Posted by Rachel Kim
On April 14, the Office of Student Diversity Program (OSDP) hosted their third annual One Night Stand Talent Show at the Spa.
The show is an end of the year entertaining event that is coordinated with the Discovery Tour, a program for under-represented accepted prospective students that showcases academic and student life, diversity and interculturalism on campus.
Both prospective and current students were encouraged to attend and signup for the show.
"The goal of the show is to join together students of all backgrounds, to invite any and all students to participate in OSDP and to showcase the talent within our community at Skidmore," said Mariel Martin, Diversity of Student Diversity Programs.
The show has previously allowed various groups to showcase their talents, "We've had the pleasure of debuting some especially talented groups on campus including the Life Every Voice Gospel Choir and the Ujima Step Team," Martin said.
Students and prospective students filled up the Spa as host Randy Abreu '11 opened the show.
There were 11 performers at this year's show. Various acts included acoustic guitar playing, stand-up comedy, poem recitals and step dancing.
Abe Lerman '11 opened the show with an acoustic performance of "Let You Go," a song he wrote and composed.
His act was followed by Harper Sibley '12 who sang and played two songs on the electric guitar. Lerman and Sibley's performances both included solos that were received with warm applause.
The two musical acts were followed by a poem recital by Kim Caceres ‘14, who read her piece, "Response to Love," out loud to the crowd that listened silently.
Pibo Shongwe '14 then took the stage and sang to an interactive crowd that joined him. The audience fell to a silence when Janet Vidal '14 sang "Adios," a slow, soft song by Mexican music duo, Jesse y Joy.
Next was Marvin Michel ‘14, who entertained and drew some laughs from the crowd with his stand-up routine.
The show opened itself to impromptu acts, which included Philip Ortiz ‘14, who, at the last-minute, decided to sing and play an acoustic version of the song made famous by Frank Sinatra, "Fly Me to the Moon." Evelyn Canela '13 also recited her own poem.
Members of the Ujima Step Group then crowded the stage and impressed the audience with their rhythmic routine. Emma Bridges ‘14 sang and played on her guitar and Hailee Minor ‘12 sang and closed the show.
The judges, Martin and program coordinator Nate Richardson, picked the winners after listening to the audience's applause.
Lerman won third place and took the $50 gift card. Bridges came in second and collected the $75 award and the Ujima Step Team came in first place and won the $100 gift card. They plan on donating the money to the Ujima club.
Host Abreu entertained the crowd in between acts with mini-interviews with random students and prospective candidates selected from the crowd. Abreu also took the time to remind the audience of other upcoming OSDP events.
The past two years were successful and like this year drew a large audience as well. "The Spa was packed each year with prospective students in addition to over 100 current Skidmore students," Martin said.