It is that time of year again, when it is time to write a reflection on Destination Imagination 2022. This year was different as it was actually in person and not online like last year so we had to build, rehearse, and memorize our performance.
Originally, DI was to be hosted here at Seycove Secondary which meant that all 19 teams would have to stay all day to help set up, navigate, and clean up but we got lucky since it got moved to Saint George’s Secondary. Unfortunately it was an almost hour drive away which meant we had to take everything there.
We started DI early in November so that we prepared to start as soon as the second semester began. As we prepared we were put into our groups and challenges. As soon as I saw my group I knew this year was going to be “interesting”. The people in my group were Max R, Ines, Cooper, Dylan, and Claire G and once we got together we found out that we were put into the Fine arts challenge, Tricky Tales, where we had to make a story and skit the involved 1 or more tricksters, a costume transformation, and an illusion. As winter break came we all decided to read through our challenge, research tricksters, illusions, and costume transformations we could use for our presentation.
Once we got back together in January, we found ourselves in a bit of a pickle.
Our teammate Claire had dropped out of PLP without letting us know so it took us by surprise. However that didn’t stop us from continuing to work.
The first time we had trouble working together was when we were brainstorming ideas to name our group. I was proposing to name our group the Tactical Pterodactyls because it sounds pretty cool if you ask me but the rest of my group disagreed. Instead Ines decided to name ourselves “The Coin Did It For Us” because we were flipping a coin to decide which names were better. Even though I wasn’t on board with the name I was still out voted but life goes on.
At first we were off to a rough start because our idea of a story was getting way too complicated since it involved taxes, building redevelopment, evictions, etc. and it was just really boring so while we were at Loon Lake I proposed a completely new story which ended up being the one we used. We planned to FaceTime over the weekend so that we could all help make the story and script quickly. However that never happened and this is when DI begins to suck for me. Over the course of 3 days where Max and I could be doing anything but DI, we spent hours designing the story, making scripts, creating characters, and how the illusion and costumes would connect with them. So in the end Max and I had created the storyline, characters, and scripts by ourselves.
Throughout the next couple weeks we started rehearsing, participated in mock Instant challenges (just like it sounds- you’re given a certain topic you have to portray with a certain with some items given in a limited amount of time), building our set and props. This time everyone helped except Dylan. In the end all he did was paint half of a window while Max created the set, and Cooper, Ines and I painted all the backdrops, made they costumes, illusion, and props. What annoyed me the most is that he didn’t stay after school with us to finish off our set so that we could have it done by spring break.
In the end we probably stayed after school to rehearse and build around 5-6 times and he didn’t come once.
However there will always be negative parts of a project so lets talk about what went well during our presentation.
The room where we presented was smaller than what I expected so I was slightly worried that it was going to be hard to move the set around but in the end everyone knew their lines, our transitions were smooth, the appraisers liked our costumes and illusion even though they were pretty simple, and we managed to get a few laughs out of the audience and appraisers.
In the end our presentation was pretty good all things considered and our instant challenge was one of our best.
:Video of our challenge presentation below:
I didn’t really enjoy Destination Imagination this year because I did more work than I should have which isn’t fair, but I’m glad I had the chance to experience what its like to participate in a proper DI tournament.