Review: Seniors take over Quad Day

With months of preparation for their final Homecoming Quad Day, the Class of 2017 presented a lunchtime performance on Sept. 30 that left most onlookers awestruck.

Playing off the theme of “Toy Story,” the Quad Day consisted of 11 extravagant dances, including Kpop, partner, Bollywood boys, Bollywood girls, football  players dance, all girls, all boys, Color Guard, Stunt, choir/band and the finale.

The stunt dance contained many breathtaking tricks, topping the Class of 2017’s previous stunt dance

“We started choreographing and working on the mix back in summer and it went through many stages to get to what everyone saw on Friday,” said stunt dance choreographer Max Vo. “It didn’t just happen to turn out like that; we put a huge amount of time and commitment into perfecting it and persevering through all of the challenges we faced in order to shape it into the end product.”

The all-boys dance, choreographed by Nathan Ching, featured in-sync hip-hop moves and attention-captivating red masks.

Ching said that since summer, each dance practiced 1-3 times a week. With Quad Day practices filling up his schedule, Ching said, “During Homecoming week I was getting 3-6 hours of sleep, since I didn’t get home until 10 or 11 without starting homework because of dance or skit practices.”

Rachel Won, Jessy Liu and Raymond McCarthy organized the Seniors’ day to make sure it would be “legendary.”

The skit starred Ryan Westman as Andy, McCarthy as Buzz, Dhruva Setlur as Woody, and Kate Smails as Jessie. The plotline revolved around the toys’ attempts at preventing Andy from departing to college.

It was difficult for the seniors to meet for the final runthrough practices, especially since each ran 4-5 hours. On top of that, “teachers and colleges were unrelenting in their work,” said senior class president Rachel Won.

Overall, the Quad Day was extremely entertaining, as well as being sweet and sentimental. In the finale, groups of seniors wore various class shirts from previous years, while swaying arm in arm to the song, “You’ve got a Friend in Me” by Randy Newman.

Despite the difficulties in preparing along the way, the senior class truly produced a legendary Quad Day, scoring 1,731 points in total out of 1760, followed by the juniors with 1,677 points, then sophomores with 1,514 points, and finally, the freshmen with 1,373 points.

Ching was extremely pleased with the outcome of Quad day.

“Despite the incredible amount of work and commitment I and others had to put in, I think I can speak on behalf of fellow seniors that this was the best quad day we could have ever hoped for,” Ching said. “We are both proud and in tears to leave Saratoga on such a high note.”