‘Glee’ club Story by Sherry Posnick-Goodwin
on “Dancing With the Stars.” Powerhouse members performed in concert with Foreign- er at the Gibson Amphitheatre in 2010, and the group was also featured at the gala opening of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art’s Resnick Pavilion, opposite Christina Aguilera and The Canadian Tenors. They may be stars, but a visit to the class-
room of these the real-life “Gleeks” proves them to be regular students with a regular and extremely dedicated teacher. “Noooo, it’s not like you see on TV,” says Brandon Galvez. “They make everything look
effortless in the show. The kids on ‘Glee’ in- stantly know all the music and choreography. We can spend weeks or months practicing.” “We don’t spontaneously break out into
song,” chimes in Sydney Baldwin. “And the TV show’s glee club is much smaller. We have 54 kids in Powerhouse.” Students observe that teens on the show are
portrayed as outcasts, but being in a glee club is “cool” at Burroughs High School. The most accurate part of the show, say students, is that glee club is a place where everyone is welcome, regardless of race or sexual orientation.
“We are successful because Mr. Jennings
picks out really, really good music,” adds David Kalpakian. “He knows how to con- nect us to the song and the song with us. And he picks songs that always go really well with the set theme.”
WWW Watch the original
glee club perform by going to youtube.com and searching for “Burroughs Powerhouse.”
JUNE 2011 | www.cta.org 9
Photo by Jen Oundjian
