Levin Intermediate students Mackenzie Heard and Madilyn Timoti, both 11, representing the vape flavours bubblegum and birthday cake.
Levin Intermediate students Mackenzie Heard and Madilyn Timoti, both 11, representing the vape flavours bubblegum and birthday cake.
What started out as a romantic love story between a young girl and her nicotine vape quickly descended into horror.
That was the ride Levin Intermediate School students took the audience on at Showquest on Thursday night with their award-winning performance of Escape the Vape, unashamedly confronting the effects the highly addictive substance can have on the health and behaviour of young learners.
Levin Intermediate School students Darcie Sanson and Key Tuilaepa have leading roles in the stage production Escape the Vape.
The opening scene, to the tune of the Lionel Ritchie song Hello, had the main character played by Darcie Sanson falling in love with a vape, played by Key Tuilaepa. But theirs is a relationship doomed to fail, one way or the other.
Levin Intermediate School textile and technology teacher and show director Sara Allpress said the students had a big hand in choosing the theme and storyline for their performance, an eight-minute narrated musical with a strong message centred on the dangers of vaping.
Cast and crew of Levin Intermediate School have put a lot of effort into their Showquest performance Escape the Vape.
“With vaping a significant concern for our 11-to-13-year-olds, our performance aimed to raise awareness and inspire informed decision-making,” she said.
“You would be naive to think they are not being confronted with it.”
The following scene showed the manufacturing process where chemicals are mixed to create the vape liquid and the various flavours available, like blueberry, birthday cake and candy floss.
Levin Intermediate School student Suli Waqa, 12, at a dress rehearsal of the school production Escape the Vape.
“That was really surprising for me, the different flavours that are available,” she said.
Then comes the hospital scene, followed by the break-up scene to the tune of the Taylor Swift song We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together.
The large cast had spent months rehearsing the choreography for Escape the Vape, which used an AI-generated voice to narrate the performance with facts and figures on vaping.
Levin Intermediate students Madison Hillman-Slow (left), Azalea McLaughlan, Saria Sadler, Arabella Ross-Morley and Celestine Hular show off their fashion entries for Showquest.
The genesis for the vaping theme came from reading literature and health advice showing how the intermediate school age group was being impacted. Anecdotally, there were instances of parents providing children with vapes.
The vape theme was poignant as multiple agencies in New Zealand have described vape use among young people as an epidemic.
Vape-Free Kids NZ estimated their use had tripled in young people since 2019. An estimated 20 per cent of high school students are now regular vape users.
Allpress was full of praise for her students for not only the theme they had chosen, but the way they had delivered an important message about the dangers of vaping and how alluring the addiction can be.
Levin Intermediate School textiles and technology teacher Sara Allpress.
Levin Intermediate School enters Showquest each year and it is the first time it has won the overall junior prize. The competition was a success for other schools from Levin that entered, with Taitoko School, Levin North School and Levin East School all gaining awards.
Taitoko School’s performance earned the Showquest School Spirit award.
Judges for the night were Alan Dingley, Jessie Feyen and Phil Anstis, who were full of praise for the school performances. The event was held at Regent on Broadway, with 795 tickets sold.
Levin Intermediate School students on stage for Escape the Vape.
“What an amazing depth of talent, not just the choreography, the styling, but the way they chose themes that were so important and so different. It was beautiful,” Dingley said.
