From Monday, Apr. 11 to Thursday, Apr. 14, Wilton High School held its first in-person Festival since 2019. In 2020, the event was canceled due to the quarantine, and in 2021, the event was held online and was sparsely attended. However, The Festival 2022 was as vibrant as ever, with demonstrations and activities fully attended by students and teachers alike.
Junior Ella DeLuca, one of the festival’s organizers, explained that the Festival is “a week-long celebration of arts and culture that lets students step away from academics and focus on appreciating art and other student activities.”
The week kicked off on Monday with presentations from the Spanish Honor Society and Operation Smile, a medical nonprofit. Then, students from the high school were joined by students from Cider Mill (who were attending their classes at the high school due to the electrical outage at the elementary school) to watch a preview performance of the upcoming high school musical, Legally Blonde. The day ended with open arts and crafts activities including “Draw Like Picasso.”
The second day of the Festival commenced with Freeplay!, Wilton High School’s improv comedy series. The American Sign Language Honor Society held a scavenger hunt and the Mock Trial club ran a demonstration. The Amnesty International club presented some of the issues on which they focus their activism and detailed some of the plans for action that members have. “Reimagining Native American Art,” another arts and crafts activity, was open to students on Tuesday.
Wednesday saw presentations from both the Debate Club and Model Congress, both of which held mock demonstrations of their activities. Lukas Koutsoukos, the president of the Model Congress club, said that the Festival presentations were interesting and interactive activities for all students.
“We got a lot of audience participation and interest; even though it was a little scary at first, we got used to the audience being there and it ended up being really fun for us and the audience,” he said, adding that the Festival is an important opportunity for clubs to have a “creative outlet while also advertising for themselves.”
The day ended with a performance from the Jazz Band and the much-anticipated talent show, which included various vocal and instrumental performances.
The fourth and final day of the Festival included presentations from the International Club, UNICEF, the German Honor Society, a pottery demonstration given by professional ceramics instructor Jon Puzuolli, and pop and rock music performances by several teachers.
Another activity presented the Advanced Photography class with the opportunity to work with photographer Dan Burkholder to create “Digital Negatives” and “Cyanotype” photographs. Cyanotype is a photographic printing process that produces cyan blue prints using coated paper and UV light. This process was one of the first non-silver technologies used to create photographic images and originated in the 1840s. The students created their own paper in the darkroom and then created their prints using a digital negative. Many of their images are on display at Wilton Library.
Not only is the Festival an opportunity for clubs and groups to present information about themselves and their work to other students, but it is also a celebration of different cultures, skills, and individuals.
“[The Festival is important because it] opens up our school community to different cultures and helps celebrate the diversity around us in an educational fashion,” said Avery Samai, one of the student festival organizers, adding that “this year’s festival was undoubtedly a success.” That success, however, was not due just to students. Samai remarked that “Mrs. Kantor and Mr. Bulenzi, our advisors, guided us throughout the preparations for the Festival, and none of this could have happened without them.”