So you thought those airbands were amazing, but ever wonder what happens behind the scenes? Airband performers share their stories.

'06 seniors

Dragging tired bodies out of bed, to the shower and to airband practice became a daily ritual for seniors about a week before the night rally. However, this year it was not about taking first place, but about perfection.

Many seniors think that this year’s airband has been comparably more work than previous year’s. “I think airbands is more stressful and competitive than it has been before,” senior Yana Sorokurs said. “This is the first year we’ve done morning practices and people are a lot more serious about getting everything perfectly right.” Practice has totaled nearly 30 hours within the last two weeks before the rally.

But choreographers started planning airbands mid-August. This year’s choreographers included seniors Christine Rhyu and Amy Mayman while senior Crystal Le added a martial arts element. Even the guys contributed by using a Star Wars sword fight inspired by seniors Kyle Gertridge and Eric Stewart. “Airbands is a huge challenge because you’re basically expected to take 50 people who don’t dance and make a dance with them,” Rhyu said. “It’s really hard to find a balance between what looks good and what people feel comfortable doing.”

According to Rhyu, the dance has more going on than previous years and guys have bigger parts. “We choreographed the dance for both audiences, rather than having a front and a back like before. We are not as well prepared though, because Homecoming is so early this year,” Rhyu said.

'07 juniors

Afraid that the class of 2008 would defeat them again, the juniors hurried to begin choreographing and creating the music mix early into the summer.

However, junior choreographer Judy Sol admits that not all has been constructive. “A major downside about our class is that we don’t have a lot of spirit,” Sol said. “It’s been pretty hard getting people pumped up enough to come to every single practice. It’s hard to get anything done.” Having less spirit also explains why some are less inclined to join airbands. “We would like to have more, but I don’t think we’re going to have as many as we hoped,” Sol said.

Under the careful watch of the choreographers juniors Allison Wolgat, Judy Sol and Kexin Chen, the class of 2007 worked in order to achieve their one goal—beating the sophomores during the night rally. With weekly practices located at Mitchell Park, the practice hours for airbands have totaled up to be approximately 50 hours.

With inspiration from the class of ’05, this year, the juniors have balanced simple and clean with fun and interesting. Designed and put together by junior Shannon Wood, costumes conveyed the overall theme, “a little bit of everything” with an eerie twist. Choreography of the dance required two weeks while the making of the music mix took an hour.

Airband members hope they can pull together and succeed in their goals and dazzle the crowd by exceeding the set expectations.

'08 sophomores

Defeating last year’s sophomores at the night rally, the class of 2008 has many expectations to meet and personal goals to achieve. Therefore, it was surprising to find out that their airband practice was delayed until the beginning of the school year.

In regards to the other classes, this year, the sophomores began fairly late—choreographing began mid-August and recruiting for dancers began the second Wednesday of the school year. This did not worry sophomore choreographers Molly Kawahata and Leah Rosengaus. “At the beginning, we were nervous that we wouldn’t be able to get it done but ‘08 is pretty united and we always pull through,” Kawahata said.

Practice began during Labor Day weekend with 16 hours over a period of four days, the total began to grow into 60 hours. The practices were located at Ramos Park and were very productive since they knew they were behind other classes.

Kawahata spent multiple days choreographing the dance and spent countless days creating and editing the mix. Everyone involved put together the costumes by submitting ideas.

Although, the turnout of the total dancers was fairly low, the sophomores made the best out of it.“We had less people than expected, but otherwise it’s gone really well,” Kawahata said.

'09 freshmen

Airbands is hard enough even with an entire month to organize it. But imagine trying to perfect the airbands in three weeks while adjusting to a new school at the same time. Even though airbands was delayed because of elections, the freshmen pulled it off with only a few weeks of practice.

Freshmen president Ali Maggioncalda choreographed the entire airband. “I just chose my favorite songs and danced around in the living room and used what worked,” she said.

Many freshmen participated even with such short notice, with about 45 people including 12 guys, according to Maggioncalda. To make up for lost time, the dedicated freshmen held practices everyday after school and began morning practice at 7 a.m. the week of night rally. “I liked how the people who chose to do airbands were really committed,” Maggioncalda said. “[Being a choreographer] is really stressful. There’s just a lot of stuff to do.”

Maggioncalda hopes to have more time to prepare next year. “We’ll have a lot more time and practices. We aren’t very synchronized [this year] and I hope to have more precision next year,” she said.