Youngstown Connection to perform at Disney World

The group will spend time with a former member now a Disney World dancer.

YOUNGSTOWN — The Youngstown Connection, Youngstown city school’s high-energy song and dance troupe, will perform in the America Sings “Singabration” Saturday at Walt Disney World in Florida.

The 10-member local group will be among 300 singers selected from 10 states and an American school in Brazil invited to participate. The performance will take place in Cinderella’s Castle in the Magic Kingdom.

The Connection always performs a community service as part of its tours, and the Ronald McDonald House in Orlando will be the beneficiary of family welcome kits put together in Orlando by the Singabration participants.

The Youngstown students are contributing books, crossword puzzles, children’s games and toiletries to the kits.

The trip also will allow The Connection to unite with a former Youngstowner, Brayshawna Thomas, who is a dancer and choreographer at Disney World and who also helped choreograph the now-famous “High School Musical.”

Thomas was a member of Youngstown’s Junior Connection and The Youngstown Connection for seven years. While a city school student, she was enrolled in the Young Scholars Program created by Ohio State University.

Young Scholars accepts a total of only 120 inductees annually from the nine largest urban school districts in Ohio, which includes Youngstown. Children are inducted as Pre-Young Scholars in the seventh grade, and official Young Scholar inductions occur in the ninth grade.

The program is aimed at providing academic and other support to low-income, inner-city children, and its completion comes with guaranteed admission to Ohio State along with a financial aid package based on need.

Thomas went on to enroll at Ohio State and graduated summa cum laude with distinction in dance.

Members of The Youngstown Connection making the trip to Florida are: Kaitlyn Cook, Alexis Fellow, Derrick High, Dean LaSalandra, Devron Love, Arianna Manigault, Alex Mickler, Brendan O’Hara, Ciana Parilla and Solita Wilson.

This isn’t the troupe’s first time working with America Sings. The Connection has participated in numerous other events, including the Philadelphia Thanksgiving Day Parade in 2006. America Sings! is a nonprofit music festival and special-event producer based in Alexandria, Va.

The Connection also did its own 12-day tour in mainland China in April 2006, becoming the first U.S. show choir to perform in that country.