BUSY WEEK

 #1 Kids had Winter Camp (for show choir).  Lots of singing and dancing starting all day New Year's Day, 1/2 day Sunday, Monday and Tuesday afternoon and evenings after school.....exhausting.  Tuesday they also did photos, so we had to get all the kids dressed....it is a big group of kids! (4 choirs)

#2 Wednesday: Religious Ed. Class.  We had the 12th graders meet online because my co-catechist's younger son was a bit sick.  SUCH a good choice as he ended up having Covid and then she tested and she and her 12th grade son also have Covid.  (Another member of our class has mother with Covid....crazy times....all vaccinated.  The older people boosted.)

#3 Thursday: Dress Rehearsal for the first performance of the competition season.  I like taking pictures at Dress Rehearsal because I can use a flash and have a great position.  I feel like I got some great photos of Remix (Anna's Show).  Their show is called:  "Blast from the Past".  They repeated some old favorite songs from prior years.  I am all for re-using old ideas, but I guess I wouldn't advertise it in my name.  

Because of staffing shortage (mentioned below) they had to combine 2 groups.  It was ok because there wasn't nearly  the normal amount of 9th grade girls because the pipe-line from 8th grade show choir was destroyed by Covid last year.  Normally they have a HUGE group of 9th grade girls and they fill the stage.  But last year the 8th grade group never performed in public and had a fraction of the practices and MANY people didn't join or dropped out.  So they put the 9th grade girls with upper classman.  It seemed to work out well.

Thankfully, there are 106 eighth graders this year to refill the pipe-line.

Anna is in the center here, near the top.

(FUN SHOT: Below Anna is 2nd row from the bottom, first black dress from the right)

Joel's dress rehearsal was light-impaired.  It was super dark and not ready for Prime-time.  They made huge adjustments to the lights after the dress rehearsal.  (I didn't see his actual show the following Saturday because they asked the parents to stay out of the auditorium because we were hosting other groups and we wanted them to feel welcome.)  We didn't actually complete Saturday, since it was our show. The kids did exhibition shows.....Ken and I watched the live-stream in the gym.  (We could be in the gym for Anna's show....because it was at 7:35 am and the other group's parents weren't there yet to fill the auditorium.)  The lights still seemed a bit dark for Spectrum (Joel's show), but the Live-stream doesn't really represent the show well due to the so-so quality of the video.  Also I hope that the judges were loud about the lights if they weren't good.  (Unfortunately our director hired the judges and most are his friends, so I hope they didn't hold back if it was too dark.)  

(Joel is behind the girl in green)

Joel is centered, lifting his partner in the air.  

Don't mind the shoes, they don't have their costume shoes yet...which is crazy given the director knew he needed to buy them in August, but whatever - busy guy.  (many reasons:  one director was let-go about 2 months into school and another teacher they hired didn't actually get out of their other school contract as they hoped!  So the choral music program in the district is really short staffed!  AND HUGE!)

(back row, center)

I love love love this show.  The kids have worked so hard!  It is called "Fjäll", which means mountain in Swedish....not the best name, but again teh director is a bit overwhelmed and only finally picked a name THIS WEEK.  Normally the name is announce in August.  In August he just said, "It isn't called Frozen"....but you could see why people might think so!

The idea of the show is that a small town in the mountains of Sweden (or somewhere Nordic) normally has lovely snow, which helps the town survive (needed moisture I guess).  Lately however the mountain has stopped snowing.  So they prepare the men to go save their town by getting the snow back.  But in the end, it is the girl in the green who saves the town by giving it her voice.  It sounds a bit wacky, but it is SO GOOD!!