!!!!!"#$%&'("%)(*'+(,"&)()"-$.(*!"#"$%&''($%&)*$+,*--'&//0-)-'+12$3

!"#$%&%#'./0123$456$712839$:$ ;3!73+!<=6$2<9>%$?46$?@AA +B3>C<0$3!CDC/76$E$B<F3+

.(0.&'"*$&)4

.(&'5(678111111111111111111111111119:6;<=>61111111111111111111111!26?<6>8@>6;A111111BCD$@E?EF?1111111111111111GCH-IF<F8111111111111111111111111111J

“Firework”: Lighting Up the Porthole Theater

FEATURE

CENTERSPREAD

DJ Got Us Fallin’ in Love

Chat with the 2011champs,

3

With 16 epic acts ranging from “Ice

Ice Baby” to “I Love Rock ’n Roll,” you

can’t go wrong.

Relive thenight,4-5

ENTERTAINMENT

Lost in Double Vision

Hear Lauren’s opinion,7

winning boys, horo-

and tectonics are all part of the act.

!"#$%&"'!#!"#$%&'()*$+

For 26 years, Air Guitar has been a Dolphin tradition, allowing students and teach-ers to display their best dance moves and acrobatics.

For more on the 2011 Air Guitar winners:[See Fireworks for ‘The Finale,’ Page 3]

By Marilyn La JeunesseFeature Editor

On Thursday, March 17 and Friday, March 18, students, parents and teach-ers gathered in the Porthole to watch the tentatively

“The Finale.” There were two showings each night,

one at 6:30 p.m. and another at 8:30 p.m.

Tickets were $15 for reserved seats in the front sec-tion of the Porthole, $10 for folding chairs in the back and $7 for unreserved general seat-ing.

The number of attend-ees as well as the expenditures

the time of print. Sixteen acts performed in the following or-der: “The Time,” “I Love Rock

’n Roll,” “I’ll Make a Man Out of You,” “Wake Me Up Before

“Canned Heat,” “You’re the One That I Want,” “Us Against the World,” “Ice Ice Baby,” “It’s Raining Men,” “Hey

“Firework,” “Telephone” and “Heaven.”

After each showing, at-tendees voted for their favorite performance. Activities Direc-

-ciated with a club on campus, would be awarded $250 for the club to use at its discretion.

Of the 16 acts, “Fire-work” won the most votes and was announced the win-

March 21. The number was performed by seniors Austin DeVone, Jordan Toavs, Dilan

as well as sophomore Austin

vibrantly colored short shorts, horoscope shirts and matching tights and

stage. “I Love Rock ’n

Roll,” the Best Buddies club’s act, came in sec-ond. “Heaven,” “Baby” and “Telephone” placed

-spectively.

[See Friday Shows, Pg. 2]

There’s no deny-ing that a few select people were in far

more than a few acts. Was it too repetitive?

!"#$"%#&'()*&+,-)./().011!"#$%& '($%!"!$)

!"#$#&$&)-233%)-24-)%,-553

[Continued from Pg. 1]

“Going to this Air Gui-tar made me regret not going the last two years,” commented junior Sophie Macarewich, a

-

-dents, parents and community members in attendance, vari-ous teachers also attended the event to see the 16 groups per-

The acts were well choreo-graphed, and everyone seemed

Friday Shows Sell Out

ASU: “There Will Be

UNUSUAL PRECIPITATION: ‘The Weather Girls’ perform “It’s Raining Men,” com-plete with matching umbrelllas and ties.

photo by Emma Werderman

the past few years,” said Eng-

was disappointed with the turn-

more students could have en-

Lighting & Sound was in charge of setting up and con-trolling the sound system as

-

The crew was addition-ally responsible for disassem-bling the various equipment pieces used in the show, and, according to junior Megan Levine, the crew members had

-

“Without Lighting & Sound, all of the acts would

stage,” said ASU Vice Presi-

Lighting & Sound did a great

went into producing a one-hour show,” said Lighting & Sound

Hu continued, “The end product was worth it–we saved Air Guitar!”

