By Pat B.
On June 10th Rising Stars put on their annual show – this year’s theme was “Dancing with the Rising Stars (2)”. I was happy to see a very good turnout for the show that was held at the Brady Sullivan Plaza on Elm Street. All our invited guests showed up and as judges we had Sean McDonald (WMUR), Mayor Ted Gatsas, Ellie Lathram (Miss NH Teen USA), Samantha Poirier (Miss NH USA) and Joe Andruzzi (former NE Patriot). The judges all sat at a table and reviewed each dance. Katie McQuaid Cote (Union Leader columnist) was the emcee of our program. She introduced the dancers and our guests for the night.
There were 13 separate acts that involved lots of different musical and dancing styles. We had the Macarena (Robin, April, Ian, David, Maria and Ali); Disco music – complete with a disco ball to “Saturday Night Fever” (Linda, Chris, Bobbie, Tyler, & Carol-Ann) and oldies like “Puttin on the Ritz” (Pam, Mandy & Chet). Matt made his own surfboard and surfed his way through “Surfin USA” Other songs that were danced to included “Greased Lightning” with the Pink Ladies and T-birds just like in “Grease” (Jason, Nick, Courtney, Crystal & Jennie); “I got a Feeling” was nicely done with singing along with arm movements that matched the beat (Kiersten & Nicole); also “A Thousand Years” with Nicole and Chet; “Get Funky” was fast paced and fun (Allen, Corey, Nick, Patti & Pam);and there was the Kenny Roger’s hit “Islands in the Stream” (Matt & Stacey) and last but not least (I hope) was the “Cha Cha Slide” that I danced in along with Keith, Heather and Sandy. Sean McDonald commented that we had worked hard on our dance. I invited him to come up and give the dance a try but he politely declined. There some skits in between the dancing. These were “Grandma’s in the Cellar” (Jason, Matt, Nick, Chet, & Joseph) – everyone in this skit was dressed up as old women-wigs dresses aprons and all, it was pretty funny and the crowd enjoyed it. The skit “Is it Time yet” (Allen, Corey, Nick & Patti) with help from Pam Bridge (as Lollypop the clown) was also funny with the line “is it time yet” repeated over and over. The end of the show was a dance that everyone joined in to “All that Jazz”.
There was lots of food there – sandwiches, baked goods and drinks that raised money for Rising Stars and there was also a raffle with many items for the audience to bid on. All participants in the show got a certificate and rose from the Mayor and a gift card from Miss Sally Addison (from Miss Sally Zyla’s Dance Studio). Miss Sally was very important to our show and she helped us learn all the different dances!
So many people put in a lot of effort to make sure the show was a success, our guest judges and emcee, businesses that supplied items to raffle or donated money, concession stand donors, many from the Moore Center Community who helped organize the show and all the Rising Star Members – thank you!
A final Big thank you to everyone who came to the show, for those who missed it – WMUR was there and featured the show on “NH Chronicle” on Thursday July 9th! See it HERE.
