That is what Hope’s Director of Bands Chris Davis is calling this year’s show. We spoke to him Wednesday afternoon about the 2025 Hope High School Band’s upcoming shows, its weeks of rehearsals and its plans to go on the road to contests later this fall.
As the new school year loomed, Davis realized he had many young musicians excelling at jazz performance. He and the Hope High Jazz Band leader, Woody Boyd, cast about for ways of showing them off. “[I said] we can't just do a jazz show. It's boring. We have to be creative. And we were just throwing out random things. And this year is Penguin Wonderland. Penguins are known as the birds in suits and when you think of jazz, old school jazz, you think of people in tuxedos, playing and having a blast.”
Davis pointed to past shows that were on the somber side, often about serious subjects like recovery from tough times, like persistence in cultivating inner beauty against a harsh world which was the theme of the Juno show last year.
“So we [said], What's this thing called fun? Let’s make it super fun. And it's something that everyone will remember, good and bad, because at various contests, judges will say, ‘I remember that one show.’ We wanted our judges to remember us.” Davis said.
The uniforms worn during this year’s halftime show will transform band members, so they will look like those little waddling formal Antarctic fowl of so many delightful documentaries and zoo exhibits. “We're actually planning on spray painting our marching shoes a burnt orange, because penguins have orange feet. Black, white and orange is what our color guard is,” Davis said, referring to the units of the band that perform with flags and batons.
Expect to see the kind gamboling, slip-sliding and sometimes clumsy fun penguins indulge in on the ice. “The band is going to be everyday, ordinary penguins. You will see them waddling. You will see them jumping. You'll see them falling,” Davis said.
For me he described a lot of the placements, choreography and even the musical selections. But I’m going to keep these matters secret to preserve the suspense. Keep in mind the performance Friday night is the first foray of a show that Davis is continuing to install and as the performances continue into the following weeks the show will extend and will build layer upon layer with more props (including an apparent mountain of ice), more moves and more surprises.
Davis expressed thanks toward New Millenium, the engineered metal building framing company in Hope’s industrial park. They helped build structures used in the show and gave the band a speaker cart that will come in handy for a number of purposes. “They came in clutch, and we're very appreciative of them,” Davis said.
Davis said he believes his band is ahead of last year’s pace for learning the show and, given that the band’s first contest is just over a week away, that sounds encouraging. He attributes this to starting practice and rehearsal earlier this year, which was a welcome circumstance for this year’s show.
“It's very demanding,” Davis said. “Kids running from 20-yard line to 20-yard line with 20 to 40 pounds of instruments, running the whole time and playing characters. It’s very theatrical and very demanding.”
Davis called himself lucky in having so many good musicians this year, but also said that’s a byproduct of years of recruiting and building habits of discipline in practicing, playing and performing that self-reinforce. “Everyone sees the final product, but nobody sees how hard these kids are actually working. And I'm very, very pleased and very, very proud of these band kids, because they keep doing what we ask them to do, developing the culture.”
SWARK.Today will continue to follow the 2025 Hope High Band’s performances and contests in the weeks and months to come. In case you can't get there in person, watch our coverage tonight of Hope hosting Prescott starting at 7:00 p.m. We will also feature the performance of the Hope High Band.