For the past five years, Jackson Prep has been home to the annual Showchoir Masters competition. This year, Masters fell on the weekend of January 26. With Prep’s junior high showchoir performing on Friday night and the senior high performing on Saturday, this event was definitely something you didn’t want to miss. Fusion, the junior high group, took viewers back to the 1980s with their dazzling costumes, enormous crimped hair, and upbeat music. The senior high group, Revellion, showcased a card theme with bold backdrops, killer dance moves, and jaw-dropping outfits.

Twenty-three schools from Tennessee, Mississippi, Alabama, and Georgia traveled to Prep, where they were enthusiastically welcomed by members from both of Prep’s showchoirs to help them get settled before the start of the competition. Classrooms were converted into dressing and storage rooms for the guest schools, and the event was staffed largely by volunteering Prep parents, faculty, and staff. Performances from the Fortenberry Theater were telecast live on many of the televisions on campus, as well as on the big screen in Lindsay Hall, which served as an overflow for some of the thousands of people who came to campus to watch.

Revellion and Fusion have been preparing for the showchoir season for many months, and they have been putting all their time and effort into learning their dances. Each showchoir competition is held at a different school, but the hosting school does not compete. Rather, it provides entertainment with a short clip of their show. This was the case for Fusion and Revillion in the Masters competition.

Freshman Fusion member Lilly Noble said that “I love Masters because we get a chance to perform on our own stage and get nervous before it actually counts.”

In the junior high division, Spark, from Petal Middle School, took gold and came in first place. On Saturday, the winning high school group was Jackson Academy’s Encore, which rocked the stage and won a huge trophy.

If you weren’t able to make Show Choir Masters, wish Fusion and Revellion good luck this season and catch them competing right down the road on JA’s stage this Friday night.