Extracurriculars were, for many of us, a significant part of our High School careers. Whether you were part of a sports team, a yearbook committee, or drama club, there are plenty of life lessons learned from the activities in which we have partaken in our youth. Personally, I was a show choir kid. Singing and dancing at the same time was my jam, and no one could stop me once I was in my groove.
For those who don’t know, show choir is a competitive theater sport (as I like to call it) of singing and dancing at the same time. This breaks down to about 20% skill, 30% pleasure, and 50% practice. So. Much. Practice. We would practice every lunch period, choir period, and 4 hours after school every Tuesday and Thursday as well as on our own and in groups. Learning the music was always the “boring part”. I was a proud Metso soprano which usually meant I was the main harmony to the melody, making my part fairly easy to learn. After you know the lyrics, you’re ready to hit the dance risers.
The hardest part of show choir was perfecting the choreography. We had the 2nd best show choir choreographer in the country, and she never made it easy. We did everything from hair flips and lifts (think cheerleading) to straight-up running in figure eights on stage! Once it was perfected weeks/months later, we knew the choreography better than we knew how to walk. We would get so amped up for competitions and would watch our performances after each one to see how we could improve.
(If you’d like to see what the heck I’m talking about, you can see my senior show here.)
My only issue with show choir is it put me in a groove. It’s all I thought about for months at a time because that was the routine I was good at. Even today, whenever I’m on a dance floor and people are casually dancing all I know how to do is either a small step-touch or an EXTREMELY DRAMATIC DANCE BREAK, there is no in-between. After learning about what works in marketing, oftentimes we get stuck in the same routine doing what works and what looks good when really we should take a step away from the normal choreographed marketing plan every once in a while and take some time to freestyle a little bit. Change up the show to give the audience something new to look for, whether that be a new slogan, a new ad campaign, or even just some fresh Facebook content.
If you need help changing up your show, give your friends at Midwest Marketing a call, we’d be happy to help!
