by Shelby Curtis |

Tradition is a big part of the high school, in spirit, sports and even choir. Since before anyone in the choir department could remember, including the teachers, concert choir kicks the year off with a performance. But this performance deals with grunting, uni-brows and rumors of tutus. At the beginning of the school year, the different sections in choir split up and perform skits to introduce all the people in their sections.
“I heard kids talking about these skits in my private voice lessons, so the tradition has been around before I even started teaching here seven years ago,” choir teacher Dr. Rika Heruth said.

The performances have another purpose besides introducing everyone. It is a way to bring the choir together in order to form a fully functional team.
“It requires a lot of teamwork,” Heruth said. “It establishes a foundation and connection between the students. It’s also a fun way to start the year and welcome new students, and there is nothing wrong with a little healthy competition.”
These performances were meant to be fun and silly and the concert choir students made sure to get a laugh out of their audience.
“The skits were slightly humiliating, but really fun. We grunted a lot in our soprano skit,” junior Andi Tulipana said.
The students were excited to talk about the different skits they put together. The alto section dressed up in their pajamas and acted out a slumber party with a little spin off from the movie Mean Girls; they used a burn book about the choir section leaders. The tenors put together an “office interviews” video to introduce their team members.
“It’s not technically a competition, but sopranos kicked butt. Our skit was about cave sopranos. We all dressed up in animal print and performed a tribal dance, we acted completely uncivilized. We even drew on uni-brows,” senior Anna Kain said.
The basses took a different, more musical approach. They performed a version of ‘It’s a Hard Knock Life’ from Annie.
“Our parody was about how we didn’t have any returning basses in our section, but we found out we’re pretty good anyway,” sophomore Turner Staton said.
Up until this year, concert choir was only available to juniors and seniors, but Turner was one of the few lucky sophomores to get in this year.
“I was really nervous for the performance, I had a lot to live up to from last year. I keep hearing this story about the basses dressing up in tutus,” Staton said.
All returning choir students really looked forward to performing another skit this year because they were eager to get to know their new classmates. As for the new members, they felt silly at first but ended up having a lot of fun.
“We have some of the most talented and creative kids in the vocal music department, and they are going to have to tap into that creativity all year, so this is an excellent way to start school,” Heruth said.