On Friday, October 18th 2024, Peekskill High School’s World Language Department hosted a celebration in honor of Hispanic Heritage Month. Participants included City Singers, our dance teams and Hip-Hop Studies scholar, Gabriel Alamo, whose diverse talents combined into one spectacular show!
Mr. Richardson, who is new to the district, only joining the team this year, has already provided a great deal of service to the school, contributing the City Singers’ beautiful rendition of “Let’s Get Loud,” along with the behind-the-scenes work such as setting and cleaning up the audio resources used in Friday’s show. Mr. Richardson has wonderfully picked up the vocal program at Peekskill High School, reinforcing the City Singers and reinstating Vocal Forte, a pop acapella group.
In addition, Coach Johnson’s dance teams once again blew away the audience with exciting, diverse dance numbers. Coach Johnson, who has been the director of the dance program at Peekskill High School for several years now, is thrilled to be participating in this journey, and enthusiastically put together numerous rehearsals to ensure that the dancers were prepared and successful on that stage. When asked to speak on the matter, she said that Hispanic Heritage Month was a chance to “watch my students glow with pride as they wave their flags high.” This pride was coupled with her students’ motivation and engagement.
Finally, Gabriel Alamo, Ms. Fernandez’s scholar from the SUNY Hip-Hop class, educated his peers and teachers on Hip-Hop’s four core elements, its original purpose, and paid homage to the Rock Steady Crew and our very own director of security, David “DJ Tex-Hollywood” Santiago as the Puerto-Rican pioneers of the culture. All around the school, teachers signed up their classes to attend the performance during 8th and 9th periods. The auditorium was full with some people even standing in the back!
Each performance was met with great applause from the audience, and the performers seemed to enjoy themselves thoroughly while working with each other and the staff to provide an entertaining acknowledgment of Hispanic Heritage Month.