By Rachel Boutet
Nearly 300 people filled Toronto’s Isabel Bader Theatre on March 1 for the Faculty’s annual Dentantics show. It was a night featuring dancing, singing and acting from the many talented student performers.
“The Dentantics Committee worked extremely hard to put together an evening of entertainment,” says interim dean Laura Tam. “It is always incredible to see the many talents of our student body both inside and outside of the classroom. Forty years ago, in 1984, I was a third-year student dancing in the ‘girls’ dance numbers’ and performing in a few skits in that year’s Dentantics show. Many things have changed in the last four decades but the level of talent remains impressive and the memories and laughs endure.”
The student members of the Dentantics Committee who brought the show to life include class council representatives: Anabelle Ng, Rebecca Kassaw, Nicholas Principe, Amanda Tittel, Shanzeh Khan, Natalie Modreanu, Omar Alawazi and Sandy Koussa. The team started planning in August 2023, with the final two months prior to the show requiring the most time and support.
“Managing all these moving pieces and still being a full-time student is tough, but we had a wonderful committee team supporting us and sharing the workload to put on such a great show this year,” says Kassaw. “We are so thankful for our internal and external sponsors for the event to aid financing the show and raising funds for Access to Care.”
Every year, proceeds from ticket sales are donated to the U of T’s Faculty of Dentistry’s Access to Care fund, which provides financial assistance to low-income patients who might not otherwise be able to afford dental treatment at the Faculty. This year’s show raised approximately $5,000 for the fund.
Bollywood dancers performing (Henry Chen)
The theme of DIFF was chosen as a creative dental play on words of the renowned Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF). The committee wanted to choose a theme that would highlight the high-quality class videos and skits with elements of glamour like an on-stage red carpet and award show.
Producing an entire show with accounting, venue bookings, t-shirt merchandise, ticket sales, and talent management is a huge undertaking. Ng says every minute spent on the show was worth it.
“My dream job as a kid was to be an event planner,” she says. “Dentantics 2024 was the largest-scale event I have organized, and I am so incredibly proud of the committee for making this a dream come true charity event. It is so rewarding to see the excitement for the show and laughter among our peers and faculty while filming skits in clinics.”
Fellow committee member Kassaw had similar reasoning for getting involved.
“I wanted to get involved because I love event organizing and being involved in extracurriculars at school,” she says. “Organizing a school-wide event that gave all proceeds to a great cause like Access to Care sounded like win-win for me!”
The Dental Hockey Club players make a surprise appearance with Dr. Rosenbloom in the boys’ dance (Henry Chen)
You can watch the recap of The Dentantics 2024: DIFF here and view more photos of the event here.
Top photo: DDS3 producers Anabelle Ng and Rebecca Kassaw share the stage with the cast and crew at the 2024 Dentantics show (Henry Chen)