SDA and SMFA Spoken Word E-Festival

The Saskatchewan Drama Association (SDA) and the Saskatchewan Music Festival Association (SMFA) collaborated to present the first Spoken Word e-Festival for Saskatchewan students, ages 5 to 19 years of age and any level.
Objectives of the Spoken Word e-Festival are:
  1. to develop awareness of other forms of stage and poetic arts;
  2. to enhance acting and speaking skills;
  3. to develop confidence through stage performance;
  4. to encourage crativity and help students become more critical thinkers; and
  5. to meet curricula goals of the Saskatchewan K-12 English Arts, Arts Education and Theatre Arts
    https://www.edonline.sk.ca/webapps/moe-curriculum-BBLEARN/
Performances were judged by video recordings submitted by the competitors. The judge's decision is final.
Entries were adjudicated by Bradley Hawyward
Bradley Hayward has been involved with the Saskatchewan Drama Association for over
25 years, first as a student and now as an adult. He grew up in Oxbow and acted in his very first SDA Drama Festival way back in 1993. From that moment forward, he was hooked on the theatre. He continued to participate in drama festivals as an actor,
director, playwright and stage manager, winning many awards for multiple disciplines,
including the Mary Ellen Burgess Award two years in a row. He performed at the 1997
Provincial Festival in The Flattering Word. He graduated from high school in 1998 and
went on to get a degree in screenwriting; however, he never lost his passion for high
school theatre and eventually turned his attention to writing plays for students.
Currently, he has written more than 62 published plays that have been produced all
around the world, including dozens of productions at various regional festivals across Saskatchewan. His plays I Don’t Want to Talk About It, Selfie, Laughing Stock, Epic Fail, Drama Geeks, Vamp Ire, and The Last Fill have all advanced to SDA’s Provincial Festival. The Last Fill won the Best Overall Production at SDA’s 2019 Provincial Festival. In addition to writing, Bradley has worked for the SDA as a front-of-house adjudicator at many regional festivals, twice been the front-of-house clinician at the Middle Years Festival, and recently, Front of House for SDA’s Provincial Festival, and has facilitated many acting and writing workshops. He is profoundly inspired by the high level of talent and enthusiasm of the students he encounters each year, and hopes to continue for many more years to come. He is thrilled to adjudicator SDA and SMFA’s first Spoken Word Festival!
 
Thank you to all participants for your entries! Entries will be published on the SDA YouTube channel.

Copy and paste this link to view:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E6F1AvRdXZE&list=PLH-Hi0jgM7vX_Tj5vF9QHCtlFr_1DwHx1
 
And the winners are:
  19 years & under – Ashton Bourgeois ($250)
Ashton Bourgeois is a current Grade 12 student at MUCC in Melfort. He has been involved in the arts program at MUCC for many years, partaking in both music and drama. In both disciplines, he has performed at festivals at both regional and provincial levels via the MUCC band program and MUCC Team Drama, as a percussionist and actor, respectively. Outside of school, Ashton partakes in alpine ski racing, and races both within the province as well as at national level events. Ashton performed a scene from Two Gentlemen of Verona (II, iii, 5-28) using modern characterization to bring this Shakespearean scene into the modern era.
  14 years & under – Dexter Candillo ($200)
Dexter Candillo is 13 years old and lives in Yorkton. He loves drama and all art and says “this is a very cool opportunity”.
This was Dexter’s first monologue, and he performed Lost in an Airport by Carrie Pengilly.
  11 years & under – Georgia Robertson ($150)
Georgia Robertson is 12 years old and lives in Yorkton. She plays the violin, loves to read, bake, and play with her little sister and her two guinea pigs names Arol and Juniper. Georgia has been a part of Free My Muse Company since she was 8 years old and has been in 8 play productions along with performing several monologues. For this competition, Georgia
performed Why I Left My Home Town by Carrie Pengilly.
  8 years & under – Alexander Ubongen ($100)
Alexander Ubongen is 8 years old and will be in Grade 3 in the next school year at St. Michael School in Yorkton. He has a sister who is 6 years younger and a pet dog named Buster who he loves to play with. Alexander chose to perform The Sleepover by Natalia Santos because he loves hanging out with
his best friend and sees his teenage sister go on sleepovers. Aside from drama, Alexander plays a lot of piano, hockey, Tae Kwon Do, basketball and figure skating, before the coronavirus happened.