja Boy, and then What Is the Sun? by They Might Be Giants.

I giggled a lot during it because it was SO AWESOME. Especially at the bits where the kids are all sneaking around like they’re James Bond spies with finger guns.

The whole show was impressive. A crew of middle school kids organized everything and ran the show, including practices, planning, stage crew, sound and lighting, getting the auditorium, and selling tickets. I enjoyed the piano solos, the many middle school girls doing solo dance routines, the group dances, the heartfelt songs sometimes sung a bit softly & deer-in-the-headlights. My mom friend who shall remain mercifully nameless kept texting me naughtily during the show and together we invented the camera-flask, perfect for all PTA type of school events so you could video your child’s song AND discreetly take a nip of soul-restoring tequila. It went sort of like this, (heavily fictionalized)

6:35 omg need drink
6:36 where iz flask
6:37 flask camera!
6:38 aaaaaagh
6:45 not my fault i do not allow hannah montana in teh house
6:46 bwahaha sucka
6:47 KILL ME
6:48 hahaha killing would be too slow
6:50 you have to admit they are sweet
6:50 no i dont
6:51 cynicism melting halp snif

Meanwhile the little kid next to me was all like “I know breakdancing. Why do you have a wheelchair? Can you do tricks? I think breakdancing is really cool. I know that girl! I know that girl too! I know her brother! Oh I can’t believe they’re going to do this, why, why why!” (said for anything mushy & sentimental) I think for him the show needed more explosions.

I remembered how I used to watch my friends make up dances and create mildly too-sexy outfits for our middle school talent shows. I could not fathom how to keep up with their dance moves and would not even try. They danced one year to “Jukebox Hero” and the next to “Controversy” which I couldn’t believe they got away with.

The other things I gleaned from the talent show experience were fashion-related. I really really really wanted the one guitar duet kid’s outfit with its vest, buttons, baggy pants, and ska-ish tie. Oh wait I have that outfit already, it’s just that I’m not 13 or 6 feet tall, and can’t play the guitar or stand in that sort of guitar player attitude. Oh well! (Their guitar solos were smoking!!!) The other fashion insight was that the 80s have come again in mutated form in a somewhat hideous way. Of course they were all cute as bugs and YET… the mutant halter-top-vest thing, over the long tank top, please god make it stop! But, finally now I understand all the teenage girls’ outfits as described in super bad Harry Potter fanfiction. So, I felt old and detached from things that girls wear in junior high, which is probably a good sign of almost-maturity, or that other thing where I am stuck in my decade, the way certain women in the 70s and 80s were stuck in 1945.

Oh also? Kids are awesome and I get all teary eyed and sentimental at the thought of how much nerve it takes them to get up on stage and sing a rock song or play the flute or dance around with everyone watching. I thought they all were amazingly cool. As a bonus, some of them had massive amounts of performing talent, the ability to connect to the audience and belt out a song — like this girl singing a country and western song with perfect self possession, or these girls dancing:

But the performances were good no matter what the level of ability was. I thought about karaoke bars and Rock Band and how we are more willing these days, maybe, than at some points in recent history, to stand up and perform for the fun of it and as a social activity rather than as perfect experts.

*UPDATE* And now I’m listening to the Langley School Project album. Trust me… go listen to it… at least to Space Oddity and Desperado.