-ing of the Student Senate, which is currently slated for to-morrow, the senators will give

On Friday, March 18, Senior Activities Directors se-

Porthole to the ASU Student Council and the Lighting & Sound crew that “after the suc-cess of [Air Guitar] this year,

Two hours earlier, the -

yond capacity with a crowd

Friday night showing of the annual spring event that ASU claimed might not continue af-

“As of now, there will

ASU made it clear that there could potentially be Air Guitar

proved to be a success, and it was in every aspect,” said ASU

“We were able to draw sizeable crowds for the two Thursday showings and sold

Twenty acts tried out, and 16 participated in the show; of the other four, one

was made a lunch-time teaser, one was combined into the

12 acts participated out of the

“The difference between this year and last year that shows us we have a student body still interested in Air Gui-

tar goes beyond the quantity of acts that tried out and per-

-ample, last year, way more acts were started by ASU members as last-ditch efforts to put on a

By Shannon McNulty & Salil DudaniStaff Writer & Copy Editor

STOP TELEPHONIN’: Freshman Anne Millspaugh emulates Lady Gaga in SOCSA Dance Production’s perfor-mance of “Telephone.”

photo by Quinn Mahony

!"#$"%#&'()*&+,-)./().011!"#$%& '($%!"!$)

!"#$%&"#&$&)-233%)-24-)%,-553

Fireworks for ‘The Fina!"#By Annie BubinskiStaff Writer

photos by Amanda White

FAB FIVE:

By Sam Lepore

TEACHERS FIND COMMON THREAD

SURVEY: What was your

favorite act or part of Air Guitar. Why?

“When Zach Perea winked at me from the

stage during ‘Heaven.’”-Chloe Harris, 12

“Craig Stuart rocking the shakeweight in ‘Hey Ya.’” -Matt Burchill, 12

“‘Firework’ because I’m a sucker for men in

tights.”-Mackenzie Myers, 9

“Geoff Kaufman’s Na-poleon Dynamite! It was

-gia.”-Kelsey Borovinsky, 10

photo by Amanda White

FABRIC TO FABULOUS:

By placing their tickets in a container labeled with the title of their favorite

performance, Air Guitar attend-ees selected “Firework” as the winning act.

The number, which fea-tured seniors Austin DeVone, Jordan Toavs, Dilan Shah and Dillon Grimsley as well as sophomore Austin Grimsley,

-tonik dancing.

Q: How does it feel to have won the title of Air Gui-

tar 2011 champions?

A: : It is the best feeling–especially after

the hard work, time and stress is over. I was really concerned how it would turn out after Wednesday’s run-through. It was excitement on top of relief.Shah: Going into Air Guitar, I was just happy to be partici-

would make for another great high school memory, but to come out on top at the end of it was like the cherry on top. I couldn’t have asked for it to be better.

Q: How did you decide on “Firework?”

A: : When I heard it on the radio on a wres-

tling trip, it was funny yet catchy and upbeat.

Q: to collaborate on the act?

A: : Because try-outs were soon, I chose

the four best dancers I could

Toavs and Austin Grimsley, who always dance in the wres-tling room with me. Then, Austin Grimsley informed me that his brother is even better. The last person I chose was tecktonik master Di-lan Shah. The magic followed soon after.

Q: How many hours did you practice as a group?

A: Shah: It was often re-ally hard to get all of the

guys together at one time, but together as a group, I would say we practiced about six hours.

The funny thing is we all got together the night before the tryout and practiced probably for about two hours, and we came up with enough to get us past the tryout. Then we improved on a lot of things and

the dress rehearsal. Honestly, a bit of our dance had “solo” parts, so it was just about im-provising and doing what felt good to the music at the time.

Q: Where did you draw in-spiration for your dance

moves and costumes?

