Odds in favor of DI team
DI team advances to Globals
The DI team, Christian Vieira, Joci Guerra, Elias Martinez, Kade Ferguson, and Nico Champion.
April 23, 2015
This year the Destination Imagination team competed in the improvisational category, the improv games. They placed fourth at state and are moving onto Globals in Knoxville, Tennessee. Globals is the highest level of competition. The DI team is comprised of seniors Nico Champion, Joci Guerra, Christian Vieira, Elias Martinez, and Kade Ferguson.
There are three points of interest for the improv challenge. Teams must create three independent improvisational sketches, research and incorporate improvisational games and street performances, and practice integrating randomly selected situations and settings. Since it is an improv category, many elements in the team’s performance are learned the day of the competition. Once their surprise elements have been drawn, the team has one minute to prepare a skit, then they have two minutes to present.
“There’s two improv games called sound effects and dubbing, and we have the entire team acting out a skit while one team member has to be the voice for all of us,” Guerra said. “So it’s kind of crazy, but Nico handles it pretty well.”
The team has drawn situations like the sun not rising, a team member losing an arm, and several others.
“[The skits] are usually pretty hectic,” Champion said. “Sometimes we’ll get four things that entirely counteract each other and we have to make some pretty bizarre skits to fit it all in.”
At the Regionals competition before State, the team placed first in both the improv category and extreme DI. Champion and Guerra have been on the same team for seven years and since then the team has grown, but no one on the team has ever been to Globals.
“Just being able to advance, we gave each other the biggest hug ever,” Guerra said. “Even though we weren’t able to be there for the Globals announcements, it was only Nico who was able to be there, as soon as we saw each other, [we were] reunited and [there were] lots of hugs.”
Globals are May 20-23 in Knoxville, Tennessee. There are 1,400 teams from 45 states, 7 Canadian provinces and 13 countries that compete in Globals.
