Dance tells the story of teen tech obsession

When Kuranui College takes to the TSB Arena in Wellington next week, its Stage Challenge will be a triumph of student effort.

From fundraising to choreography, students have had to virtually control the entire project involving 60 dancers.

Student Katrina Simmonds said teachers already had enough work without the competition.

"It's hard to put that responsibility on teachers when they have classes," she says.

Katrina, Freya Lockyer and Molly Hickling make up a team organising the dance and drama performance.

Katrina, who is head girl of the school, also said principal Geoff Shepherd was "there when we need him".

The students have put together an eight-minute story about today's teenagers' obsessions with technology.

Paperwork has proved hard work for the girls so teacher Juanita McLellan helped out and has been a mentor during the organising process.

Stage Challenge planning started at the beginning of the first school term and Katrina said the practices had been difficult to keep interesting.

"We try to keep the practices fun and enjoyable. You have to find a balance so they're still interested," she said.

Katrina says the theme came from the idea that students stay up all night on their laptops.

"That was our inspiration and we adapted it," she said.

The organiser says in the beginning it was hard to decide on a topic to centre the performance around.

"We could always see problems and had hiccups with ideas," she says.

Time and fundraising have been a challenge.

"It's hard with a small team to cover everything and get it done but we have people specialising in different areas," says Katrina about the workload.

Raffles and a business directory have been put together to get funding for the competition

"The compulsory raffle for the dancers covers their fees," she said.

Local businesses have been asked to sponsor the school in Stage Challenge and in return the school will advertise for them in notices and flyers.

"We want to put all the names on a T-shirt and frame it in the school," Katrina says of the plans to thank and display the businesses.

The main character in the performance is a male student among a cast of mainly girls.

Katrina said there were "not as many boys as we'd like there to be" because dancing for them was not a regular occurrence at the school.

"They work backstage so I guess that's how they're involved."