After tackling chilly Saturdays singing for football fans on College Avenue and packing into a bus for annual adventures south, Penn State's "premiere show choir" will ditch the dancing Saturday to fully showcase its vocal talents.
The Singing Lions, a veteran student-run performance group at Penn State, will put on a special cabaret performance titled "No Jazz Hands" at 8 p.m. Saturday in the Esber Recital Hall. Tickets for the show will be $3 for students and $5 for adults.
Julie Danni (senior-theatre), a third-year performer with the group, said the show will offer a wide variety of songs for attendees, whether they have seen the Lions before.
"You can think of it as seeing a different side of The Singing Lions," Danni said. "There are a lot more solo performances and songs that don't get performed as much."
The group's style and songbook is hard to pin down, with a repertoire including everything from classic gospel numbers, Penn State fight songs, The Beatles medleys and Christmas choices during the holiday season. While The Singing Lions is made up of 22 members -- including a choreographer, musical director, pianist and occasional drummer -- they are independent of the School of Music and receive funding only from University Park Allocation Committee (UPAC) and the group's own fundraisers, Danni said.
"We do everything," Danni said, acknowledging the group does have an adviser who visits once in a while. "We're completely student-run."
Typical practices, which occur three times a week, consist of learning new pieces usually suggested by group President George Heigel (senior-actuarial science) or the musical director. After members meet to discuss song choices, the choreographer is consulted to confirm something "new and different" can be done.
"When I came to Penn State, I knew I wanted to get involved with music somehow because it's a passion of mine," Heigel said. "They seemed like a good group of people, and now I'm in my third year of being president."
An annual event far from Happy Valley is what Singing Lions members commonly list as their most treasured memory within the group.
The group always spends its spring break in a bus headed south -- this year ending at Naples, Fla., with stops in Richmond, Va., Washington, D.C., and Jacksonville, Fla., along the way.
"I really enjoy going to tour the different alumni chapters and hearing the different experiences they've had," Heigel said, adding Saturday's show will be a fundraiser for the spring break trip. "It just shows how much pride people have in Penn State."
Heigel noted the extended trip each year, in which The Singing Lions spend hours upon hours in a bus together, wouldn't be possible if the collective wasn't so tight-knit, at home in State College or on the road.
"We bond throughout the year," Heigel said, adding they often get together for socials and similar events. "We're like a big family."
