Beat Dirtyburg. Smash Strongsville. Mangle Mentor. These types of posters line the hallways of Solon High School leading up to big athletic matchups. I’ve never been a big school sports fan, and generally ignore these important games, but when it comes to Music in Motion, rivalries are huge to me.

Music in Motion, the SHS show choir, is a highly competitive group, and with that comes rivalries with other choirs. MIM’s biggest rival is Twinsburg Great Expectations. I’ve competed with Twinsburg twice in my high school career, and both times MIM emerged victorious. As great as these victories felt, I believe they caused more negative energy than positive. Students were far too focused on who our opponent was, instead of being focused on performing the show to the best of their ability.

First year singer/dancer and SHS senior Sydney Klein said she feels that the Twinsburg rivalry is especially heightened this year due to both groups participating in the Medina and Wheaton-Warrenville South competitions.  

“I think most of MIM would agree that Twinsburg is one of our biggest rivals,” Klein said. “Especially this year since we’re going up against them twice and haven’t gone head to head in a few years. I think it’s kind of a silly rivalry, but it does exist.”

In show choir and other competitive performance groups, students are generally very supportive of each other. When I’m at a competition, I like to make friends with kids from other schools and go support as many other choirs as possible. I’ve found that victories are sweeter when the losing groups walk out the building feeling like you were classy and respectful. Similarly, losses aren’t as hard when the winning choir is kind and deserving.

For some students, like MIM Webmaster and three year member Sam Novak, strong rivalries with competitors cause them to work harder.

“I think these rivalries push the students to be the best we can possibly be,” Novak said. “I know that it totally motivates me to be the best I can be. Like football, we obviously want to beat the other group/team by as much as possible, but even the slightest victory feels just as sweet.”

However, in my personal experience, rivalries bring up a lot of negative energy, anger, and resentment. When we compete with Twinsburg, MIM students tend to focus more on what will help us beat them, not in what will make the show the most entertaining or what will help us live up to our full potential.

Rivalries take the focus away from the task at hand. Students are more focused on the behavior and actions of the other team instead of their own show. However, I can only speak for artistic competition. I’ve never been on a competitive sports team where schools compete head to head, and the other team’s actions directly affect your game. In show choir, you can’t control the other groups performance, there is no defense. You can only control how well you execute the plan of your show, and just do the best you can, so having a nasty relationship with another choir is relatively pointless in my mind.

I think that everyone in the show choir community would have a better experience if negative rivalries didn’t form, and in my personal experience that is totally possible. MIM has gone up against Findlay First Edition many times while I’ve been a member, and both groups have come up on top, similar to MIM’s history with Twinsburg. What is different in our relationship with Findlay is the way that each choir treats the other. Findlay students personally came up to me and congratulated me when we were named Grand Champions over them at the 2017 Medina Midwest Showcase, and we were thrilled that they emerged victorious at the competition we host, the Solon Show Choir Invitational. With a mutual respect between the choirs, everyone has a more enjoyable time competing, whether you win or lose.

In all artistic endeavors, everyone wants to be entertained, and in show choir, that means everyone doing their best. Wishing other choirs ill, and being rude to them or avoiding them all together isn’t going to give anyone the result they want.
In the end, I think that rivalries can be a positive things for competitive performance groups, but more times than not, rivalries can turn ugly, and distract students from what’s most important, the performance. Everything else should be secondary in students’ minds, and in the words of MIM director Gary Lewis, students must “keep the main thing the main thing.”