Dansville High School will host Encore!, the first Hispanic Cultural Fair in celebration of National Foreign Language Week. The event will include a showcase display of the students’ cultural projects they have worked on throughout the year and a performance by the Spanish language students who will be participating in a foreign language lip sync contest.

All high school Spanish language students will perform in a full stage production of contemporary songs learned in their classes. The songs will be approximately three-minutes long and performed on stage the evening of February 28 from 7 to 9 pm. The students will have two and a half months to learn the lyrics of a song chosen by their class. Performances will be judged in the following categories: Best overall performance, best lip sync, best costumes and best choreography.

The Dansville High School Foreign Language Department is constantly working to provide their students with fun, educational projects to enhance cultural understanding. We often incorporate music from other countries to illustrate cultural differences. Music enables the students to draw connections between the foreign culture and their own, therefore, broadening their perspective on the world. Moreover, through the music, students enhance their own language development by learning new vocabulary and grammatical structures. The department believes that music plays a strong role in the education of a child and the foreign language classroom provides the perfect environment to incorporate this aspect of learning.

The students are looking forward to their participation in Encore! They have already taken the first steps to organize the performance. Many of the classes have presented a timeline of meetings and a to-do list to their teachers. It is exciting to see the students take responsibility for their own learning. They are so motivated to demonstrate their learning and present a performance that is created solely by them. Everyone is invited to join the kids to see these outstanding student performances. This event will take place on Thursday, February 28, and is free.