Class of 2026 started off Homecoming week with its performance on Monday, Sept. 30 in the Rally Court. The skit had characters from the childhood TV show “SpongeBob SquarePants” including SpongeBob, Patrick Star, and Squidward played by Jayden Tang, Lauren Moore and Edison Chang, respectively. The plot revolved around SpongeBob and Patrick’s adventure to recover a stolen homecoming crown from the antagonist, Plankton, who aimed to ruin Homecoming.
Throughout the skit, the characters engaged in comedic acts and performed popular songs, enhancing the skit. In the end, SpongeBob and his friends saved the day by defeating Plankton and restoring the crown to Bikini Bottom, allowing everyone to go to the Homecoming dance.
The performance included a girls, boys and co-ed dance with about 20 students in each dance. Reflecting on the experience, junior and co-ed dancer Aditi Athuluri shares her thoughts on the challenges and successes of preparing for the performance.
“I think we spent a lot of time on the dance, so I felt much more confident,” Athuluri said. “It was tough since not everyone wanted to show up to practice at first, but in the end, everyone locked in and pulled through. I’m really proud of how it turned out, especially with the boys dance.”
Junior Neel Kansara is also proud of his personal and his class’ overall performance, claiming that the hours they put in had finally paid off. He is especially proud of their dance, since the class was able to overcome certain setbacks that deterred them from putting in the work to present a boys dance.
“There were multiple guys who told us our dance was horrible,” Kansara said. “I felt really demoralized, but I just used them as motivation to do better and prove them wrong. So I’d actually like to thank them for saying the things they said because they motivated all of us to perform a boys dance that we were proud of.”
Junior Arjun Junankar attributes this success to the constant work they put in and the hours they devoted to practicing their skit. As a member of the boys dance, Junankar says he and the rest of the boys had to devote their lunch time every day for four weeks to learning, choreographing and memorizing their dance.
“We put a lot of work into our performance, and I think our hard work definitely paid off,” Junankar said. “It could have been a bit better since we had a few setbacks during the skit, but overall I think we did a really good job and had fun while doing it too. That s— was so lit.”
