St Mary’s Primary School said they took a storytelling approach to their dance which won them the crown in the Future Faces segment of Saturday’s Lambing Flat Chinese Festival.
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Future Faces – a feature of the festival that invited local schools to participate – saw dances, plays and historic re-enactments of the Lambing Flat gold rush from St Mary’s Primary, Young High, Young North, Young Public and Monteagle Public schools.
The performances which took place in Anderson Park, were judged by Mayor Stuart Freudenstein, founding member of the Chinese Heritage Association of Australia Daphne Lowe Kelly and Prime 7 News Wagga reporter Mylee Hogan.
St Mary’s Primary was named winner of the competition with a harmonious dance from Young High School female students named runners-up.
Students in Years 1 to 6 from the winning school spent up to six weeks practising for the event.
St Mary’s spokesperson Kim Connelly said the school is always keen to get involved in and give the children the opportunity to be part of community events.
She said every year the school entered a song and dance in a competition in Canberra surrounding Aboriginal story telling.
“That’s the approach we took with this.”
Kim admired the storytelling approach because the past can be “so beautifully told”.
She said it was great for the school to be rewarded for their efforts, adding that the certificate presented to students on Saturday acted as a great motivator.
“These students didn’t take any time out of class, they gave up their lunch times to do this… that’s a volunteer effort.
“That’s the biggest thing, they were volunteers… you have your academic and sporting awards, why not be rewarded for something like this?”