A:Shah: As far as dance moves go, I’ve always

been inspired by people who dance the milky way, dance electro and tectonic on You-

are really good and try to emu-

Not anyone can make a group of 14 middle-aged adults look like

a million bucks on a teacher’s salary. But somehow, history teachers Blair Dyer and Nicole Slocum pulled it off. Dyer and Slocum have three things in common: they’re history teachers by day, dancing machines by night and the geniuses behind this year’s parachute pants that teachers (including themselves) rocked for Air Guitar.

It took Dyer and Slocum two and a half weeks to make

Ice Baby” act. The costumes consist of white, blue and red checkered shirts and parachute pants and were modeled off a 1991 video of Vanilla Ice.

Dyer, with the help of

pairs of parachute pants, and Slocum, armed with a glue gun and duct tape, made the shirts.

“There’s nothing you can’t accomplish with a glue gun,” said Slocum, who is cur-

rently nursing several minor cuts and wounds on her hands from the endeavor.

Creativity was abso-lutely necessary for the budget-conscious costume-makers, who had roughly $20 to spend on each costume.

Instead of buying shoul-der pads for the shirts, they cut up an old foam mattress to achieve the ridiculous, over-the-top look that they were aiming for.

The ingenious costume mistresses have three other Air Guitar show costumes under their belt, including similar pants for an MC Hammer act several years ago.

“We do Air Guitar to show that teachers can be fun-ny. The bigger idiots we can make of ourselves, the better,” said Slocum.

Perhaps we’re lucky that Dyer and Slocum chose to pur-sue teaching rather than their passion for making unabash-edly tacky clothingt—partly because there’s not much of a market for home-made para-chute pants in this economy; but mostly because their cos-tumes truly make the teacher

hilariously entertaining.

“‘Baby’ because they made better Justin Biebers than the Bieber himself.” -Jasmin Herrera, 11

late them as best as I can while adding my own style to it.

Our dance had some tecktoniking (by the amazing Dilan Shah, for the most part), popping, simple hip hop choreography, jerkin’ and just a bunch of purely lame, dumb-looking moves. I thought this gave our dance its unique-ness because we had a lot of different types of dances. Not

acrobatic and awesome! : We agreed we wanted

tights and short shorts, and while we were at Walmart, we saw the inspirational shirts.

a sign.

Q: Were you nervous about landing your multiple

A: racking, but it all worked out.

I personally wasn’t too nervous about land-

give mad props to my bro, who had to land three, and Jordan, who had to land two. And even

that included them basically

Austin Devone’s backs.

more than remembering the choreography. This is mostly because we had a few bad ac-cidents in the rehersals.

Q: How do you feel about Air Guitar possibly end-

ing?

A: : I would re-ally like to have an Air

Guitar next year. Although the idea of

“Final Champions” is really ex-citing, I wish the school could continue the tradition because it is one of my favorite memo-ries at Dana Hills, and I know the future classes would enjoy it just as much.

!"#$"%#&'()*&+,-)./().011!"#$%& '($%!"!$)

!"#$#!$#&$&)-233%)-24-)%,-553

By Savannah TateStaff Writer

After a lackluster Air Guitar in 2010, ASU issued an ultimatum: start sup-

porting this production, or lose it entirely. Admittedly, I believed ASU merely tacked “The

Finale” onto this year’s theme as a gimmick to capture our attention, thus inciting a desire to attend—similar to what Wild Rivers has threatened for the past few summers.

It’s a clever method; however, if overused, we may simply ignore these cries for attention. Neverthe-less, we must recognize that, without our support, these long-lasting establishments at DHHS will crumble.

Air Guitar is a campus institution; some students campaign for its survival if only in the name of tradi-tion. However, this event is not only an inherent part of Dana Hills but also a valuable opportunity for students to receive recognition for their creativity, dancing and of course, acrobatics.

After walking out of the Porthole, I confess that my perspective on some of the more reserved stu-dents in my classes completely changed. Air Guitar truly shows the astonishing potential hidden beneath the surface of the student body. Without this artistic outlet, how else will non-SOCSA performers steal the spotlight?

