I'll Make a Man out of You

           

              The art and cultural opportunity I chose to go to was the Red Shirt Remix.  This event is also sometimes referred to as RSR.  It is a THON related event for all of the rules and regulations committees to participate in.  Each committee has to make up a dance to a song and perform it for all of the other committees.  There are random judges who watch all the different groups dance and determine the winner.  The winner of this event gets to perform their dance during at THON!

This year the theme for RSR was musicals.  My committee went through a bunch of different options but finally settled on doing I’ll Make a Man out of You from Mulan.  In our committee we each have different positions.  There were two RSR chairs in my committee who were responsible for creating the dance.  The event took place right after we got back from thanksgiving break, and right before break I was in Tennessee playing soccer, so I missed all of the practices.

The girls that made the dance videotaped it and sent it to us so that we could all learn it.  I took some time to make sure I knew the dance so that I didn’t embarrass myself in front of all of the other committees.  About an hour before the performance our group met up, to do one last run through.  We all wore black pants, and a blue, green, and white tie-dyed shirt.  Our practice went well and we were ready to perform.

When we got to the HUB it was a little intimidating.  A lot of the other committees went all out for their performance.  One group dressed up as elderly people; they spray painted their hair gray, wore glasses, baggy grandparent clothing, walked hunched over, and even talked as if they were actually elderly!  Another committee was doing Annie so they all had buckets as props, they were all dressed in pajamas, they had “dirt” on their faces, and the girls put their hair up in pigtails to look like little orphans.

             Inside Alumni Hall was extremely crowded and hot!  As we awaited our turn to perform I got more nervous by the second.  Our group, To InJimmity and BeTHON, was set to go sixth.  Some of the people before us were amazing, which made me more nervous, but there were also some groups who made it obvious that they hadn’t had much practice.  My committee ended up doing really well.  All of the people on my committee nailed the moves, and at the end of our performance everyone was clapping.  This was a really good experience and it was interesting to see how we all started with the same criteria, and all ended up with such different dances.