After an undefeated 2025 season, Solon High School’s show choir, Music in Motion (MIM) prepares to compete their 2026 show: “Break Free.” The show choir competes across the state against other competitive high school show choirs.

After winning all their competitions, Anya Evdokimenko, senior and Vice-President of MIM, believes that the successful season has brought recognition to the show choir, but it has also brought some difficulties.

“There has definitely been higher pressure to win and be ‘perfect’ because of last year’s undefeated season,” Evdokimenko said. “But, I think as a group we have started being more focused on actually enjoying the show and having fun with it.”

In previous years, Music in Motion’s themes have been broad. Director Gary Lewis, along with his assistant directors, chooses new arrangements to perform each year.

“Every year we try to pick a show that has somewhat of a theme where the songs tie together,” Lewis said. “I like to choose themes that are about hope and overcoming adversity, and that’s really what this year’s show is about.”

For his 18th year of directing MIM, Lewis chose a storyline about being under control and eventually becoming your own person with your own hopes.

“The beginning of the show is about…having to conform to the rules of society and the expectations people have on you and you don’t necessarily believe it,” Lewis said. “The show turns mid-way to I’m going to break free of these figurative chains that are binding my what I want to do and what my hopes and dreams are, and we break free.”

Dance Captain Jordan Novak said that preparations for MIM’s singer/dancers begin months before the competition season begins by conditioning over the summer and choreography camp, and then continuing the school year with daily rehearsals during school and rehearsals after school on Mondays. Along with the singers/dancers, the crew helps to create the show.

“They have to label and sometimes alter all the costumes and undergarments and help build the set that you see in the background,” Novak said. “During competitions, they will load a box truck, which takes our set to the places we compete, and unload it and move it to the storage room.”

Music in Motion performs with a live made band made up of all students. After a period of time where the band rehearses separately from the singers/dancers, they eventually join together, but can run into some issues.

“The struggle with the band and singer/dancers is that they can cover the vocals just by playing too loud, so we spend a lot of time trying to find opportunities for the band to be quiet or extra loud,” Novak said.

Each year, the entire show is built differently from the previous year.

“Unlike a sport where the objective is always the same and you wear the same thing, everything for [a] show choir show is custom from the ground up,” Lewis said.

The customization includes the songs, costumes and choreography. One of the songs they will be performing is “Break Free” by Ariana Grande.

“We have to customize our show to our strengths,” Lewis said. “It’s not like we can just go to the show choir store and buy these arrangements for show choir. We have to create them ourselves, so we have to get rights from publishers.” Lewis also emphasized that show choir can often be misunderstood. “Show choir is probably not what you would expect,” Lewis said. “It’s more like a Broadway show than it is when you think of a choir. It’s high intensity, it moves fast, it’s very entertaining, and it’s work.”

As for how this season will go for MIM, Novak said that he is uncertain as to how they will rank for this upcoming season.

“It is hard to know because no one knows how the other schools are doing,” Novak said. “For us, we lost a lot of great seniors last year, and it hurt us a bit, but we still are strong. But that might be the case for everyone.”

After performing in front of the school for the first time last year, Music in Motion decided to continue the upcoming tradition by performing at the end of the school day on Feb. 20.

“[The performance] went over great,” Lewis said. “We were really excited about how it was received.”

Music in Motion’s season will begin on Jan. 16 when they compete at their first competition of the year in Beavercreek Township, Ohio. Novak said that the group will continue to work as a team to try their best and satisfy their expectations.

“I think that everyone has put in the effort to make sure that we succeed, and as long as everyone feels like what they put on the table was their best, that’s all you can ask for,” Novak said. “Medals and trophies are nice, but sometimes they just don’t reflect the feeling of a great performance.”

The competition represents the start, but it also represents the closing chapter for the seniors.

“It’s definitely very bittersweet, with it more being sad than sweet,” Evdokimenko said. “I think it is definitely special to get to experience the group as a senior…and as a leader. Seeing your hard work pay off throughout high school [is great], but it is definitely very heartbreaking to know that something you have spent doing all of high school and putting so much time and effort into is just going to end.”