Whittier High School’s 7th annual talent show has various amazing acts, singing, and dancing. This year’s participants included Emily Perez – Folklorico Dancer, El Coco. Vivian Camacho – Singer, hell to your doorstep. Mason Vigil – Singer, Fall in Love Alone. Ricardo Raya – Comedian. Aerly Lemus and Xochi Sanchez – Singers, For the first time in forever. Mia Santelices and Annalise Cordova – Recorder & Tambourine, My heart will go on. Alez Candelaria – Singer, Poker Face. As well as special guests Destiny Thomas and Kele Perkins – Part of your world. Teresa Velasco and Randy Garner – Dance Mix. Matt Francev & Emma Francev – A dance lesson. We also have our Judges Josie Garza, Gabriela Hernandez, Johnny Krikorian, Thelma Krikorian, Ernest Hernandez, and Sofia Krikorian. This concludes our introductions, and we will get more in-depth about each amazing performance.
Our first performer Emily Perez, does a cultural dance – El Coco – originating from Northern Portugal and Galicia. The performer – Emily Perez – wears a traditional dress of white, black, and red with intricate patterns on the dress and even more intricate dancing techniques. The performance was amazing with the diverse dancing and music. The overall dance and performance was amazing and was a sight to see. I’m sure it must have taken a while to practice her amazing dance. Her act was also amazing in other ways as her performance included the most choreography out of any other performance making it a great performance in the show.
Next after our amazing dance Emily Perez we have Singer Vivian Camacho. Her performance was a song titled “Hell at Your Doorstep” created by singer Thomas Borchert in 2009. The performance was great with good vocal projection and great singing. The song was slow-paced at first and burst into a faster faster-paced more emotional song which was a spectacular show of talent. The performance was long and well sung and the performance was definitely in a category of its own as it sounded one of a kind. The performance was also obviously rehearsed as it was just a flawless performance.
After our Amazon performance by Vivian Camacho, we then went to singer Mason Vigil. Our singer Mason Vigil sings the song “Fall in Love Alone” by singer Stacy. This song came out in 2022 and was Stacy’s hit song for a while. Mason sang this song amazingly and you can see this song was practiced very hard by our own Mason Vigil. The song sounded amazing with great voice control and amazing singing. This performance was amazing because Mason’s voice went so perfectly with the song, I was impressed and I’m sure the crowd and judges were too. Mason Vigil by far has to be one of our best singers because that performance just soared above all expectations.
Next after our amazing performance from Mason Vigil, we have stand-up comedian Ricardo Raya. I loved this act because it was very original and very well thought out. The jokes Ricardo Raya gave us were genuinely funny and original because they were all from his own experiences. He was good and smooth with his acts. He could easily slide into new subjects and get a good laugh from the audience making this one of my favorite performances. We hope Ricardo Raya had a good last year here at Whittier high school as he is a senior and will be leaving this year. Hopefully, we get to see more of Ricardo Raya after his amazing performance
Coming up next after the solid Stand-up act by Ricardo Raya, the talent of singing continues in the 5th act. The singers Arely Lemus and Xochitl Sanchez perform the song For the First Time in Forever from the well-known cultural hit, a musical animated film from the 2010s, Frozen. While having a bit of a rough start at the beginning of the song, from here to the end the performance was smooth. First off, the Vocal performance done by both Sanchez and Raya in the act was pretty good. From their quality, volume, rate, pitch, tone, etc. Also, their timing and execution of the lyrics together were well done. Although in some areas they did miss a couple of cues, they’re very minimal. In conclusion, there’s not that much to be said as it was a very great, charming, team effort, and bravo performance. One of the best in the show so far.
Moving forward, another talented rendition of a well-known song, My Heart Will Go On from the infamous 1997 Titanic movie starring Leonard DiCaprio. Performed by Mia Santelices and Annalise Cordova. At the beginning of the act, you’d expect something similar to the previous act, a proper performance of the song. Spectacularly no, not at all. Right after, things take a turn for the act as they go deeper as out of nowhere a ballet dancer appears along with cameos from the previous act contributing to the insane twist. Mimicking the famous scene with Jack and Rose. They sure did defy expectations with this optical illusion. Although, as weird as it was, it did get a few chuckles and laughs out of the audience and myself. It wasn’t all that bad. Also, a bit more work into the recorder part of the song. In summary, It was a very interesting, confusing, cartoon-level, and hilarious act. What a mind-blowing rendition.
Up next is our final talented act of the night, another rendition of the song Poker Face from Lady Gaga, by Alex Candelaria. Similar to the previous two acts before, it was a mix of being comedic and a proper rendition of the song. Their comedic vocal performance of the song was pretty rough as they tried doing an impression of the South Park character, Eric Cartman throughout the song. Although the timing of the lyrics is good. In some areas, it did sound like they were lip-syncing to the song, but I’m sure it was done to perform the song much easier. This does take some of the effort away into the performance compared to ones before though it did get a chuckle out of everyone here and there just for how bizarre and funny it was to begin with. In conclusion, their contribution as Eric Cartman was good but needs some work and a pretty okay funny performance. You did a good job putting yourself out there.
Without further ado after all our performances our show comes to an end but there can only be one winner. I am happy to announce that our winner of the 7th annual Whittier’s Got Talent is Mason Vigil! Congratulations to Mason Vigil and special thanks to all of our participants for this year’s Whittier’s Got Talent.