It's a Bird! It's a Plane!

It's Super Dance! Big Dance had a super hero theme this year, which made for some cool decorations, especially the giant Spiderman hanging from the web on the gym ceiling. No, I don't have photos, though. I suck at taking pictures of dance events.

When I got to the dance, I found that Jim and Chris had managed to get themselves into both the 9-to-midnight band as well as the midnight-to-3 band, in the studio. I thought that was amusing. I've been rather in a swing mood lately, though, so I also spent a lot of time over on the gym side where the Bob Saul Orchestra was playing. Of course, I was really just hopping back and forth all night long, because of all the contests and performances in both rooms.

In the polka relay race, Susanna and I blazed past everyone else, by virtue of being one of the only couples to do an actual polka on the actual beat. (Becky and Dave claimed this was an unfair advantage, saying we must have been on steroids, and challenged us to a one-on-one [2-on-2?] rematch for sometime in the future.) We also came up with a clever way to transfer the super hero cape (which was acting as the relay baton) to the second couple in our team. All in all, it was enough to get us the victory, in spite of some pretty wild flailings in the other laps. I actually had to fling myself bodily in front of our last out-of-control couple, to keep them from crashing into the band's instruments, which were behind us. That was crazy.

I also did the Jack and Jill swing contest, where you get a random partner for the first round, and a different random partner for the final round. I ended up with Anne for the finals, but got seriously confused by the music. I was in Lindy Hop mode, but they were playing a West Coast. If I had stopped to think about it, my limited West Coast probably would have done as well as my confused Lindy, especially since I know Anne could have made it look great. Oh well. We switched off leading a bit, so that was fun, and we ended up getting third place.

Let's see, what else was fun? I danced a very unusual salsa-hustle-west coast sort of thing with Erin (another case of having a partner who just makes it all look good). There were some very nice cross step waltzes with Jean and Quetzal. Decadance did a new polka quadrille choreography to a Natalie MacMaster recording (courtesy of Caitlin, of course). The hustle competition was won by a fantastic "couple" consisting of Gary, Jennifer and Achuith. I got to practice West Coast Swing a few times, with various people.

The "Lullaby Gauntlet" of slow waltzes in the early morning seemed to go by pretty fast, without weeding out too many tired people. Then of course there was the Dawn Mazurka at around 5:00. At ten minutes to six Richard played the Hamster Dance polka. I danced that with Eric, and gave myself a bit of a scare when I twisted my ankle halfway through. I kept going though, since a Hamster Dance with Eric is high up on the list of dances not to be missed, and the adrenaline kept everything going. It was worth it. My ankle's mostly okay right now, so maybe I didn't get it too badly.

So many people stayed to the end that the last waltz felt like a Jammix. When six o'clock finally rolled around we had 225 all-nighters, a new record. It was my fifth year of doing the whole thing. I was a bit wobbly at that point, but I stayed until 7 to help clean up a bit. When I finally got home I slept until about 1:00, and I now plan on moving slowing and infrequently for the rest of the day, and probably knocking off a few items on my reading list. Another nap might be in order as well.

Big congratulations and thank-yous go to the Gang of 13, as well as Richard, the bands, and everyone else who made the dance great.