Destination Imagination 2017 Part 2 – Provincials

          I went to Destination Imagination Provincials and it was pretty cool. Destination imagination is a program where you pick a group project to do and present it in front of appeasers with a story. There are many different types of projects such as engineering, technical and fine arts. I did the Improvisational project. The project was to make 3 skits all based on the same prompt with a different stock character and genre for each. If you would like to learn more about Destination Imagination and the projects you can read my past post on it Here or go on their Website.

          In Destination Imagination you have to present your project at huge tournaments that hundreds of other people compete in. If you are in the top 2-3 of a tournament you get the opportunity to go to the next tournament and if you are very good you may get to go to globals. So this year for D.I. my group first went to regionals and it went pretty well. It took a lot of preparation to get there and we did a good performance. To prepare for the first tournament we did lots of practice with our improv skills and using props. I had a very good group with only 4 other people. We worked very well together. Our first skit at the first tournament didn’t go very well. The story wasn’t very developed and we ran out of time because we had a time limit of only 3 mins. The second skit was better and the third one was our best. We left the tournament knowing that if we were to go to regionals we would need to work on telling a full story and incorporating the genre we were given more. Luckily in that tournament we were the only group competing in our age group so we won by default.  

            Preparing for Provincials was very different than preparing for regionals. We had way less preparation for Provincials because we had already understood our challenge, made our box of props, and had practiced a ton. To prepare for provincials we had to improve our team choice elements, improve our props, and learn new characters. Once we were done all that we also had to practice more. Our team choice elements were based on music and science. Our music one was one of our team members, Robbie, learned how to play the flute and played a song in one of our skits. The science one was I had to make playdough and use at as a prop in one of our skits. To improve them for Provincials Robbie practiced the flute more and learnt more songs  and I remade the playdough so it was less runny. To improve the box of props we went through all of the props and got rid of the useless ones. We also added a few new props. Learning the new characters was pretty easy. We each picked two or three new characters from the list and studied them. Once we were done all that we practiced a ton. We did fun improv games and practiced like we were actually at the tournament. We worked really hard at incorporating our genres more and building up a strong story line. Once we were done preparing we had to go to Provincials.

                Provincials started off with the opening ceremony in the gym at around 8:30am. After that my group had an instant challenge at 9:15 so we headed straight to it. The instant challenge did not go very well for my group. Sadly I can’t tell you what the challenge was until after the global tournament later this spring. All I can say is my group did a good job at working as a team but the challenge was very hard. After that we had 4 hours until our main challenge. I still hadn’t had breakfast so my dad and I went to get lunch. We came back to the tournament at around 12:00 and watched some other groups present. When it was time to check in my group headed over to where we were presenting. The room where we were presenting was very different than last time. At regionals it was a very small, hot, cramped classroom. At provincials it was a medium sized theatre with tons of chairs.  When it was time for my group to start I got very nervous.

             We ended up doing a pretty good job. The prompt for our three skits was “the stock character is working in a car dealership and the lights keep flickering”. For the first skit our genre was parody and our stock character was a royal person. The royal person was one of my characters so I had to work at a car dealership in this skit. We parodied our skit off of Keeping up with the Kardashians so I was Kim Kardashian queen of the car dealership. That skit went pretty well. Our next genre was Spy and our stock character was a volunteer. The skit got a little lost towards the end and didn’t have a very strong story line. Our final genre was zombie and our stock character was a painter. That skit was probably my favourite one to perform. You can watch all three of our skits here. 

             After we were done performing we had to wait for the awards ceremony. Sadly I had to leave early for a Canucks event so I was not able to stay for it but I did get to meet some of the players on the Canucks so that was awesome. My group that did stay said it went will but we didn’t win anything. We got fourth out of the nine teams competing which is pretty good. In the end it was a fun day and a great learning experience. As hard as it is to do it the end result is always amazing.