By Tanya Gupta and Kristina Lewis
Staff Writers
The Spring Thing is a Johnson Middle School talent show which occurred on May 25, 2017. At the show, 25-30 students from 6th, 7th and 8th grade performed their act in front of 237 people. Organized by social studies teacher Elizabeth Smith, chorus teacher Kim Welch, and BJ Burke, the acts included students and staff dancing, singing, music-playing and even one performer solving the Rubik’s Cube in under two minutes.
Although a lot of the middle schoolers got a chance to perform in the show, 8th grader Lisa Jair contributed to three acts this year. For instance, she was part of a jazz dance to the song “Songmaker,” along with another 8th grader Morgan Navick, and she presented two musical acts with Caroline Gebhardt (“Million Reasons”) and Renee Abbot (“Send My Love”).
“I’ve had a lot of fun performing in front of everyone and doing acts with my friends, and how everyone is like nice to each other,” said Jair. “We are just like kind of family and I’m really excited about the Spring Thing and how it’s going to end.”
In contrast, 6th grader and first-time participant Maanas Goel performed a Rubik’s Cube act.
“The Rubik’s Cube act was set to music, two of the MCs mixed up the colors on the cube and then Manaas solved it in under two minutes!” said Smith.
“[Spring Thing] was really fun. I get to know so many people, I talked with people, and I was a little bit nervous about it, but now I’m not,” said Goel.
Math teacher Amanda Cronin choreographed the annual teacher’s act, which opened with all the lights out and the teachers entering the stage wearing glow-in-the-dark suits. They danced to a total of seven songs, some of them involving “To the Right, To the Left,” “Watch Me (Whip/Nae Nae),” and “Cheap Thrills.”
The hosts for the show performed skits in between the acts on a variety of interesting topics, including fidget spinners, unicorn frappucinos, the Mannequin Challenge, water-bottle-flipping, and even Tom Brady.
“I think the show went really well, the Staff Act was a hit as usual and we had a good audience attendance. It was a great celebration of the JMS community,” said Smith.
