Behind the scenes with Creative Generation 2022 featured performers
A record 1700 student cast members are set to perform at Creative Generation 2022 from Thursday night. Take a look at some this years’ featured vocal, instrumental and dance performers ready to blow the audience away.
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It’s lights, camera, action for the Creative Generation 2022 cast with almost 2000 of Queensland’s best student performers now costume ready ahead of Thursday’s opening night.
This year’s theme “All Of Us – A Change is Coming,” will feature an impressive 1700 student cast made up of Queensland’s next generation entertainers.
An exceptional amount of behind the scenes work has gone into preparing the 2022 show directed by Liz Williams with music by Andrew Bee and choreography led by Dan Venz.
The Courier-Mail takes a look at some of CGEN’s featured vocal, instrumental and dance performers set to hit the stage tomorrow night.
VOCALISTS:
Each featured singer brings a unique note to the CGEN chorus, with Janelle, Ashlyn and Sophia all soprano twos, Torvey a unique female alto and Hayley a soprano 1.
According to the singers, this years’ cast is the most “chill” and well bonded to date.
Torvey Brandt, Year 11, Queensland Academies Creative Industries (QACI)
“I‘d say this year is like the closest it’s ever been that I’ve experienced … this cast is just really wholesome,” Hayley said.
“We even had a comment from the stage manager that said we were the chillest cast and the nicest cast she’s ever watched.”
“We are very, very prepared,” Sophia added.
“It’s true, our auditions are probably longer than our rehearsal process,” Torvey said.
“It’s all about refining it (this week), I can‘t wait to see Tyra, she’s another featured vocalist who has a solo song where she’s in a swing coming down from the ceiling,” Hayley said.
Sophia Harrison, Year 10, Queensland Academies Creative Industries (QACI)
Tomorrow night will be the first time Janelle, Sophia and Ashlyn take the CGEN stage, but both said they have had a “beautiful” experience meeting veteran vocalists.
“I‘ve always been passionate about singing, and it was my last year to do it (CGEN) because I’m in year 12 so I’m really glad I did,” Janelle said.
“I think being exposed to all of this and going through this entire beautiful experience, it‘s something that I’m definitely going to take into my future,” she said.
Janelle Aquino, Year 12, Springfield State High School
“The people who have done it for years before really lead in the new people like Janelle and I, that’s what I love about it, everyone’s very welcoming,” Ashlyn said.
“I‘m usually involved in musicals and stuff, so it’s weird to stand up on stage and be like, ‘oh my God, this is Ashlyn singing, not another character,’ it’s like kind of stripping back.
“Plus the location and the fact that we’re working with professionals in the industry. Not only does it kind of get our name out there, but it gives us experience of what we might be doing in the future,” she said.
“For me, my brother was in it last year … so I could pick up a lot of things from that and honestly watching the show last year and seeing not only the performers, like things what’s happening on the side, that’s been helpful,” Sophia said.
Ashlyn Hehir, Year 11, Noosa District State High School
The group of singers are inspired by an interesting variety of performers, including Amy Winehouse, Daniel Johns, Lady Gaga and the Moulin Rouge’s Aaron Tveit.
“Amy Winehouse was the person that got me to broaden my spectrum of singing genres. Thank you Amy for your service,” Sophia said.
“I’m gonna have to say this one tenor who’s in the current Moulin Rouge the musical, Aaron Tveit who originated Christian in Millennials musical and he’s inspired my range to just work,” Torvey said.
“At the moment I’m really into Silver Chair, Daniel Johns inspires me to just experiments with different kind of sounds,” Hayley said.
Hayley Lutvey, Year 11, Centenary Heights State High School
Those who have convinced themselves they can’t sing, or who may only let loose in the shower can also be comforted by Ashlyn’s firm message that anyone can be taught to sing as well as these girls.
“Oh anyone can sing,” Ashlyn said.
“People who inspire me the most are people that learn from scratch because I could not sing four years ago, I was tone deaf. I was awful. But I had the mindset of like, trying to teach myself how to do it,” she said.
“If you have ears, you can sing,” agreed Janelle.
SOLO GUITARIST
JayBird Byrne, Year 7 at Cairns School of Distance Education
This young musician first started picking up her dad’s guitars at three, so it’s no wonder she has made it into CGEN 2022 as a solo guitarist.
