SAAC is known as being a competition, and when people hear you're going to one, they say their goodbyes with "good luck". True, the vast majority of SAAC events are competitions between various schools in South America, but this particular one is different. Just in case you don't know what SAAC is, it's an acronym for South American Activities Conference, and reunites schools from Ecuador, Chile, Argentina, Brasil, Uruguay, and of course Peru. Usually, SAAC revolves around a sport such as basketball, soccer, volleyball or swimming. However, this one is different. I present SAAC Fine Arts. This is the one SAAC event, where instead of competing against each other, we work together to create music, drama plays or art. After weeks, or even months, of rehearsing songs, polishing plays, and perfecting art pieces, six schools come together to put different pieces together. In my past experiences, and regarding the choir ONLY, we had been very unprepared. Rehearsals were a lot more tedious, where each part from each song was revised separately multiple times in the attempt of getting it perfect at the concert. However, this time there was a more professional feeling in the air (although the overall feeling in Chile last year was a lot nicer, but that's not very relevant). At the first rehearsal, we went over the songs so smoothly, that I was starting to feel like the songs were so much easier than previous years. But this is a lie! We were singing songs in Quechua, and a Zimbabwen anti-drinking song from the Shona people. Everything was done with no lyrics and most included intricate clapping or snapping rhythm sections--and believe me, it's hard to clap and sing and dance, as well as trying to remember the lyrics of a song in Shona dialect. What I love about singing in the SAAC choir, is the opportunity to practice in our home countries and come together to put a full on concert in just 3 days. Every time I come back from one of the festivals, I feel like I strengthen my weaknesses, and work on my strengths, especially now because we don't have a functioning choir at school. This lack of choir, did make me realize that I was losing my ability to sight-read music, match pitch as well as harmonize, all things I consider my strengths, and I was none other than distraught. However, I felt that this year I was surrounded by great people, who are even greater musicians, and was in good hands that could help out whenever I was stuck. As my fourth year of participation began, I still felt that buzz for meeting new people I had felt waaaay back when I was a freshman, and am I glad I did. This year, I made a bigger effort to talk to people I had met the previous years and made sure that I had a way of keeping in touch with them, unlike previous years where I only kept to my Roosevelt crew. But, the most important thing I got out of this years festival is that music is like a machine, and each part has to be well oiled in order for the machine to work properly. As we had all previously rehearsed the songs in our home countries way before the festival, when the time for SAAC came around, we just had to put the pieces together and fine-tune the machine.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
Author"Happiness can be found, even in the darkest of times, if one only remembers to turn on the light." Archives
June 2015
|