Featuring Brett Smith’s yoyo routine, Nathan Fenske’s impersonation of principal John Walker, a dance routine by CAPA dancers, and multiple musical numbers, the annual talent show entertained students and staff during a special rally preceding lunch on April 21.

Smith kicked off the rally by performing a Chinese yoyo routine to the song “Panda” by Desiigner. The crowd roared with laughter as Fenske, who acted as host for the event, repeated Walker’s signature phrase “Be respectful.”

CAPA’s Senior Ensemble provided a sassy performance to Run DMC’s hit song “It’s Tricky” and Gwen Stefani’s “Hollaback Girl.” The group began choreographing the routine a mere 4 days before the talent show, but “we pretty much had it finished by Wednesday morning, and then Wednesday night we cleaned it up a little,” said Hillary Weaver. “It was a little nerve-wracking because it was so different, having 2 sides of people watching you instead of people just watching you from the front, and we had to take that into consideration while we were choreographing the dance,” Weaver added.

This year’s talent show was heavy with vocal acts, from Arianna Glenn singing “Something’s Got a Hold on Me” by Etta James to Betty Galindo’s rendition of Paramore’s “The Only Exception.” Ashlyn Spellman sang “Let it Go” from the Frozen soundtrack, and Brooke Finegold performed Amy Winehouse’s “Back To Black.”

“I’d recently started taking piano, so I just learned a few months ago, and my dad was learning how to play [“Back To Black”] on the piano, and I thought ‘Well, I love Amy Winehouse and I’m an alto’ and I knew it’d be a good song for me,” said Finegold. “I was definitely intimidated a little bit; singing in front of people has never really been an issue, but this was totally different because it was just me, there was no choir and no one else standing there and it was just me and my piano.”

Senior Shea Danforth was a crowd favorite as he marched into the bleachers belting out “Billy Jean” by Michael Jackson.

“It was exhilarating, something I’d never felt before, but I must say, it was so intense that my eyesight kinda blurred,” said Danforth about the experience. “This was my ideology going into it: senior year, how many times can I say I was in the talent show? Never, right? I wanted to do something I’d never tried before and I wanted to involve myself in as many things as possible.”

Afterwards, juniors Hayden Hunt and Spencer Giglio and senior Derek Ludwig closed the show with Ed Sheeran’s “I’m a Mess.”

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