Commitment

   
        Last night was the Mixed Show Choir Competition at Powhatan. The crowd sat in awe of the amazing visuals, striking choreography and intense vocals. To an audience, show choir is about the performance; to anyone who really knows about show choir, it's about the practice behind the performance.
      Last night, every performance was the product of practice, and the effectiveness of each practice is determined by the level of commitment of every student in the show. Show choir DEPENDS on commitment. A show choir student must give up their weekends for brutal 8 hour choreography rehearsals and after school hours to repeat the same movements over and over again until the movement is "cleaned". For some schools, show choir students give up a week of their summer vacation to learn their entire show before school starts. Every person must share the same level of commitment; if one person doesn't, it shows. A classic pet peeve of show choir students is when we watch a choir perform and there are 2 or 3 people who stick out... in a bad way. When almost every person on stage hits each movement in a dance with equal commitment and conviction, as if that one move was the most important thing in the world at that moment, and then a few people do not dance with the same fire, it is incredibly noticeable. It's the same with facials. In show choir, you MUST sing every word as though it is the most important message that the world will ever hear and you have to sing to every person in the auditorium with a face that shows you feel what you are saying is the deepest desire of your heart. A single person, whose face just seems "dead" brings an entire performance down a level.
       One example of commitment from last nights show comes from Clover Hills show choir, New Dimensions. The girls in this group danced in 4 or 5 inch gold stilettos last night as though they were wearing the most comfortable shoes in the world. This does not happen without practice. And for these girls, that practice consists of wearing extremely high heels to school every day. Trust me, that is commitment. Another example of commitment that I saw last night was simply incredible. In mixed show choir, almost everything depends on having your dance partner. When people's dance partners are not present it makes it very difficult on the group because it effects choreography and visuals. A girl in Atlee's show choir last night obviously knew this. As she performed, she was wearing a knee brace, but beyond this, nothing seemed wrong with her. She performed flawlessly. When we saw her off stage after the performance she was on crutches and was barely able to move her knee. My friends and I were speechless. This girl was so committed to her group that she would not let them down even with an injury. This is commitment. And that is what it takes to make a show choir successful.
        Every other aspect of show choir depends on commitment. Without it, nothing can truly be accomplished. The show choirs that win consistently are the show choirs who have the highest level of commitment from every member in the group. Commitment is the glue of show choir, without it a group can be good but they will never be great, and everything will, at some point, begin to fall apart.