Students showed off their skills to a panel of judges

Sean Hobbs Staff Writer

On May 8^th, 2014 in the dimly lit Performance lounge on the fourth floor of the Cascade building, all eyes were focused on the stage. It was here that Marie Assamoi and Celina Lewis impressed both the judges and the crowd enough to beat out their fellow performers.

Pierce Got Talent was organized by student life to be a two hour competition between students of all backgrounds. The event attracted noticeable attention, as seating filled up quickly and latecomers were stuck with the walls and floor.

“We did a talent show to see all the diverse talents at Pierce” Yaro Rudenko, one of the judges and Issues & Awareness coordinator, said, “If we did a specific talent, we’d be choosing specific students, and everyone is different.”

Diversity was a noticeable part of the event. Though the majority of the acts were singers, dancers also preformed, as well as a yoyoist, and the music ranged from heartfelt ballads to fast paced rap. Both covers and original songs were preformed.

Maranda Ruby, Rudeko, Jazmie Herrington, Jim Butler, and Allie Morrow made up the judges panel and were tasked with deciding a winner and a runner up. The judges were to watch the performance and give their opinions, comments, and suggestions on the acts, then give either a star or an X, meaning they liked or disliked the performance respectively.

Behind the scenes, the judges individually marked down points in three categories: talent, performance, and creativity. This was designed to even the playing field for students who made a mistake or got nervous, potentially messing up their performance. Even with a minor slip-up, a student could win through the other two categories.

David Kind, outreach coordinator, both organized and MC’d the event. While Pierce has had talent shows in the past, it was Kind’s idea to make it more like the NBC TV show ‘America’s Got Talent’. “I thought it would be kind of cool to do a spoof. Why not have X’s and stars?” Kind said, “And it worked, that’s the thing, it worked. Pizza helped though.”

Kind did his best to pump up the crowd in between acts, going as far as to take a selfie on stage, crowd included, and get audience members to do ‘The Wobble’ with him.

The winner of this year’s Pierce Got Talent, Marie Assamoi, preformed a multi stage dance that was created to represent the country she is from, Ivory Coast. “It was a challenge to go on stage alone, because usually I dance with my crew, so I had to prove to myself that I can do it with or without my crew.” Assamoi said. The performance included several props, and a slideshow that played behind her as she danced.

The talent show happened to fall on her birthday as well, about which she said, “To win was a gift I made to myself.” Additional first place gifts included season pass tickets to Wild Waves, AMC movie tickets, and a Samsung Galaxy Tablet.

Second place winner, Celina Lewis, sang a song of her own creation, which also included a slideshow that played on the screen behind her. As runner up, she received a $50 Amazon gift card.

All in all, the student life considered the event a success, and hopes to do more like it in the future. “I was very happy with the turnout. It was bigger than I expected.” said Kind. Despite a few mistakes and broken notes, audience members, judges, and performers walked away from the event in good spirits.