Vanier students show off skills at Fine Arts Cafe

One of the highlights of the year for the Vanier’s wide variety of arts and culture programs took place on Apr. 27 with the local high school’s annual Fine Arts Cafe.

A host of students and teachers showed off an impressive array of skills during the low key, intimate event in the school’s cafeteria, continuing an annual tradition that has grown in popularity year to year.

“It’s a great mix of singing, dancing and even our improv team performed,” said Kenna Whelan, one of the event’s teacher organizers. “It’s always a fun night, the kids have a great time and get to show off their talent.

“It’s very diverse, we have a lot of incredible students who are involved in activities in the community outside of school as well... choir, band, improv, dance, drama production. So we’re really lucky to have such a great group of talented young people.”

Among those young people was Grade 12 Thayne Winder, who in addition to acting as master of ceremonies alongside fellow senior Matthais Harden performed pieces on the recorder, saxophone and was part of the improvisational comedy team.

“I like staying involved in everything, dipping my finger into the pot and be a part of as many groups as I can,” Winder said with a laugh.

“I think it went really well; there were a lot of really good acts and a lot of people who can sing and play music a lot better than I can, so that’s pretty great... there’s a lot of people who do a lot of nice things here at Vanier and there are a lot of programs that enable people to show-off talents like that.”

Harden agreed, saying that having a chance to support an event for the arts was something he couldn’t miss. “There’s a lot of stuff to do with sports at the school, so whenever something like this pops up to give other students something they can do, I really love it and trying to put some support behind it,” he said. “It’s just a great opportunity for the kids. It’s fantastic to see it grow every year and more people attend and it’ll be neat to see what it grows into in the future.”