For more than twenty years, Pella High School’s show choirs have dominated competitions and astonished audiences with their impressive performances. However, many students at Pella have not experienced the magic of show choir. Seniors Ally Groenendyk, Ella VanWaardhuizen, and Andrew Rhinehart have all been in show choir for over five years. Although they joined without knowing what they were in for, they all came to value show choir as a pillar of their high school experience. 

Show Choir is a stage performance that combines choreographed dance with choral singing. Performers wear flashy costumes, and the performance often has a theme or story to follow. Shows may also use props or entire sets to enhance the performance. 

“There’s also a lot more complexity to it because there are entire themes and shows that take a lot of work to construct,” said Rhinehart. “There’s a lot more effort and work that goes into it than you would know just from seeing it.” 

Pella’s middle school show choir, Pelladrenaline, is a non-auditioned group, allowing everybody in the middle school to try out the activity. Rhinehart, Van Waardhuizen, and Groenendyk were all in Pelladrenaline, planting the seed of interest that would grow into a strong passion.

“I first joined show choir in 7th grade because growing up I was a dancer and all my friends were doing it,” says Groenendyk. “In 8th grade, I took a year off because of COVID, and then when I was a freshman, Mrs. Robillard and Ella Hartwick convinced me to join again, and I fell in love with it.”

AcaPella, the varsity show choir at Pella High School, begins practice in July, when the performers learn the choreography for their show over four days. Each practice is six hours long. After this, they practice once a week for two hours until the marching band season ends. Then they begin morning rehearsals, which are twice a week. AcaPella typically goes to four competitions to perform their show for judges and get scored against other show choirs. The show choir season usually ends in February with the End of the Year show, in which all three of Pella’s show choirs perform for a large, hometown audience. Despite over six months of hard work, Rhinehart and Van Waardhuizen don’t think that show choir gets the attention it deserves. 

“I think that not enough people appreciate how much work goes into it,” says Van Waardhuizen. “I think some people think they know what show choir is, but a lot of people don’t take the time to come out and watch our home shows to see what it actually is about. So a lot of times it just goes unnoticed, the hard work that we put into it.”

AcaPella was scheduled to perform at four competitions this year, however, the final competition, at Keokuk, was canceled due to weather concerns, even though wrestling was still able to go to regionals on the same day that the Keokuk competition was scheduled for. Many AcaPella members were upset with this decision. When asked about the matter, Activities Director Matt Fouch said that he looked at the radar for that day and based his decision on what the weather was predicted to do. Undrivable conditions were predicted in the west, while the Carlisle area, where wrestling regionals were held, was only predicted to get 2-3 inches of snow. 

Despite hardships, AcaPella members still encourage readers to give show choir a shot, even though they may be inexperienced. Rhinehart highlights the declining interest in the male demographic of show choir. 

“There aren’t necessarily enough [guys] coming up in the middle school to replace all of the guys that are graduating out of AcaPella, and we’ve even lost so many guys that Bravo, which used to be guys and girls, is now all girls because we just don’t have enough guys to fill the spots,” said Rhinehart.

Groenedyk encourages readers to join show choir next year.

“It’s a great atmosphere of friendship, leadership, hard work, and encouragement,” said Groenedyk. “It’s a great way to build new relationships and performing is so much fun!”