Whangārei school performs well at ShowQuest 2021

Whangārei Girls' High year 13 students Grace Murdoch and Emma Halse receive the first prize award at the regional competition. Photo / Chris Morgan, ShowQuest.

Whangārei Girls' High students dazzled the judges at ShowQuest this year, winning the regional title and the best theme at nationals.

It was the school's 20th year competing in ShowQuest, but for the first time in seven years, the school was awarded the first prize at the regional competition. It was also the first year the school competed in the digital national competition in the open category.

Year 13 students and directors for the show, Grace Murdoch and Emma Halse, worked on the theme, choreography, music, costumes, set design, and prepared the 39 students from year 9 to 13 for their stage performance.

Murdoch and Halse started working on the concept in November last year and said since then had adapted it to be as clear as possible.

Their theme "the effects social media has on the minds of teenage girls and how the media's idea of the 'perfect girl' truly damages young girls' view of themselves" won the best theme award at the national competition.

The motivation behind their theme was to shine a light on the issue as it was something that was commonly swept under the rug and ignored, said the girls.

"Ourselves along with every member of our cast have looked at themselves in a mirror and at some point, been unhappy with what they've seen and this is why the theme is so relevant."

The students said that while the national competition was not in person, knowing they were up against the best schools in the country made them proud and they wanted to make the school proud too.

Whangārei Girls' High School performing at ShowQuest 2021. Photo / Chris Morgan, ShowQuest.

ShowQuest never felt like an extremely hectic day to Murdoch and she said it felt more like a chance to make memories as a team and have fun.

"The highlight of the competition was the chant competition, this was a chance for us to come together as a team and show our school pride."

Other than that, it was when we reunited with our team after the announcement of us winning first place was made. Everyone was on cloud nine and there were so many happy tears. I was just overjoyed and so grateful for my team."

For Halse, the highlight of the competition was seeing the girls helping one another and coming together as one big family.

"Showquest as a whole is such a fun experience because it is so interactive. I was ecstatic to find out that we had won because of how much work we had put into the performance."

Both the girls are in their last year at school and had dancers our whole lives.

"We are used to being under pressure but we have never taken on the role as head choreographers before. This experience has taught us more about how to be kind people than how to be choreographers.

"We learnt very quickly that good communication and always being kind is a recipe for success, so we always made sure to be kind to ourselves, each other, and to our cast."