Local Dance Troupe takes home Gospelfest Championship
Local dance company takes home McDonald's Gospelfest Championship The Venettes Cultural Workshop, a 40-year-old not for profit performing arts organization located in Wyandanch, took home the title of McDonald's Gospelfest Praise Dance Champions. Over 40,000 people auditioned for the Gospelfest Competition, 1300 hundred were chosen as finalists and were bestowed the opportunity to perform at the Prudential Arena in Newark, New Jersey in front of an audience of 12,000 spectators. Participants competed in 14 separate categories and the Venettes Cultural Workshop was bestowed the title of McDonald's Gospelfest 2008 Praise Dance Champions. The workshop received a trophy, medals and a monetary award of $2,500. "We were completely ecstatic to hear our name called as the winner of the Praise Dance Category," said Vanessa Baird-Streeter, Executive Director of the Venettes Cultural Workshop. "Even if we did not win the title, we felt honored to be able to perform at the 18,000 seat, Prudential Arena where we were on the bill with gospel greats such as Kirk Franklin, Donnie McClurkin, Vicky Winans, Byron Cage, Hezekiah Walker and the Mighty Clouds of Joy. However, the win just made it that much more special to us." The group of 17 members performed a gospel piece entitled They Didn't Know composed by Kurt Carr. The piece depicted the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus Christ through dance. The original piece was choreographed by Karyn Kemp-Smith and Thomas Spencer and lasted 7 minutes and14 seconds. Dancers were Morgan King, Shantel Hubbard, Kristen Ford, Jada Singletary, Whitney Thomason, Kimberly Lester, Christy Tolbert, Cassie Devot, Jasmine Gobourne, Skyler Blackwood, Alayna Miller, Marcus Harper, Kiira Harper, Annika Allen and Natasha Walker. Not Pictured are Brandon Clifton and Gary Harrison.
"When we received the news that we were chosen as finalists to appear in the Gospelfest Competition we were overjoyed, only to read the fine print which informed us that any piece performed could not be over 2 minutes and 30 seconds," said Karyn Kemp Smith, Artistic Director of the Venettes Cultural Workshop. Quickly the sense of joy was overcome by stress and concern as to how we were going to condense this piece to almost one-third of the original piece, and stay true to the story of Jesus Christ." "We spent arduous hours editing the music and changing the choreography to fit within the specified time frame," said Spencer. The students had to learn new choreography and adjust the execution of the steps to fit within the guidelines. "The lesson learned by all involved, is that sometimes you are thrown a monkey wrench in life but it is the way you choose to embrace the obstacle that will allow you to achieve or fail," said Baird-Streeter. "We were able to achieve a great honor by working together and not allowing obstacles to thwart our triumphant spirit."
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