As great as the performers of Air Guitar were, the people behind the curtain also deserve some recog-nition. Air Guitar allows the Lighting and Sound stu-dents to present their deft technological skills to their

'($%!"!$)33333 Golden Lantern, Dana Point CA 92629

Rm. 708 E-mail: dhhspaper@gmail.com

For advertising, please email: ads4dhhspaper@gmail.com

Website: www.dhhspaper.com

Editor-in-Chief Lexi CotcampNews Editor Stephanie ChengFeature Editor Marilyn La JeunesseCenterspread Editor Kailey CoxOpinion Editors Taylor Steinbeck

Sam LeporeBack Page Editor Gillian Slee

Lexi CotcampCopy Editors Salil Dudani

Sara GoldIntern Elizabeth SummersAdvertising Sales Gillian SleeFinance Manager Stephanie ChengSubscriptions Tyler Hartung

Jake Rosen Computer Technician Max WolotskyWebsite Manager Devin ValencianoAdviser Tim Sampson

Writers: Lauren Black, Annie Bubinski, Lexi Cotcamp, Salil Dudani, Marilyn La Jeunesse, Sam Lepore, Shannon McNul-ty, Savannah TatePhotographers: Emily Cullen, Quinn Mahony, Andrew Oh, Claudia Varney, Emma Werderman, Amanda WhiteLifesavers: Andrew Oh, Yearbook Staff

The Paper is published tri-weekly throughout the year by Dana Hills High School newspaper students. Com-ments and editorial opinions expressed in The Paper are those of the staff and do not represent the position of Dana Hills High School, its administration, student govern-

-ments are not endorsed by The Paper.

peers, although this behind-the-scenes group is usu-ally under-appreciated.

These master techies prepare for weeks in ad-vance to perfect Air Guitar, often spending many ad-

to their masterpiece. Lighting & Sound, ASU and the PTSA work in-

tensively to organize this production, yet we seem to completely ignore their hard work and merely dismiss Air Guitar as another lame tradition.

However, judging from the various comments about DHHS Air Guitar videos on YouTube, other schools covet the caliber of our annual production, and

Honestly, Dana may be the only school in Amer-ica in which senior boys may not only dance to Katy Perry’s “Firework” in tight shorts and rhinestoned T-shirts but are also applauded for their brilliance.

Although cynics reject Air Guitar as overrated (and I’m usually one to agree), I remained open-minded about the show this year and truly enjoyed the performance. The audience’s excitement was palpable that evening, attesting to the greatness of this show.

the more cheesy and uninspired pep rallies of the past and attested to ASU’s potential to produce quality en-tertainment.

I honestly wouldn’t mind seeing the performance again if only for the laughs derived from the sight of watching our beloved teachers dance in sequined para-chute pants.

If all else fails, support Air Guitar for this price-less opportunity because, if not, we may never again see bedazzled math teacher Jake Schwartzberg danc-ing shamelessly to a ’90s classic.

Bring It On-Core, ASU

!"#$#!$!"#"$%&''($%&)%$(*%++'!"#$%&%#'

,-!#-(!"./$0"1*%$23/$2455%&(#$)

Letters to the EditorWhy ‘The Finale?’

There’s one thing I don’t understand about Air Guitar this year. Why is this one in par-ticular ‘The Finale?’

Are they not sell-ing enough tickets? Maybe they should drop the ridiculous prices—$15 to sit in the Porthole and watch an hour-long show.

Maybe they should prevent students from being in more than three acts, because it gets a little repetitive when watching the same six or so kids in act after act. Let some other kids have a go.

Are they not hav-ing enough people try out for acts? Maybe next year they shouldn’t have tryouts immediately following a four-day weekend, which is spent by most seniors/ju-niors visiting colleges and not practicing their acts.

Rather than just stop-ping the show, ASU can just change their ways.

- Scarlett Varney, 11

It’s Time for a New Air Guitar Era

With the following, I do not wish to force my view points on anyone.

