It may be a rite of childhood but I'm not quite sure why elementary schools make their students get up on stage and sing. Its also a rite of parenthood, having to suffer through them. I have to admit, I was reasonably entertained during last night's performance of 3rd and 4th graders, and not entirely from an anthropological perspective. But mostly.
It starts by watching the children file in one by one. Some very dressed up, some very dressed down. Some looked thrilled--it was their grand stage debut. Some looked pained as if they had bamboo splinters shoved under their fingernails. My son fell in the middle of both. He made sure we had all of the props needed for the evening, practiced his recorder for the "instrumental' piece, and hid his ubiquitous super hero shirt under a freshly pressed button down. (I'm unreasonably proud of the fact that his shirt was ironed. I iron so infrequently that I had to search the house for 20 minutes to find it.) But singing isn't really his thing. We couldn't even figure out if he was moving his lips. There were a few kids for whom it was obvious; the stage was where they belonged.
There was one song that touched me, to the point of teary eyes. They sang the song "Fireflies" which was all over the radio about 2 years ago. I actually hate the song, but grudgingly concede that it is catchy. Instead of watching the kids sing this number, they turned the lights off. We couldn't see them fidgeting or how appropriately or inappropriately dressed they were. We couldn't see whose lips were moving or not. They belted that song out. As a group they were on key, and it sounded like the words were correct. I don't know if it was my imagination or not but it seemed like they sang better in the dark. A sense of privacy may have given them the freedom to really let it out.
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