Theater group suprises crowd with dance in Schine
People knew one thing: Be at Schine Student Center at 12:20 p.m. on Thursday.
A few flyers around the Syracuse University campus read, ‘Schine 12:20,’ and posts from the Twitter account @flashmobSU told followers the same thing.
All allusions became reality when, at 12:25 p.m., a man from the crowd in the Schine Atrium began to dance as ‘You Can’t Stop the Beat,’ from the musical ‘Hairspray,’ began to play.
On-lookers gazed at the dancing as more and more people joined in. One of the dancers, Kara Nelson, a senior music history major, acted surprised at the performance until her cue to join in.
‘People asked me why people were standing around and I just played dumb,’ Nelson said. ‘At one point, the people I was with turned around, and I had joined the dance.’
This public performance, known as a flashmob, was orchestrated by members of First Year Players, a student-run musical theater organization comprised of non-drama majors. The group did the dance to raise awareness for the group and recruit students to join.
Ray Lapena, a senior public relations major, said he wanted to bring a flashmob to campus after seeing a YouTube video of people ‘spontaneously’ breaking into a choreographed dance in a Belgium train station.
‘It was my hope that we could do something like this with First Year Players,’ Lapena said. ‘We started discussing during the summer and then really got the ball rolling right when we got back to school. I couldn’t believe that we were actually doing this, after months of planning and only a few weeks of rehearsal.’
Once the semester began, Lapena, the event’s organizer, began work on coordinating the performance while Rae Bochanyin, First Year Player’s choreographer and a senior photojournalism major, held rehearsals for the approximately 20 performers.
‘I’ve been listening to ‘You Can’t Stop the Beat’ on repeat on my iPod for weeks,’ Bochanyin said. ‘Whenever I’m walking around campus I’m listening to the song, and thinking about the choreography and doing the dance in my head.’
Parts of the dance were practiced in the atrium prior to Thursday, Bochanyin said, but the show was the first time all of the dancers performed the whole dance in the space. The dance centered in the atrium right near the information booth. At times the dancers spread out to fill all of the space. Lapena said he messed up a little on the choreography because he was so caught up in the excitement of the crowd.
‘People seemed to be really surprised,’ Lapena said. ‘The best part was finishing at the end and hearing the cheers and applause. It honestly was a personal dream come true for me.’
Though some in Schine were aware of the flashmob, others, including Chelsea Vena, a sophomore television, radio and film major, had no idea what was going on. Vena was going upstairs to study when she noticed two people dancing amongst the crowd.
‘I assumed they were just putting on a performance for a club or something, but then two more people started dancing with them,’ Vena said. ‘At this point, I realized what was happening. People popped out of the crowd. They were just hanging out and then they were doing a well-coordinated dance.’
The dance lasted only minutes, but in the end the crowd was filled with smiling faces and even a few impromptu dancers moving with the music.
‘When I watch movies where people just break into dance I always say, ‘Why can’t my life be like that?” Lapena said. ‘And now it can.’
