Dance Telephone (BEDA 7)

This post is totally a week late.

Last Friday (March 30), I participated in a project called Dance Telephone. It's like the game Telephone, except instead of morphing a word or phrase, we we using dance. This whole crazy thing started with an e-mail I received over spring break describing the project and asking for volunteers. I thought about it for a while, and then I volunteered.

There were two types of people: the six original dancers who were choreographed by the creator of the project, and the other 12 of us who went through the rooms and copied the dances. I was in the second group. We had no idea what the dances would be like until we saw them for the first time.

On Friday night, we met in a hallway of classrooms to be instructed on how the night would run. Each of the six choreographed dances went to their respective rooms (numbered 1-6) and their observers also went in to watch them. Each person had a follower, who was always in their audience, and each person had a person to follow, for whom they were the follower. We moved in a linear progression through the rooms and audience members could go wherever they wanted as we switched rooms.

This was the only time I have done any sort of performing in my time at university. I've never auditioned for a show, never really wanted to get up on stage, but this project sounded so cool that I had to be involved. A lot of my friends were in it, but a lot of my friends were also in the audience. At the end, I felt a completely different type of joy at being a part of a show than when I do lighting things. I'm not going to turn into a performer all of a sudden, but Dance Telephone was probably the most fun thing I've done all year.

I was following one of my best friends, and her choreographed dance was the shortest and easiest of the bunch. It had clear sections that went with the music, and when I did it after her, I got pretty much all of it. After a few iterations, though, it seemed that it changed a lot because people were coming out of the room far more out of breath than either of us had. The next dances I did had already changed a lot by the time I got into the rooms. They were simplified a lot, and some of them were a bit confusing, but others were just a party. At the end, after everyone had done each dance and the original dancers watched the final iterations of their choreography, we all got to see what the original choreography was. Watching what the dances were supposed to be was hilarious, and there was uproarious laughter because we did such different dances.

I had so much fun. This was a type of euphoric joy that I haven't felt in such a long time. I had done something crazy, unique, physical, artistic, and so so enjoyable. At the cast party, the friend who made this whole thing happen said that I always came out of each room and said, "that was so much fun!" and I didn't realize I was doing that, but it was true. It really took me out of the stress of being a student and let me enjoy what I was doing.

Today is awesome because I'm starting it by reliving the awesomeness of last Friday night.