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Students sing, dance for groups around county

Thursday, Nov. 3, 2005

Click here to enlarge this photo Photos by Barbara L Salisbury⁄The Gazette Above: From left, Kimlee Hemlee, 13, Briana Smith, 12, Ronald Williams, 13, Vanessa Niba, 12, Sheyi Ashiru, 12, and Jennifer Santizo, 12, all members of the Charles Carroll Middle School Colours performing arts Troupe, stretch at the beginning of Practice Oct. 25. Charles Carroll is one of seven schools in the county that has a Colours group. Below: Briana Smith, left, 12, and Vanessa Niba, 12, stretch to the side while in the background Eleanor Roosevelt High School student Kayla Hocker, 15, helps another Colours member get the proper stretch alignment. Click here to enlarge this photo

Although many of them didn’t join her at first as she repeated it, a few eventually did.

Getting the kids to try new dance and singing maneuvers is all part of Colours, a troupe of students who sing and dance at events around the county, director Jason Cook said.

‘‘The key thing is, in an era of ‘me,’ we’re trying to teach ‘we,’” he said.

Cook and then-fellow teacher Doug Anthony, who both have backgrounds in music and theater, started Colours at Charles Carroll in 1992 as a way to expose children to the performing arts.

The program grew and expanded as the middle-schoolers went to high school and asked for it there.

Colours now is in seven schools — Carrollton, Berwyn Heights, University Park, Cesar Chavez and Arrowhead elementaries and Charles Carroll and Martin Luther King middle schools. A traveling troupe of sophomores to seniors from around the county is based at Northwestern High School.

For Charles Carroll, this year is special because it marks a return of the program, which for some reason, had faded away in the late 1990s, Cook said.

New Assistant Principal Mike Robinson got new Principal Eric Wood to agree to have Colours return.

Robinson said he’s seen several Colours members become successful, so supporting it is easy.

‘‘I’ve noticed a number of his kids going to college, continuing their education. I love it. My kids, they’re on the same track,” he said of Cook.

Kids who want to participate need only fill out an application. There aren’t any auditions or tryouts because Cook said he doesn’t want to scare them off.

He also wants to reinforce positive body images and said middle school is a hard enough time for children, especially girls who feel self-conscious.

Kayla, 15, said she can relate to that. When she began three years ago, someone told her she was a terrible dancer, she said.

‘‘It was kind of hard hearing that. I didn’t know I was that bad,” said the Eleanor Roosevelt High School sophomore, a Greenbelt resident.

But she stuck with it and impressed Cook enough that he picked her to help teach younger grades, which is what she was doing Oct. 25.

Performing schedules vary according to grade levels, but all participate in a year-end show in June, Cook said.

To stay members, they have to keep their grades up and exhibit good behavior.

When they perform, they frequently gain new members.

That’s how Charles Carroll seventh-grader Samiah Perry, 12, learned about Colours three years ago.

‘‘I was in fifth grade. They performed at our school. I said, ‘Oh wow, that’s so cool. I want to do this,’” she said.

‘‘If you ever saw them perform, their performances make you want to be a part of it. There’s so much energy.”

E-mail Jennifer Donatelli at jdonatelli@gazette.net.