LAKE ELSINORE: Performance stresses water conservation
By: Amy Bentley

Students at Butterfield Elementary School in Lake Elsinore danced, cheered, did the limbo and laughed as they learned about water conservation during a special theatrical assembly held on campus last week.

Stephen Snyder and Kevin DiNoto, a pair of musicians and performers who comprise the Santa Cruz-based entertainment team ZunZun, visited the school Tuesday to put on a 50-minute show that focuses on conservation and keeping local water sources clean. The men mixed humor, dancing and interactive games with the students into the performance.

At one point, teachers were asked to hold a stick for students doing the limbo to demonstrate how water levels rise and fall. Students and teachers also were split into three groups to do "water dances" to music, which brought laughter from students in the audience.

Snyder showed one group of students how to do the "sprinkler dance," which they had to imitate, but then he said, "Sometimes I don't like the sprinkler dance. ... Sometimes, sprinklers go a little wacky and go beyond the grass and beyond the field and just hit the street."

He told the students they could tell their neighbors if their sprinklers are hitting the concrete and wasting water.

Snyder also talked about turning off sprinklers when it's raining.

Students cheered loudly when their teachers were asked to do the "washing machine shimmy," another dance. That led to a discussion about the need to fill up the washing machine and dishwasher, and not waste water to clean just one shirt or plate.

All the students at Butterfield ---- including the pre-schoolers ---- were treated to the show, which is part of an education program sponsored by the Western and Elsinore Valley municipal water districts. ZunZun has been performing at schools in Riverside, Corona, Lake Elsinore and Murrieta since March 1. Earthcapades, an environmental vaudeville theater show, will aosl perform at two other area schools on March 18 and 22 as part of the water education program. Water district officials say the shows are a cost-effective way to reach a large number of students with the important conservation message, while also bringing music to the schools.

Teachers and students at Butterfield said they enjoyed ZunZun's show, which included demonstrations of instruments from countries in Latin America, the Caribbean and Africa. In the shows, ZunZun celebrates the environment and cultures of the Americas through music.

The performers used their colorful instruments ---- most of which the Butterfield students said they had never seen before ---- to imitate the sounds of rain falling, water running in a creek or the sound of the ocean. Many students said they tried to save water at home and they would remember the show's message of conservation.

McKenzie Ward, a fifth-grader, said of the show, "It was cool. I liked the music. I liked how they convinced me to conserve."

The teachers also enjoyed the production and participated in their dance numbers with enthusiasm.

"It was entertaining and colorful," said fifth-grade teacher Joan Slaughter, who said she thought the messages would stick with her students. "They like to put thoughts to music and getting the kids involved helps. And the humor, they're into it."