Bedazzled tops, “car wash” flapping black pants, extravagant choreographed partner dances, and five-part harmonies over a live band consumed my high school experience. I wasn’t a part of a Country Square Dance Team or a bad high school movie; I was a proud member of RSVP, my high school’s pop choir.
RSVP, Rowlett Student Vocal Performers, were the highest step on the social ladder of a choir or theatre kid. I’d even say we were just a couple notches below the cheerleaders. We were music dorks by heart, but had learned to cover this up well through our high school careers. With songs like Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody” and the Blackeyed Peas’ “Let’s Get It Started” we thought of ourselves as a modern version of the cheesy, outdated show choir.
RSVP had six girls, six boys, five band members, and one choreographer. As unbelievable as it sounds, every year these treasured spots were fought for, and we started rehearsing for the auditions at least a semester in advance. There were three rounds in the audition process and, after making it my sophomore year, I was proud to have won one of those spots.
After the bloodshed of spring semester auditions, the drama arose immediately. RSVP was a mini soap opera, full of girls having cheating relationships with the band boys and singers fighting over which solo they got and who would be on the front row for the dances. With the additional influence of unbalanced adolescent hormones, our high school’s pop group equated to one giant mess.
Even with the chaos, we still managed to learn some songs and dances. The fall was considered our “touring” season, when we went around to nursing homes, elementary schools, and festivals around Dallas putting on our shows. For most of these we wore our formal outfit which consisted of our black “car wash” pants and our sequined tops. But at our bigger shows at elementary schools we’d do an outfit change and put on our custom-made poodle skirts to go along with our retro songs. The kids thought anyone older was cool, so performing there was easy, even in a poodle skirt.
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