I have attended Air Guitar since I started teach-ing here in 1990. Origi-

LETTERS POLICYPlease submit legibly written, signed letters to room 708 during

to dhhspaper@gmail.com. The staff reserves the right to delete or con-dense letters to meet space require-ments or content restrictions. Un-signed letters will not be accepted.

!"#$%#"&'#()$*$(*#(+#!%&'(")*'+!"&,"---

nally, a group of students picked a song that had a MTV video, dressed like the singers in the band, imitated the behavior from the video, and used instru-ments along with lip sync.

It worked well and was successful into the early 2000’s. I am not say-ing that Air Guitar was bet-ter then and worse now, but it is different. But, in the 80’s, video killed the radio star and in the mid 2000’s, the internet killed the video star.

Do kids go home and watch MTV videos any-more? I think not. They get their music off of some bittorent site or YouTube.

Now, the acts are

more of an interpretation of music by the students and include a dance, costume, and acrobatic feet.

Maybe it is time to ditch the outdated con-cept of Air Guitar and usher in a new era. Let’s call it “Music Interpreta-tion” or let the students come up with an appro-priate name.

- Mark Gammell, Science Teacher

By Lauren BlackStaff Writer

straw this year, it was surprising to learn that 16 entire acts had signed

up to save Dana’s beloved tradition. But I have a feel-

performers only been allowed to do one act each.It was hard not to notice how a few select stu-

dents starred in one act after another. They certainly deserve props for learning so many dances, as I have no idea how they had all that time to attend so many rehearsals (I would love to know their secret—may-be I could use it to get more sleep.)

But one of the greatest parts about Air Guitar is being surprised when fellow classmates unexpect-edly get on stage to make a fool of themselves, as op-posed to the same predictable people cycling through the acts over and over again.

Such diversity is what makes the show so unique, especially compared to other schools whose Air Guitars are often a sad excuse for the kind of show we put on in the Porthole.

Don’t get me wrong, the recurring performers put on quite the show. They had the bases covered—the acted-out acts, the cutesy acts, the hilarious, pos-sibly-too-comfortable-with-their-sexuality acts and all the ones in between.

If the 16 acts do manage to preserve the tra-dition for future years, then I guess I have no com-

lead Air Guitar through to next year.But if there is a next year, I hope to see a little

more diversity and shock value in the always enter-

Being that the entertainment world is ruled by the trashy likes of “Jersey Shore” and Jerry Springer

To our surprise, however, each and every Air Guitar performance was just that—a class act. For the

esque seduction. In fact, the show essentially steered clear of the promiscuous “Club Dana Hills” (© Tim Hornig) spirit that has traditionally been prevalent in Air Guitar. Instead, each night focused on something our school hasn’t seen in far too long: good ole’ fashioned, harmless f-u-n.

Granted, critics who say that the show had its faults would not be completely incorrect. Truthfully, numerous people complained that it seemed, at times, as if the same few people appeared in nearly every

the show as a whole admittedly lacked some of the awe-inspiring pizzazz of past years, the effort put in by ASU, Lighting & Sound and the performers certainly made Air Guitar a night well spent.

Simply put, the show achieved a perfect blend of light-hearted amusement and dance moves that may

for horoscope costumes); display of glow-in-the-dark telephones and altogether jaw-dropping amount of sequins on English teacher Tim Sampson’s Vanilla Ice get-up made Air Guitar 2011 not a show but, truly, a

Encore.

NO SHUFFLE, JUST REPEAT

!"#$%&"'!#!"#"$%&''($%&)%$(*%++'!"#$%&%#' !!%&(#$)

,-!#-(!"./$0"1*%$23/$2455

“Hey Ya”

“It’s

Rain

ing M

en”

“Us Against the World”#2: “I Love Rock ’n Roll”

“Canned Heat”

“Grace Kelly”

#3: “Heaven”

“Hi-Five City”

“I’ll Make a Man Out of You”

“Ice Ice Baby”

“!e T

ime”

“Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go”

#5: “Telephone”

“You’re the One !at I Want”

#4: “Baby”

#1: “Firework”