Share:

A month after its success at nationals, PCC’s Forensic program hosted its annual showcase highlighting five events from their nationally award-winning team on Tuesday in the Vosloh Forum.The team members performed for students and faculty to show what they were capable of delivering within their own speech courses. The Forum was filled with students enrolled in speech classes.

Jasmine White took the floor with her Oral Interpretation of Poetry reciting “Blood Dazzler” by Patricia Smith with a wide emotional range on the impact of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans.

“All I ever wanted to be was a wet, gorgeous mistake,” said White in the character of the hurricane. Laughs echoed from the audience, but were quickly replaced with silence as she described the emotional decimation that one resident suffered.

Wallis Locke performed an impromptu speech. She received two quotations and was given two minutes to prepare a five-minute speech on the quotation of her choice.

The quote she discussed was from “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone”; “There is no good and evil, there is only power, and those too weak to seek it.” Locke stated her belief that the application of power determined good or evil, citing examples from the Internet, nuclear power, and congressional power.

Performing Informative Speaking, Issam Khabbaz spoke about the advancement of genetically modified rice, which resist damage from floods. Khabbaz made his point using multiple sources including an anecdote of a Bali rice farmer who had suffered at the hand of floods.

Jedi Curva’s dramatic interpretation of Lt. Daniel Choi’s “Don’t Tell Martha” kept the audience riveted. Curva presented Choi’s tale in a delicate manner, being as unapologetic for his sexuality as Choi himself.

As a West Point alumnus, Choi failed to understand how Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell fit within the honor code that he learned. Curva’s voice filled with emotion as he asked the audience, “What face do you save when you have no integrity?”

Another team member, Tiffiny Vuong, performed her programmed oral interpretation, using a compilation of works including an excerpt from “The Colbert Report” which wrapped around the theme of the power of words. Vuong expressed disgust in her speech with Merriam-Webster defining “traditional marriage” as between a man and woman.

The audience laughed as she remarked, “I think Merriam and Webster were conjugating much more than irregular verbs.”

Vuong stated that words can be powerful, oppressive, liberating, priceless, or undervalued leaving the audience with a cautionary word to think before they speak.

“Make sure it’s worth it,” said Vuong.

Audience members were impressed with the caliber of the performance.

“The speeches were very intense and the characters had their own tone,” said Guadalupe Sanchez, a student in Speech 1.

Others came to witness what made the team so successful. Professor of Communication Rita Gonzales was in the audience and had encouraged her class to attend the showcase.

“The team was incredibly well-prepared and it was a high level of performance. They clearly deserved the awards they won at state and nationals,” said Gonzales.

Co-Director Josh Fleming organized the event to expose the campus to the Speech and Debate team.Fleming hoped that the students who attended would be entertained and learn from the speeches.

“A lot of the attendees are currently in a speech course where one or more of the speeches that were showcased are required, so it’s a good sample for them to observe and then take into the class,” said Fleming.

Follow: