As my four years of high school are coming to an end, I realize all of the amazing things it has given me. From friendship that will last a lifetime, to memories and experiences that changed me, but there is one thing that I know that changed my life from the moment I stepped into my first meeting, Oratoria.

Oratoria is a club/team of fourteen sometimes fifteen members that prepare for months to compete and represent their school in the annual Oratoria competitions. Let me explain a little more about it, the League (Liga de Oratoria en español de Puerto Rico) is divided in, excuse the redundancy, divisions A through F, A being the best, each division has eight to ten schools. The competition is divided, I know a lot of dividing, into five different categories; Original, Drama, Poetry, Oratory and Improvisation, each with at least twenty-four competitors. Each team has to have at least three competitors for each category, except Improvisation, that has only one competitor per school. The day of the competition, every member of each team gets -you guessed it- divided into different rooms, three rooms for each category, this way you don’t get to be in the same room as someone from your team. There are three rounds, two that everyone competes in and the final, where only the ten competitors with the highest scores get in, guaranteeing a prize. The prizes are also divided, props to The League because this is a lot of dividing, into category prizes, school prizes, and competitor prizes, where all the competitors from every single category final are eligible. At the end the top two schools go up a division, if they won first place in division B the next year they compete in division A, and the last two go down one.

To compete you have to learn a text, in my case my category is Poetry so I would naturally have to learn a poem, and represented only using what I am given; my body and a chair. For me that’s the magic and curse of it. Creating images with my body and a chair to mimic or represent the images in the poem, is hard but at the end it’s pure magic. Every category gets a chair except Oratory, they get their voices.

The process, for me, of learning a piece is hard. In a quick summary I memorized for weeks, always two, and then my coach edits something so I have to memorize again and then we get into the best part; in Spanish we say “montar la pieza” that is pretty much choreographing (I’ve been a dancer my whole life everything for me is a choreography).

I never thought I would like Oratoria as I liked it today, I can totally say without any hesitation that I am in love with Oratoria and that I will always be a “oratoriana”. Oratoria gives me the opportunity to become someone else and to feel like someone else, and to think and talk like someone else. This may all sound creepy, but in the process of becoming someone else I’ve discovered myself. All of my three pieces have taken a part of me and completely transformed it for the better. My coach went from a complete stranger to someone I trust with my deepest secrets and that somehow got to know me better in three years than I know myself. He lets me be who I am, he lets me do all this weird things with my body just to make an image clear, he takes time to understand my frustrations, he takes me out of class even though is not my turn to practice because he knows Oratoria has been the only thing in my mind and I haven’t study anything for this quiz, he lets me explore my characters, he challenges me, he trusts me, he protects me, but most of all he knows what I’m capable of and the makes sure the judges and the other competitors know that when they see me doing my piece. My moderator she is my queen, this woman fights every single thing, from unjustified penalties to penalties that should have been given, she is the one that in two minutes says everything I needed to hear to be okay, she knows what I am going through, she goes to a room and does not leave until she’s satisfies with the results, she gives us this little smile only we can identify to tell us everything is going to be okay, with just one look she can say “I’m sorry” “You’re doing great” and my personal favorite “Deja el show que pasaste”. My teammates are my family, I would do anything for them because they’ve been there through the whole process and I’ve been there for them. We’ve laughed, screamed, yelled, cried, thrown chairs, done crazy warm ups, learned each other’s pieces better than ours, we’ve gone everywhere to get to competitions, we’ve practically lived with each other (those last two weeks before competition can get crazy).

The others competitors, I don’t see them as rivals I see them as people that have worked as hard as I have and that would do anything to achieve their goals, even though that may include having to eliminate people from your own team. They appreciate Oratoria as much as I do, they love it too, they would do anything to keep doing it even if it is just fot one more round. I’ve been lucky, I’ve been doing this all of my four years of high school, some people only participate one year and star doing it for the wrong reason (they need a grade on a class) and realize they love it but it is too late.

To be honest I’m not ready to let Oratoria go, and I don’t think I would ever be, but sometimes life gets in the way and forces you to do stuff you don’t want to do, dramatic I know but what can I say. The only thing that calms me down is that I have one year left, and I’m a true believer of “the best for last”, and that maybe my part as a competitor will end very soon, but maybe my life as future coach, or judge has stared.

Thank You Oratoria for making me a better person, for letting me fall in love with you, for making me a better artist, for giving me the best people I know, for giving me experiences I never thought possible, for teaching me what effort and love can make when they are put together. Thank you Oratoria for the best four years of my life.