Halloween at Aspen High

The choreography club dances to “Thriller” before the costume contest.

“Lookit, lookit! It’s fricken bats. I love Halloween!”  Ava from the latest trending Vine said this about the October holiday. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kKJPRm9kdeg)

Over the years, AHS has had limited participation in this holiday, but this year there was only one lunch period, and the whole school was encouraged to join in on the costume contest. The choreography club also prepared a dance lead by Joeli Villa Cedeño and Christy Buchholz, who started the club, and the club’s sponsor Calan Gibney.

The ten finalists in the contest were decided by the judges Gretchen Calhoun, Logan Carter, Steve Ketchum, and KyleAnne Kiraly and included: Wyatt Feagan as a brewer from Breaking Bad; Megan Woodrow, Evan Padtzolt, and Max Marolt as characters in Toy Story; Griffin Gilchrist and Tristan Lane as Top Gun pilots; Gold digger Zara Iacono and her ‘husband’ Alex Bush; Burke Daily and Gage Carr as Duck Dynasty characters; Stefan Strutz with the scary Zombie look; Calan dressed as Medusa; Chris Ryerson and his crew covered in Russian masks; the Stubey-Doo clan (Sophie Stuber, Sadie Alpern, Trent Lichtenwalter, Clayton Crawford, and Mary Landis) ; and the winner Shea Strutz who sat on the stage and rubbed his belly wearing a Buddah costume.

The choreography club surprised everyone by performing Micheal Jackson’s famous “Thriller” dance at the beginning of lunch. Joeli Villa Cedeño and Christy Buchholz took the chorography from the “Thriller” music video and modified it slightly. The dance took weeks of preparation and was well practiced.

“We tried to meet everyday during tutorial starting months ago,” Villa Cedeño said. “But only the last three days everyone was together.”

Joeli was dressed as Michael Jackson and stood in front of the group for the dance.

“It was Halloween and it [“Thriller”] was the perfect song,” Villa Cedeño said.

Although, Halloween has been low key in the high school, students through out the years have come up with their own creative ideas – including junior Tyler Tick and senior Dante Lizzote.

“I was Borat in 6th grade, but my mom made me wear pants,” Tick said.

Last year Lizzote took advantage of his long flow and sister’s wardrobe and this year he wore his sister’s costume again.

“I was Moses last year and I wore a towel and my sister’s blue and white, shredded shirt. This year I was a criminal and wore my sister’s costume from one of her dances in the dance progression show,” Lizzote said.