Coffee House

The night before our trip to Florence, CCI held a Coffee House where students and staff could show off their talents. To make room in the schedule for the event studyhall was cancelled and, as you can see from the pictures of the audience, students were grossly disappointed by the news.

The opening and closing acts were dance numbers performed by the boys. Their skills were on par with anything you'd see coming out of Juilliard or the Bolshoi Ballet Academy. As one fictitious audience member said, "Their grace had them resembling a bevy of swans." Another made up quote reads as follows: "It was a triumphal expression of the human condition. It wasn't so much dance, as it was... life."  

Sandwiched between the dance numbers, was some delightful singing and guitar playing. Pasquale serenaded the audience with songs in both English and Italian. Bellissimo!

Jordan then performed an acoustic version of the Biebs's Boyfriend that had the crowd singing along and beggin' for more.

There was also a beautiful duet from Tanner and Kristen. They sang a version of Leonard Cohen's Hallelujah, but by the time they got to the second chorus, the words were changed from "Hallelujah," to "Gian Luca." Together we sang to honour Gian Luca, one of our favourite students.

The highly talented and entertaining Jess followed with a monologue from Two Gentlemen of Verona. The play was written Shakespeare, who Mr. Simpson and Ms. De Bellis claim is a famous playwright. I've never heard of the guy.

Mr. Simpson offered a selection for poems that he had written. An audience favourite was the poem about Dracula living in Mr. Simpson's hometown of Whitby Ontario.

Later, Natalie and Irma brought down the house with an old school hiphop style not seen since Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five. Using clever rhymes and Mr. Smith's favourite word in Abruzzese dialect - "jàmmè" - they summed up their entire experience at CCI.

It's difficult to pinpoint one single performance that could be called the highlight of the evening. Upon reflection however, perhaps it wasn't a single performance at all. That night we saw how 70 people had transformed from a group of strangers to a family in only a few weeks, and this is what we'll remember most.