Six months of practice, repetition after repetition, and studying film. All of these seem like the perfect combination for a state championship winning sports team. However, this is the annual procedure for show choir, a singing and dancing group at Berlin High School.
“It’s actually pretty popular across the Midwest. We learn pop songs and choreography to those pop songs and then perform them for Solo and Ensemble, and for our finale concert,” Soundwave Director Abbe Lane said.
The work started in late December when show choir members and Lane came together to pick songs that they wanted to sing. After getting a good base with the singing, they begin to learn choreography, which for the solo ensemble songs, was produced by former student Kahlia Raisleger.
“Ms.Lane is very organized and knows what she is looking for. At first, having to teach and almost ‘be in charge of my friends’ was uncomfortable, but eventually I got into the flow of how it felt when I was a part of show choir, so it felt normal again,” Raisleger said.
Group members also worked together to create choreography for the final show. One of these partnerships was junior duo Lilly Johnson and Anna-Mae Clinch who worked together to create a dance to Dua Lipa’s “Dance The Night” from the “Barbie Movie.”
“I made choreography for ‘Dance the Night’ and basically what we did is we listened to the song over and over again, got some ideas in our head, made the spots for everyone to go in, and then just started doing moves that we thought would fit, using the ‘Barbie Movie’ dance for inspiration,” Johnson said.
Once all the songs and dances were picked out only one thing was left: practice. Practicing for show choir is crucial as memorizing dances, controlling breathing, and keeping a strong and well-pitched voice is a lot to juggle, especially for multiple songs in a row.
“We’ve been doing a lot of just repetitions, and we talk a lot in class about breath control and breath support. I try to relate it to soccer or track or those kinds of sports where you need to be running a lot or know how to use your diaphragm and really breathe appropriately for those things,” Lane said. “I try not to give them some breaks, so I won’t allow breaks in those rehearsals where we were really trying to nail down singing and dancing for 10 minutes because that’s really hard. We just do them back to back all the time as much as we can.”
The group gets to display their hard work at two major shows, the first of which was State Solo and Ensemble, which this year was held at UW-Oshkosh on April 26. At state the group performed two songs, the first being The Ringmasters’ medley of “You Do Not Walk Alone” and “Climb Every Mountain,” followed by Justin Timberlake’s “Can’t Stop the Feeling.”
“State Solo and Ensemble went very well. I felt we were all very prepared and we did a very good job. We scored a one which is the highest at state solo ensemble,” Johnson said.
Following state ensemble, the focus shifts to the final performance. This is where the student produced dances will be performed along with other unique musical performances.
“So, we have added five new songs from our solo ensemble set. Show choir will be performing seven pieces. New this year, the Soundwave parents are going to be singing and dancing a song, which is really exciting. And then there will be various like solo duet little performances throughout that, too,” Lane said.
The show choir tradition has remained strong in Berlin for over 30 years and the reason comes down to the commitment, work and togetherness shown by the members. The connection that the group has really shows on stage and can be seen when they perform their finale on May 28 at 7:00 p.m.
“What I enjoy the most about show choir is being with friends, and the ability to not have to worry about messing up in front of people because I’m comfortable,” freshman Lane Burgess said. “Show choir can be scary at first but you just have to believe in yourself and go for it. It is a lot of fun and I enjoy doing it.”
