By Tate Papworth
Pupils from St Albans’ Sacred Heart Primary School stole the show at one of the country’s biggest performing arts events for schools.
More than 280 schools and 20,000 students from across the country took part in this year’s Wakakirri story-dance challenge and it was the school from St Albans that caught the eye.
Performing for the first time at Wakakirri, Sacred Heart took home the award for best adapted story for its performance of Kung Fu Pigs.
The year five pupils based their performance on Corey Rosen Schwartz’s children’s book, The 3 Ninja Pigs.
As part of the competition, each school develops a story-dance, a three to seven minute production which involves telling a story through dance and drama.
The stories are performed in professional theatres in front of an official judging panel who are searching for the story of the year.
More than one million people watch Wakakirri performances each year.
In a taste of what it takes to make it in the big time, students spend show day rehearsing and meeting students from other schools.
Then on the night of the performance, they walk the red carpet and perform on the big stage.
Wakakirri is a cross-section of the topics concerning today’s youth.
This year a quarter of schools chose to share stories about the environment.
Others shared stories centred around mental health, technology and uniquely Australian issues.
