ESCONDIDO – On Thursday, October 16, 2014, students were treated to a spontaneous dance performance during lunch. A flock of students flooded the courtyard, dancing to “Seize the Day” from the musical Newsies. The flash mob was organized by senior Chase McCarthy and freshman Daryl Goh.

According to McCarthy, they picked a Newsies inspired dance in order to fit with the “Midnight in Manhattan” theme of homecoming. “It went better than expected.” McCarthy said. “We are actually singing ‘Seize the Day’ in choir, and we’re both in choir, and it all just kind of clicked and we were like, ‘Wouldn’t it be super cool if we did a flash mob on Thursday while we’re dressed as ‘newsies?’”

“Everyone loves Newsies,” junior Emily Sturges said. “It’s always great to perform when you’re not doing a show, because it give you more opportunities. School is so busy, and this is something where you can come together and hang out with school people and see each other’s talents.”

The dance ended with Anthony Escobedo and Christian Winter running across the courtyard carrying flags as an homage to last year’s production of Les Mis. “I’m really grateful for Anthony and Christian to be able to do that. That added a lot into it.” said junior Caleb Arend. “[The flags] were completely improvised.”

According to Sturges, the group had about six rehearsals. For inspiration and accuracy, they watched Newsies videos and “fangirled over them.”

“I wasn’t concerned, I was just thinking, ‘oh, I wonder how this is going to work,’ because I hadn’t danced with a lot of those people before, and we all came together and we worked really well as a group.” Sturges added. “And the excitement of it all made it even more amazing.”

When asked whether choir has any more surprises in store, McCarthy replied, “We’ve had people ask us, and we’re kind of thinking it might be really fun. I actually talked to Ms. Z and she said it would be really cool to have it become a tradition, like every homecoming week there’s a flash mob that is geared toward the theme. But I think it would be really cool to do one later in the year. Maybe once the play gets going, we can do a flash mob based on the musical that we’re doing.”

The impromptu performance was met with a massive round of applause, indicating that their hard work had paid off.

“They did it really well,” sophomore Kate McCleod, a spectator, said. “It must have taken forever to get it that awesome.”