Time For Singing

I mentioned in the previous post that Andrea and I with our daughter Randie were returning from Raleigh on Sunday when the tornado struck Greensboro. We had been in Raleigh to see Randie perform with the All State Chorus program. 

 

Randie is a very good singer, a fact demonstrated by her repeated selection for special chorus programs since she was in elementary school and participated in her first All County Chorus event. She made it to the All State Chorus program which was held in Raleigh this year. 

 

There are three divisions of the Al State Chorus: Women, Men and Mixed. Randie performed 5 numbers with the women’s group, singing compositions from Russia, Thailand, Africa and China. 

 

Randie has a very cool ability to quickly internalize a song, memorizing lyrics and the nuances of the tune. She is particularly adept at embracing music from outside of American culture. She is very partial to arrangements of African and Hispanic origin. 

 

The performances by all three choruses were well done, displaying an exemplary level of talent and skill. 

 

I do want to comment on something from behind the scenes and that is the crap young women have to go through.

 

The official attire for the women were long black dresses with black high heel shoes. It is a very classy, professional look but then one considers some details that come with standing in a long black dress in high heels for extended periods of time. I noticed during the women’s chorus, at least two young ladies had to make furtive escapes off stage.

 

Randie did confirm what I suspected, that these young women were overcome with heat exhaustion and dehydration. Randie herself had to sit down for a brief moment when she felt herself become dizzy.

 

She told me after the show that the women in the chorus were required to get dressed for their show before lunch. Lunch meant hurried excursions to local cafes within a few blocks of the theater during a very hot day in downtown Raleigh. And the time for lunch was severely truncated, resulting in several young women standing on stage with no food or forced to eat too quickly.

 

And the women’s chorus had to stand in place for about 15 minutes before their performance began while various introductory remarks were made and some awards were handed out. 200 young women dressed in black, wobbling in high heels, dehydrating under hot stage lights, all before they could do what they wanted to do, to sing some unique and beautiful songs.  

 

Why do women have to go through this crap?

 

Despite various efforts to suck the joy of singing out of them, Randie and her fellow choristers sang beautifully.