Sunday, May 30, 2004

West Coast Snails and a Blog Surprise

Last night was the joint spring show for the Cardinal Whirlwinds and Double or Nothing (square dance and swing, respectively). I was pleasantly surprised to see on the program that Neal had choreographed dances to two They Might Be Giants songs for DoN: Snail Shell and Lie Still, Little Bottle. I was rather uncertain about what they would dance to the former, but it turned out to be a west coast swing. They didn't really have any flashy new moves for me to pick up, but they did do something that looked kind of snail like. With one couple dancing in the center, another couple came up to join them. The new guy took the first guy's place, but the new girl just put her hand on the first girl's shoulder and danced behind her. A few more girls got added on this way, so it was always just one guy, but with an accumulating string of girls. It reminded me of a snail growing multiple rings on its shell. Very cool.

The Whirlwinds had some fun dances, too. I especially like the two clogging numbers that the girls did. On the second one, Caitlin played her fiddle and clogged. I'd seen that before, but it's always a hoot to see it again.

The theme of the show was "The Dancing Game" and the skits in between dances involved Evan getting set up with various girls on a dating show, the dates then being represented by the dances. There were some pretty funny skits, but I was particularly tickled by an unexpected blog reference. Evan had just been accidentally matched with a guy for one of the dates, which lead nicely into the Whirlwinds' Gender Bender square dance. Afterwards, Evan's friend asked him how the date was, and Evan replied "Well, he certainly swept me off my feet. But then I read his blog and he just doesn't seem like my type." Yay to blogging, for working its way into a dance show!

2 comments:

AdamTest said...

Ack, I didn't realize you were there! I would have enjoyed meeting you in person.

Well, the performance was certainly quite fun, but the overall audience was a bit surprisingly sedate (much to some of the dancers' disappointment, as I learned). Heck, I did my best, though :D

I was also entertained by many of the deliciously geeky references throughout the show... not only on blogging (which definitely gave me a chuckle, too!) but also orkut, CraigsList, and "42" (the supreme answer according to one of my favorite trilogies, Douglas Adams' "Hitchhiker's Guide" series :)

Of course, I was also really happy to see a number of my friends (whom I know from Lindy Hopping) in the performance, and I was looking forward to meeting some of the Whirlwind folks at an afterparty... but alas, it wasn't to be! Many of the Stanford folks were stressed about upcoming finals and not up for socializing post-performance, and others split off... with DON and Whirlwind folks pretty much heading separate ways :(.

And though I had a blast watching all the performances... if you chat with Caitlin, please particularly give her my regards as a fellow musician and dancer; her performance really made me smile! I use enough brain cells trying to dance well *OR* play an instrument, and can't fathom doing both as well as she did :)

[Oh, and I would be writing about much of this on my own blog, but my blog-writing is on hiatus for another few days until I finally move over my whole blog from MovableType to ExpressionEngine... eeeeek!]

Erin said...

yaaay! Thank you so much for coming, Graham! It is always so much fun to see you! I can't believe that there's only 2 weeks left. Eeeeep!!! Let's get as much dancing in as possible, kay? =)