Song Fests at RC Workshops

"Song fests" were experimented with in early workshops and still take place occasionally. Every person is encouraged and expected to sing to loud applause no matter what the state of their skill or technique. (This also works where everyone is expected to perform a solo dance.)

Because of the time pressure at most workshops, creative singing by the newly-formed support groups on the first night of the workshop has mostly replaced song fests. Here each group is exhorted to create, in a very short time, a new song on the "theme" of their group and perform it, being allowed to fall back on the song sheets in the workshop workbooks if necessary. Tremendous creativity often appears in these ad hoc performances. Also, "singing committees" at most workshops take responsibility to see that morning and evening classes start with a song.