Voices Past and Present
Tuesday, December 31, 2002
:: [ Christmas Show 2002 -- Dec. 7 ] ::
In the words of Bryan, "we turn back the pages to December 7, 2002, the night of Testimony's Christmas show, A Star-Struck Christmas." Actually, let's turn back the pages even further than that. Reflecting back on our Christmas show this year, I can only say that God has his hand in our show preparations from the very very beginning. Even early in the quarter, I was amazed at how quickly the new group was learning music and polishing it for performances. We had two dorm shows and even a senior home gig as early as November. I am so glad that this year's Testimony seems to be grounded in prayer (though, of course, there's always room for improvement) -- I'm certain we couldn't have pulled off Fall Quarter so well otherwise. I had had a bad feeling about Christmas show ever since we realized its horrible timing; with Thanksgiving being so late in November, there was no choice but to schedule the show for the weekend between Dead Week and Finals Week. (Christmas shows do NOT happen before Thanksgiving.) But God really helped us through it as we started preparations super early (you name it: memorizing songs and show order, skit writing and rehearsing, teaching choreography, poster and flyer design) and asked for prayer support from all the campus fellowships. I've said it before, but I'll say it again: I feel so amazingly blessed to be working with this year's Core leadership; I feel like all our strengths complement each other so well, and I never feel so unified and supported as when I'm with these three people. Thanks, guys -- I don't know how my first year directing would be without you. My first show as director was amazing, and it was all thanks to God's gracious provision and blessings. Seriously...going into the weekend, everyone kept asking me if I was nervous, and how did I feel about the show? Of course I was nervous, but honestly I couldn't really have asked for things to be much better. I feel like we prepared to the best of our ability and we'd given up the show to God in prayer and in our hearts. I think we handled "Hell Week" well; I was able to rehearse ALL of our songs during the first two rehearsals after Thanksgiving, which gave me great peace of mind about not having the group back together until 2 days before show. Dress rehearsal night went just about as insanely long as other dress rehearsals have gone (read: late late into the night), but I can honestly say that I didn't feel stressed out by it. My overly-optimistic goal of being done by midnight (hey, it's good to shoot for something, right?) was certainly not met, but coming out of the rehearsal I felt much less tired than if any of our last year's dress rehearsals had ended that early. Here's a huge thanks to all the alumni who helped us out that night, giving feedback about balance and staging and everything. ALL of last year's tenor section, plus a tenor from the year before, came over to Manzanita to stick it out with us till the end -- go TENORS: Steve, Jeff, Gavan, and Joon!
I bet you were wondering when I'd start talking about the actual show night. ;) To start off, we couldn't have gotten the Kimball side of Manzanita Dining Hall all set up in time without the generous help of many friends who were called upon at the last minute. (Special thanks to Qi, Graham, and Jeremy, Kari's/my dance friends who were *super* with helping out!) We realized several days before the show that there was a Ramadan dinner function scheduled for the Castano/Lantana side, and there's NEVER anything else going on in Manzanita in the weekends -- until this year. So that meant that we couldn't move all the chairs into the Kimball side and all the tables into the other side until the dinner was finished. But God was faithful with everything, of course, and all the last minute complications were smoothed out with enough time for us to settle down and start the show with a calm frame of mind. And as we entered the stage (following a great opening set by Talisman), I can honestly say that I wasn't worried at all about how the show was going to flow. With all our early planning and rehearsing, I felt confident in the group's ability to pull off a smooth show -- and what a great show it was! I knew the skits were hilarious to us, but I had no idea that the audience would like them so much; remembering show order went along without a hitch; and although our music wasn't at its absolute best (I think we sang better during dress rehearsal), nothing went awry and I was quite pleased with how we sounded. Chi-En's testimony, in my opinion, went very well...she didn't sound nervous and she engaged well with the audience. We had an amazing audience turnout, too -- the room was packed! -- and we were pleasantly surprised with a standing ovation at the end of the show! We were shocked and didn't quite know how to react, so we just stood there and smiled like dorks until the applause died down and we could continue with our closing song. And as Bryan said, whatever happened that night was all God's doing...I heard stories of people who really felt touched that night, people who were moved not just by our voices but by something God did in that room. I agree wholeheartedly -- just the mere acts of what we were doing on stage wasn't remarkable enough to illicit that kind of a response from the audience. God really filled that room that night, and I can only hope that the evening meant more to people than just another a cappella show. I cannot tell you how psyched the show left me -- I was on an emotional high from it for days afterward, and I know for a fact that it helped me get through the first couple days of finals (inconveniently SO soon after the show).
Sunday, December 22, 2002
~~~ Quotes from Testimony Winter Tour 2002 ~~~
"Sometimes your mind gets jumpy, it just wants to bang." – Justin
"Does Rich Mullins write secular music?" – Ssonia
"No, he died." – Bryan
"Joy, Testify, and… Heimlich?" – Ssonia
"Even if we're singing in front of all men, they would appreciate guy singers too." – Ssonia
"Can you squishy squishy la?" – Shih-Yang
"Hey…no sleeping together!" – Justin, to Chi-En and Tina
"Can you pull-pull the thingy?" – Tina
"Give me your pretty butt." – Adam to Sanghyup
"We're not Steve at sing's church?" – Adam
Wednesday, December 11, 2002
On a separate but oft-sounded note...Steve is weird.
wyceresas (8:50:19 PM): for a testimony bass, impending doom should be unremarkable.
Auto response from JuKa828 (8:50:19 PM): Have you ever had that sinking feeling of impending doom? But now it's no longer impending, it's just pure DOOM?
wyceresas (8:50:55 PM): the same applies for impending bum and impending ba-da.
