By J1 Reporter Sophie Golka

New season. New show. New group. New competitions.

Show choir is a combination of singing and dancing. It has many moving parts that convey a story. What that story will be is what director Ms. Mary Bruegman has both the pleasure, and the pressure, to decide. 

Having until the show reveal in May for the decision to be finalized may seem like a long time, but many components go into securing a new performance, ready for the girls to take on. Thus, the search for new ideas begins, as the songs, costumes, and moves will all be centered around what this show will eventually become. 

“Sometimes I find a song that I really love. I’m like ‘okay, how can I work this into something?’” Bruegman said. “Then there are other times I’m like ‘wow, this would be a really fun story to tell.’” 

This one idea or one song can develop into the foundation of next year’s show. But more than just a thought has to work in order for it to become a reality. Four more songs have to accompany that one in order to form a coherent story or idea. Ideally, it will follow the format of opener and second song being powerful with dancing and singing, the third being the ballad, which is slow and full of facial expressions to convey the message with little to no dancing, and the last two songs upbeat and full of life in dance. 

This year Bruegman had the idea of telling the story of Queen Esther from the Old Testament of the Bible. This was one of those times where the story came first and the songs and dance followed. As the idea brewed in her mind she found the perfect song to start the story off: “Born For This” by Mandisa. With this idea fully underway, she soon dove into a lot of listening and searching for the right songs to accompany the first. 

After she decided upon the rest of the songs, her next task was to secure the rights and give them to the arranger to transform the songs into ones capable of a group of 27 girls to confidently perform. “We have to go through Tresona, or, this year we had to go through a couple other companies to get rights to the songs, the rights to just be able to perform them, to arrange them,” Bruegman said. This can take time, but as the group learned last year, it is important to have them secured right away so they have the sheet music to learn. It is also important that she keeps in contact with the choreographer, Paige Vose. 

Vose has the task of making each show unique and personal to the group through allowing them to express themselves to the audience in ways that the music and words can not. “There are only so many moves. There’s only so much dancing that exists,” Vose said. She has to make sure that everything feels new and different. She usually gets the song titles during the summer, which allows her to start getting ideas. But the true arrangements come around August.

Through this time, she has to get a feel for each of the songs individually and as a part of the greater message. “[Each song] can tell such a different story. Even in shows that don’t have a theme, the first song and second song have completely different vibes,” Vose said, “so I usually really like to talk about it with the director and see what kind of vision they have for it.” She says that brainstorming is a huge part in the creation of the dances. For her, it is about listening to the music and the lyrics and what they are trying to convey. She connects them to movement and as the music swells, softens, shouts and cries out, so do the movements as they become big, small, low, high, powerful or timid. 

The creation of the story and the choreography is the first step, but means nothing without the girls who perform it. Momentum consists of 27 girls who go to five competitions throughout the Omaha area during Saturdays throughout January and February. When looking to create new shows, Bruegman has to keep them in mind as she tries to find themes that can connect with the girls and lend itself to a treble group. She knows that they need to be enthusiastic and encouraged to put this show on and to compete with it. 

One show choir member, senior Sophia Losolee, shows her storytelling and connection of what the directors had in mind through her facials. “The dancing and the singing tells the story, but the face is also what tells the story because the audience is going to see that and be like, ‘that is the message they are trying to get across,’” she said. The girls are not left to figure it out on their own as Bruegman and Vose will be there to help guide them along, but now it’s the group’s job to carry the message out to the audiences they perform for.