Show choir is defined as “a musical group that combines choral singing with choreography, often with a theme or story,” and, yes, while that is true, it’s so much more than that. It’s a family. There’s love, there’s drama, there’s friendships, and there’s so many amazing memories made with each other that go beyond the singing and dancing. We share our highs and lows and go through the eight month season together. In the varsity show choir, Legacy, we have our first choreography retreat in the middle of August. It’s a one week intensive with our choreographers where the goal is to learn the entire show. From there, we rehearse once a week for three hours after school, as well as thirty minutes during 4a every day.
This year, Legacy’s show, titled “Ready or Not,” is about transformation. Revelry, the soprano/alto group has a show called, “Freedom,” where it takes you through the story of a jailbreak and a group of young women finding independence. As a singer/dancer for Legacy, and the bass guitarist for Revelry, I’m honored to be a small part of each of these choirs that delivers such inspiring messages.
While we work hard to be able to competitively perform, we also host our own competition that we aren’t judged at.
This year for the Cavalier Classic, which occurred on January tenth and eleventh, seven jazz choirs, two unified show choirs, four middle schools, as well as fifteen high school show choirs competed over the course of two days. As show choir members, we have the responsibility of hosting these teams, helping out the judges, and doing random tasks that come up for us. It’s hard work, but it’s our biggest fundraiser of the year. Show choir can be an expensive activity because of costumes, music, entry fees, and more, so it’s all worth it. Something that this competition couldn’t go without is the parent volunteers. They are the backbone of the weekend and are the reason we’re able to make the competition as big as it is.
As for the students, we don’t just decorate classrooms for our teams and walk them to where they need to be, but we also are responsible for performing exhibitions. On Friday night, both show choirs at Jefferson performed before and after the middle school competition, and our unified show choir, Rising Stars, performed after the other two unified teams. On Saturday, Jefferson’s jazz choir, Declaration, performed to close out the jazz part of the competition. Revelry performed their show in the middle of the daytime competition and Legacy did the same before finals. (The top six teams of the day are selected to perform again and challenged to apply the critiques from the judges from daytime to finals).
One of the most appealing aspects of Cav Classic, along with the stunning performance facility at Jefferson, is the forty-five minute critique. Because our competition is so early in the season, according to our director, having the longer critic encourages other show choirs to sign up for the event. At most other competitions, the critique after your daytime performance lasts twenty-five minutes. Here, show choirs have the opportunity to have a clinic with their judge and take the time to fully evaluate the performance in preparation for finals or the next competition.
Finally, there’s only a few people who work harder than the students, and that’s our amazing choir directors, Mr. Parezo and Mrs. Bartz, along with Mr. Hirsch who leads the technical side of things. The directors push us to be our best. They provide instructive criticism when necessary, but always take the time to ensure that we know they’re proud of us no matter what. Truly, they have made a positive impact on all of our lives that whether we know it or not, will carry for a very long time.
Now that we have completed hosting our event, the show choirs will be competing at other events. The next competition will be at Roosevelt’s Executive Showcase on February 1st.
