Grades 2 and 3 students from Osoyoos Elementary School performed for their peers at the first annual S.T.A.R.S. Festival last week. (Vanessa Broadbent / Osoyoos Times)

By Vanessa Broadbent

Osoyoos Times

Students from across School District 53 came together last week to take a risk in the name of art.

The first annual S.T.A.R.S. Festival (Students Take a Risk on Stage) took place at the Venables Theatre on May 30 and featured music, visual art, dance and theatre performances from students of all grades from Osoyoos, Oliver and Keremeos.

But along with performing, students also emceed the event, worked back stage, and made up most of the audience.

Amanda Jones, Osoyoos Elementary School vice principal and mastermind behind the festival wanted to create an opportunity for students to teach each other about the arts.

“When I came to the school two years ago, I realized that they didn’t have anything to celebrate the arts in terms of a district-wide event,” she said.

So she put together a committee that met regularly since early November to plan the festival.

“The purpose was to bring students together to see what others are doing for art education,” she said.

With most school performances produced for a parent audience, Jones also wanted to give students an opportunity to perform in front of an unusual audience.

“I think students were really, really engaged in seeing what other people were doing, which went along with that purpose of exposing them to the arts.”

Osoyoos Elementary School students Sarah Kelly, Grade 6, and Starla Rorison, Grade 7, performed a comedic take on traditional fairy tales with their school’s Grade 6/7 Drama Club.

Despite feeling nerves before performing, Rorison said the event was “pretty fun.”

“It was actually really cool that we got to come out here and do it,” Kelly added.

Although many students were from other schools, Rorison found it a little easier to perform for peers.

“It less hard because they’re students and they’re chill,” she said.

It helped seeing a few familiar faces from Osoyoos Elementary in the crowd too, she added.

It’s likely the festival will become an annual event, Jones said.

“Everybody that I have spoken to said it would be a shame if it didn’t happen again.”

Osoyoos Secondary School students performed excerpts from their recent production of Shrek the Musical at the first annual S.T.A.R.S. Festival last week. (Vanessa Broadbent / Osoyoos Times)

Grade 7 students from Osoyoos Elementary School performed a line dance at the first annual S.T.A.R.S. Festival last week. (Vanessa Broadbent / Osoyoos Times)

Starla Rorison, a Grade 7 student from Osoyoos Elementary School, acted with the school’s Grade 6/7 Drama Club at the first annual S.T.A.R.S. Festival last week. (Vanessa Broadbent / Osoyoos Times)