As the second semester kicked off, so did the 2026 Air Guitar competition. During a Friday assembly on Feb. 13, students gathered into their sections to watch the yearly tradition unfold.
The freshmen took center stage to showcase their Super Bowl-themed performance, featuring recent halftime performances, such as Kendrick Lamar, played by freshman William Conn, and Rihanna, played by freshman Maiyan Mollel. They brought the performance to a close with a group dance number to Kendrick Lamar’s “tv off.”
Up next were the sophomores, who performed various scenes from different Pixar movies. Syndrome, played by sophomore Coltrane Reynolds, and Mr. Incredible, played by sophomore Chase Romey, burst through a banner, flying out on rolling tables across the court. After a couple of individual scenes with the “Incredibles” movie, they transitioned into a whole group Coco performance featuring the song “Remember Me,” with sophomore class president Kaden Truong as Ernesto de la Cruz, and sophomore Melina Duran as Miguel. To close out their performance, the entire ensemble came together in one final dance to “You Got a Friend in Me” from Toy Story. “I love the sense of bond we had with everyone,” Truong said.
The juniors created an intro video to segue to a group of neon stick figures, representing Ewoks from Star Wars, doing a group dance before the “Imperial March” ominously started playing. Stormtroopers came out of the corners, glowing in the black lights, to end the neon party. Luke Skywalker, played by junior class president Bennett Madsen, came down from the bleachers to end the stormtroopers’ attack. Out of the fog came the light of a double-sided lightsaber, “perfectly to the beat,” Madsen said, and sophomore Dima Stein stepped out of the fog as Darth Maul. With the help of Obi-Wan Kenobi, played by sophomore Luke Goodman, Skywalker defeated Maul in a lightsaber battle.
Just when everyone thought it was over, Darth Vader appeared out of the fog in another “hype moment where the whole school went crazy,” Stein said. Vader was defeated by Skywalker, and the entire ensemble came together for one final bow.
The senior performance of Michael Jackson started with a short video featuring the real MJ during a press conference in London. Senior Henry Glass, playing the first Michael Jackson, ran out to the center stage to perform “Smooth Criminal” in a group dance with the ensemble. When the song transitioned into “Billie Jean,” the entire ensemble came together to perform Jackson’s famous moon walk. Senior Kyle Nelson took on the role of Michael Jackson for “Man in the Mirror” before another group dance while a mysterious coffin was rolled out. Everyone dropped dead, and senior Mahmoud Rashid stepped out of the coffin as the last Michael Jackson. The entire senior class joined in to dance to “Thriller” to close out the class of 2026’s last Air Guitar performance.
In the end, the junior class took home the victory for this year’s air guitar, with seniors taking second, and sophomores and freshmen tying for third.
“Next year, the theme is like nothing anybody has seen before,” said Stein, “Our goal is not to win Air Guitar, but to go down in history [as the] best Air Guitar ever.”