JayBird is homeschooled through the school’s distance program, which gives her ample time to finetune her skills.
At just 12 years of age, she will be playing six songs on the big stage this weekend with her guitar ‘Frankie’ – an exact replica of Van Halen’s guitar.
Can this kid get any cooler?
“I haven’t been playing for very long but it quickly got very addictive,” JayBird said.
“I guess just practice a lot. That‘s pretty much what I do all day every day.
“I do schoolwork, but definitely in all my break times I’m just on the guitar.”
JayBird’s very grateful for the opportunity to perform solo songs at this year’s CGEN and is most looking forward to playing the ‘Satch Boogie’ number, a Beatles Medley which will be played with the CGEN Beatles band.
“My favourite thing about CGEN is the opportunity because usually an opportunity like this kind, comes later in a musicians career, so I’m very happy that I’m able to do this so soon,” she said.
“I’ll be playing three Beatles songs and there’s two with the orchestra, one’s a solo, and there’s one called Satch Boogie, so about six (songs) all up.
“My favourite is Satch Boogie, definitely, by Joe Satriani, which I’ll be playing with the Beatles band.”
An ambitious guitarist, JayBird will be releasing her first single soon, so keep an eye out for this rising star.
DANCERS
CGEN dancers sacrificed their precious weekends to rehearse an amount of choreography only child knees could survive.
It’s not their first time performing in CGEN, and although these girls have rehearsed so much they could probably perform with their eyes closed this weekend, they said they still get the jitters.
Kyla Lambert, Year 12, Ormeau Woods State High School
“My favourite moment in the show is when you get on for your first dance and you can hear like everyone breathing and getting ready to like actually start everything,” Olivia said.
“You can actually see the audience from the tunnel (stage wings) before you go on,” Kyla said.
Emma added: “Usually there’s an opening song before that and that music starts and you can see the audience from the other side and you go, ‘oh, we’re about to go on.’”
Olivia Li Maybanks, Year 9, Brisbane State High School
These featured dancers have mastered an average of 15 dance routines each with some requiring a swift 30-second costume change.
“The tiredness sinks in after you finish that last performance. You’re like, wow, I’m dead. But the adrenaline gets you through,” Hannah said.
“And the first few dances of Act 2 are back to back, you get to the end of the first few minutes of that and you’re like ‘I’m done’,” Morgan said.
Morgan McAleer, Year 11, Harristown State High School
But the close-knit dance group said the thrill of performing in front of a large audience and making new friends from other schools made the hard work well worth it.
“It’s a big difference because usually we’re on a stage that has the one audience looking at you from the front but this is an entire arena,” Hannah said.
Morgan added: “And it’s on such a massive scale and you dance it with thousands of people on such a big stage, it’s just amazing.”
Hannah McIntyre, Year 12, Ormeau Woods State High School
“I also really love when we mix casts and we get to dance with the drum line or the choir and the singers as well. Meeting everyone and being surrounded by such a variety of people and talent, and it’s just it’s a really good experience,” Emma said.
“Especially in a non-competitive environment,” Kyla added.
Emma McDonald, Year 12, Ormeau Woods State High School
The Courier-Mail was fortunate to get a sneak preview of the Indigenous dance onstage rehearsal.
The dance floor lit up a brilliant shade of blue which Mia Sandow said reflected the dance’s river themes.
She said she loved sharing Indigenous culture with the CGEN audience.
“The dance is about the water just flowing and giving. It’s real smooth and the dances are very contemporary. It has a lot of good stories in it,” she said.
“The costumes are a surprise, we don’t even know what we’re wearing yet.
“I hope they’re nice and flowy, mixing with the dance theme and making it eye opening when people see our dance.”
Mia Sandow, Year 10, Murgon State High School
Despite dancing at CGEN for three years, Mia still gets a little nervous coming out to the stage arena from the tunnels.
But she said “that’s how we know we’re doing a good job”.
“Back then it was more of a scary experience compared to now but I still get nervous going through the tunnels and seeing so many people just staring at you,” Mia said.
“But we come here for a purpose. We come here to share our culture and what we do, in telling millions of stories.
“I’m really proud of that.”
Tickets to CGEN Thursday, Friday and Saturday shows at the Brisbane Convention and Exhibition Centre are still available through Ticketek.
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