Two of the three students from Bellevue East’s Forensics team are preparing to compete as a duo at the National Individual Events Tournament of Champions, or NIETOC, competition on May 15 in Kansas City at Liberty High School.
Forensics is both a competitive speech club and class. Students on the team can compete in different categories such as impromptu, poetry interpretation, dramatic interpretation, and many more. This school year, the team as a whole competed at about 12 competitions.
“You are able to enter in a multitude of different events to try out different ways of public speaking that really kind of bring you out there and kind of teach you how to use your words,” senior Sage Frazier said.
At the NIETOC Tournament senior Nathalie Perez and Frazier will compete as a duo. The two will perform together. Their piece is called “Just a block” which tells the story of two pregnant women, their lives, and the conflict that ensues after their sons become involved in a gang.
“At nationals me and Nathalie will be competing in the duo section, our duo is a dramatic piece,” Frazier said.
The competition will last three days starting on Friday May 15. This is a National competition so there will be many students competing from across the country.
“Then the next day we start knockout rounds so every other round they’ll post names and if your name isn’t on there, you’ve been eliminated so it’ll basically go from 400 kids in an event to 6 by Saturday,” Campbell said.
Knowing your lines is a large aspect of Forensic, but an even larger part when performing in a duo. The two seniors use their time in Forensics class to prepare and run through their performance. They use their practice time to fine tune their performance which requires timing, memorization, spacing, and being in sync with each other.
“It seems like small details, but all of those little things add up to try to make it the best performance they can make it,” instructor John Campbell said. “The idea of it is it’s the only event really where you have someone else you have to count on.”
In order to attend nationals, students must have three bids. Bids are earned when students place at certain competitions. Placing can be difficult as there are many other students competing in the same categories.
“Being able to compete at that level [at NIETOC] is amazing and it’s produced from the fact that over our entire time of our competitive season we get bids from how high we place and everything,”Frazier said.
Aside from the bids the members have received from prior competitions this year, the support of their teacher and teammates have helped them to be the best they can be. Perez said that she and Frazier did not originally want to perform as a duo, but were persuaded by Campbell. Additionally, her partner has helped to support her.
“She’s always been motivating me, making me feel like I actually can do this because I used to be like I can’t do this, I’m not good enough,” Perez said.
Forensics helps students to develop their public speaking abilities. Through the class and at competitions they learn how to speak clearly and communicate effectively.
“Students, that at least I have, can make an argument, they can use humor to their advantage at times, they understand irony and the effect of having a well sourced argument, and so on.” Campbell said. “So I think there is a huge benefit.”
Forensics, for both Perez and Frazier, has not only helped them to improve their public speaking skills, but has also helped them to meet new people and get out of their comfort zones.
“I’ve always been afraid of talking,” Perez said. “I feel like I’m not a good talker, like I talk too fast, and I talk too much and that’s pretty normal so I feel like it’s a way for me to get out of my comfort zone and meet more people.”
Frazier has been a part of Forensics for two years; her sophomore and senior year. She said that she did not do Forensics her freshman year because she wasn’t sure about it. Despite this, she says that Forensics has helped her to grow out of her shell, voice what is important to her, and is something she enjoys.
“I think it’s so much fun, the people there, the environment there, everybody is so sweet at tournaments and everything, you get so many compliments, and it’s just so easy to talk to people because everybody’s there for the same reason,” Frazier said. “We want to speak out for something that we think it’s important to us and we all respect each other on that and we are able to just communicate and kind of build off of these things in our common interests.”
