The Hidden Valley Middle School Destination ImagiNation team, the “Hidden Valley Hoodlums”, is going global – but they need help from the Roanoke community to get there. The team is asking for donations to raise the $5000 needed to enter the Global Finals of the worldwide Destination Imagination competition in May in Knoxville, Tennessee.
The seven-member team scored first place among nine Virginia middle school teams during the recent DI state competition, which tests students’ creative and critical thinking skills through playwriting and performance. Matthew Harris, AJ Vail, Adam Wood, Elizabeth Wilkin, Hollins Vieth, Morgan Day and Faith Settles are now poised to represent Roanoke and join 14,000 participants from the U.S. and more than 30 countries to compete for the world-wide championship.
The team is in need of donations and sponsorships to raise the $5,000 needed to enter the Global Finals and take their skit to the next level – and it’s a story worth telling.
Tasked with the goal of using three different storytelling methods to tell the same story to three team-chosen pretend audiences, the Hidden Valley Hoodlum’s skit took a unique triple-take on the classic Red Riding Hood fairy tale that wowed the judges:
The performance is described as follows: The stage is set on the heels of another successful performance of the Red Riding Hood story by the all-girl drama group, the “Princess Story Portrayers.” All of the sudden a group of evil gangsters with a faulty (at best) plot to kidnap the late Walt Disney for ransom threatens to infiltrate the group to gain access to Disneyland, the Princess Story Portrayers’ next performance venue. Our villains demand our heroes teach them the fairy tale so they can convincingly disguise themselves as part of the drama team – and an original rap song seemingly does the trick. But when the gangster group tries to perform the skit themselves, their misguided version catches the attention of a cop who quickly realizes they are not who they appear to be and whisks them off to jail. Their only hope of escape is to try and butter-up the guards with a performance of the story to which they can relate – a Law & Order parody! But the final verdict? The evil-doers will be doing some hard time!
The team designed, built and operated their own props and special effects, which included a detailed wolf mask, and a tour bus that transformed into a paddy wagon at the touch of a button.
According to team member and 7th-grader Adam Wood, “our team is proudest of our chemistry on stage, which gives us a wider range of interactions, sketches, jokes and stories. The most challenging part to execute and develop was the Law & Order portion of the performance which required a lot of studying of the show to nail the mood and sense of it.”
Hidden Valley Principal Ken Nicely says the team really does deserve to move ahead: “These students have worked incredibly hard and tenaciously to reach this level of success. It is encouraging to see students employ critical thinking and problem solving skills in such a creative outlet. Equally important is that these students are not only bright and hard working, they are young people of good character.”
The Global Finals will be held May 25-28 at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville. Competitors come from all 50 states, the District of Columbia, ten Canadian provinces, and 30 countries will be represented including Australia, Brazil, China, Columbia, Ecuador, England, Guatemala, India, South Korea, Mexico, Peru, Poland, Scotland, Singapore, Trinidad, Turkey, and Venezuela.
Donations can be made by check to Hidden Valley Middle School-DI. For more information, contact Laura Wood, 589-0119, [email protected].
