OUR latest stop on the TEENage Expressions Tour found us in the auditorium of Kingston High School on King Street.

The stop was emceed by teacher Andrea Gray, who knew all the buttons to push to get and keep the students energised.

The first act of the afternoon was Shanikia Watson, who gave her all in her performance of Alicia Key’s Girl on Fire.

She was followed by Love Burrell, who recited Louise ‘Miss Lou’ Bennett’s Rainy Day and captivated the audience.

After Love’s performance came the first break in the competition for our question-and-answer segment.

This saw students Anneka Thompson, Sasheen Dennis, Racquel Gayle, and Howard Harris walking away with prizes from sponsors Flow and Seprod.

Coming out of the break, deejay Trevoy Shaw graced the stage with a performance of his original song School Work, which turned up the noise level. Regina Blair recited Miss Lou’s poem Here So that had the crowd chanting along with the performance piece.

The Cool Fruit Drink-Off competition came a bit earlier in the programme than usual, but the troops still brought their all.

Six Cool Fruit champion hopefuls stepped into the arena with two box drinks in hand, but only Latoya Henry could turn both her empty boxes upside down in victory.

After the excitement of the drink-off died down, Carees Stephenson commandeered the stage and had all the female members of the audience screaming and swooning his soulful rendition of K-Ci and JoJo’s All My Life.

His performance was followed by two more songbirds Sasha-Kay Williams and Shadae Brown, who sang Adele’s Someone Like You.

The Kingston High Drama Group did an original lengthy skit called Good Girl Gone Bad. The comical skit followed a good girl called Love, who gets entangled with the wrong crowd and learns a valuable lesson about peer pressure.

After the skit Elise Daley took to the stage and sang Etana’s Free with the audience providing valuable backup.

The seventh grade dance group Steppa Family was next with their dancehall-inspired piece. The group, consisting of eight girls, showed off their keen choreography to popular local hits, and international hit Gangnam Style.

Jailaz Dancers brought a little more choreography to the stage and a lot more excitement to the crowd.

They popped, locked and grooved to dubstep, dancehall and hip hop, and put on a show the audience won’t soon forget.

When the crowd had calmed down enough for another performance, the soprano quartet of Tasha-Gay Soloman, Amanda Medwinter, Alison Nairne, and Kayla King sang a soulful a cappella medley of Beyonce’s 1+1 and Adele’s Someone Like You.

Dashia Roberts followed singing her original song about poverty and crime called Ms Prime Minister.

After, Sara Jones sang the gospel song I Just Can’t Give Up Now, and once again, the audience provided

backup.

Shanikia Watson, Chaunell Lawerence and drummer Anna-Lee Henry performed the dub poem Life Deh Yah, commanding both the stage and the audience in one fell artistic swoop.

Next to the stage, were duet Briana Mercurious and Abigail Ranger, who sang Adele’s Set Fire to the Rain.

After, Camisha Londell, the final performer for the competition, gave her all as she performed Keisha Cole’s I Remember which had the crowd singing along.

After the lengthy list of performances from the students, it was finally time for the guest artistes to rock the crowd. Artistes from the Subkonshus Musik Delus and Dario rocked the stage with their hits like Look Annoda Gal, Gyallist From Birth, Siddung, and Dario’s special version of his and Konshen’s hit Do Di Ting Nuh Please which he asked the female students to sing the alternate lyrics “Wait nuh please, don’t wanna catch nuh STDs”. The dynamic duo did their job, thoroughly entertaining the crowd, and had the students screaming for more when the time came for them to leave.

After the guest performances, it was announced that the judges had finished deliberating and had chosen the winners.

In third place was the Steppa Family Dancers, while second place went to singer Carees Stephenson. Taking first place and securing an opportunity to perform at the Expression Tour Finals in June were the dynamic Jailaz dancers.

— Kirsten Laing