Show Choir: Part of a Series on Bad Ideas

No, I'm not in a show choir. And if I had any desire to be in one, it would have died quickly tonight.

It's Family Weekend here, which means a bunch of performances and exhibitions of "OH LOOK, WE'RE TOTALLY NOT WASTING YOUR MONEY." My roomie from last year and another friend of ours are in orchestra and jazz band, respectively, and both were part of the big musical shindig tonight. I always go to these things because I am a former band geek, I support my friends, and I enjoy live music and I've never seen a bad concert from these guys. So I call up some more of our friends and we get ready to go.

"You realize that between the two, you'll have to sit through show choir, right?" I was told as we headed out into the rain.

A bit of background here: Last year, near the beginning of the term and when my roomie and I were still somewhat awkward around each other, she came in totally ROFL (she was actually on the floor at one point) about show choir. Whatever event she had gone to, she had experienced show choir and it was totally horrendous. According to eyewitness reports the men had on bright blue sparkly shirts and were trying to act ridiculously cool. Roomie and her friend had made the mistake of sitting in the front row and had to hide their faces in their programs because they were laughing so hard.

This year they're supposedly better than the trainwreck last year, but seeing how bad they were tonight I can't imagine it being worse. There were no bright blue sparkly shirts, which was thoroughly disappointing. The ladies had on shirts that had a bit of sequin action around the collar, but nothing completely absurd. The men were boring and just wearing all black. Wardrobe aside, the singing and dancing was absolutely god-awful.

First they did "I Believe" from Spring Awakening. The program said the song was written by Duncan Sheik and as a result I have "Barely Breathing" stuck in my head. Spring Awakening is actually supposed to be a pretty good show, but you wouldn't know it from this performance. It began with them just walking out, but doing what I call the Dance Walk where you step toe-first instead of heel-first. This went on for an entire minute. Then they stood there, with some people in the front sitting down and totally rocking some arm-shelves. Then a jazz box. Then some rainbow arm movements. What I'm getting at is that visually they might as well have just sat the fuck down because watching them wander around seemingly aimlessly was not doing it for me. It would have been nice if, since the dance aspect wasn't there, the singing was good, but it was not. The ladies weren't too bad, and only had a few times when they sounded off. The men, however, were a hot mess. I kept wishing they'd find a key and stick to it, because it sounded like a bunch of cows in a field. But the key was never found, to my bemusement. Finally the song was over, which was good because my ribs were aching already.

Next, "Sing, Sing, Sing." They tried to do swing moves. I was sitting with other swing kids. We cried together. It was an affront to all that is swing. Swing is supposed to be goofy, I know, but goddamn there's a difference between hamming it up and throwing away your dignity. Fuck, you guys. I cut them a bit of slack on the singing, seeing as to how they actually were moving in this song. They of course sounded winded and were dropping out all over the place, which I sort of expect, but you would think that with practice they'd get a bit more used to it. Again, I was too dismayed at the dancing to really pay attention to the singing.

Finally, "I Move On" from Chicago. Oddly enough I've never seen Chicago, and I've done two routines to music from it. Probably should fix that at some point. Anyway, the solo girl was clearly the glue that held this whole thing together. She was this tiny little black girl that had a surprisingly good voice. It was clear why she got the solo. However, some guy also got a solo, but it took me quite some time to figure out who the fuck was singing, since he wasn't prominently displayed like she was. Bad choreography, I think. He sounded like shit compared to her. The dancing was still terrible, so I started looking at the individual performers.

There were a few people who were seriously fucking into it, and then others who looked like they lost a bet and as a result had to join show choir. There was this really tall girl who already stood out, but insisted on making her moves really fucking huge. Close to her was this really short guy who looked like a creeper and threw his whole body into the routine like it was a life or death situation. Looking totally bored was a really tall, lanky black guy, and several brunette girls. Oddly enough, most of the people who were really into it were guys. You'd think that they'd be really concerned about their masculinity with something like this, because there is no way you can look cool doing this shit. I respect that they are comfortable with themselves enough to do this, because I am not.

I half expected some of the older people in the audience to enjoy some cheesy shit like this. However, the group of parents in front of me were laughing as hard as I was. Looking around I saw a healthy mixture of facial expressions: bemused confusion, straight up confusion, incredulous, horrified, totally bemused, laughter, and blank stares. I have never experienced that in any audience before. So I didn't feel so bad giggling uncontrollably, but I still tried to suppress it, just out of respect.

This being my first experience with a show choir of any sort, I had no idea what I was about to watch. I really cannot believe how haughty and arrogant they sounded after the show when we were waiting for our friends to meet up with us. I don't think it's possible to look good while doing that shit. Hell, in swing we know we look retarded and don't even try to pretend that shit is cool. And for the first time ever I honestly have to say that someone else is worse than us. Show choir is just a terrible idea in general. It's awkward to take songs that belong in the context of a full-blown theater show and just throwing in some random choreography. It's also pretty clear that the majority of these people are not dancers, and a good many aren't doing so great as singers either. Putting all of it together, it's only entertaining to the audience for all the wrong reasons.