A Treatise on Modern College Dancing

Wow - three posts in one day - dont get used to it! Its a saturday after only one week of easy homework = extra time - plus, there are so many interesting topics!

This research paper intends to explore the causes and treatment of Dances on Modern College Campuses. Sources for this subject are exhaustive individual studies and observations of a campus Street Dance at a small private, Christain college in northwestern Pensylvania, whose name is withheld for 'legal' reasons (it makes it sound like a real research paper). Approximately 29.55 minutes of observation occured before the observer had had enough of an earfull of the loud, tuneless music and congested crowds, after which he (semi-)gracefully extracted himself from the grounds and walked at a respectable pace (interpret: fled) from the scene of noise and confusion to the relative safety and comfort of the dorm. The purpose of this paper is to state the kind of strange occurances that college dances have become.
The music at such functions shall be the first point of this exploration. To an uninitiated listener, the type of music at such events can not be determined. A mixure of noises similar to a large group of small children, chimpanzees and other monkeys banging on a sizable assortment of percussion instruments intermixed with random chords of guitars and bases thrown in for good measure, and overlaid with a voice that does not seem to be speaking any known or even unknown toungue would be difficult to classify as music. Nevertheless, although variations existed in the noise, all of the 'music' played seemed to have the same tuneless qualities of heavy base, percussion, and random voices.
The people at the event are the most interesting study. At least four different 'classes' of attendees can frequent a particular event. Foremost and most easy to differentiate from the others are the 'Dancers.' These are the people grouped around the stage yelling, screaming, 'dancing,' and generally making fools of themselves as most of us do from time to time. Thier location gives the source of another alias: 'groupies.' The second group is the 'Wannabe Groupies.' These are the people who are also grouped around the stage, but do not seem to be enjoying themselves as the 'Groupies' are. These generally do not join in the dancing often, and when they do, they are unenthusiastic and appear to be moving merely to mimic the convulsions of thier friends around them. Thirdly, 'Talkers' abound at the standard college dance, along with all of the other college events. Congregating in clumps throughout the procedings, 'Talkers' spend thier time in conversing with friends, sweethearts, enemies, and complete strangers alike with perfect form, and varied conversation that cannot be understood because of the noise of the music and voices of the dancers. Fourth are the 'walkers.' These wander aimlessly throughout the crowd of people, sampling food, wearing strained and forced smiles of enjoyment, or even no smile at all. 'Walkers' do not feel as if they belong at such an event - the music is loud, the people louder, and feel as if all of thier friends were either smarter then they in not attending, or are actually having fun at a dance that seems completely boring. These four groups appear in decreasing percentages, i.e., there are more 'dancers' then 'wannabe groupies,' and so on.
An observation of the dancing in such groups results in interesting conclusions. First, that depending on the breadth of your definition of 'Dancing,' the movements of the 'dancers' in the group might not even be interpreted as dancing. Granting the point that the 'dancers' are actually dancing for the sake of simplicity of terms, the dancing itself must then be analyzed. The standard dance that is performed at a standard even is both complex and simple. First, group the maximum number of people as into as small an area as possible. At the control occasion, an estimated 1300 dancers and wannabe groupies were centered around the stage. This estimate resulted from a simple calculation concerning the area of a circle and an estimate of how many square feet of pavement each person used. The crowd formed a rough half-circle around the stage with a radius of approximately 30 ft. Using the mathematical formula for the area of a circle and dividing it in half, an equasion results similar to the diagram on the left. Needless to say, this is a lot of people in a small area - very conducive to group dancing. The dancing itself is very simple to learn - in fact, there is nothing to learn - one must only come to disregard embarrasment at ones own strange behavior. First - watch a video of or visualize someone having a seizure while standing up. Then attempt to duplicate their motions in time to music. After this has been perfected, begin to add random jerks and swings of your various limbs and digits. Occasionally (emphasizing random movements and timing) combine with jumps, bouncing, rolling and swaying about the hips, and waving hands in air. The most important part of this form of group dancing is that eveyone must attempt to duplicate the actions of their neighbors, while at the same time look completely different from everyone else in the group. Even without any dancing experience whatsoever, an attendee can look like an expert (mainly because there are no standards to determine expert status) in seconds with this approach.
This paper is not meant to show that such dances as the one discussed here are in any way bad, undesirable, or something to completely enjoy. Quite possibly, everyone besides the author enjoyed the event greatly. The point of this piece is to raise humorous thoughts about the subject.

Jeremy Turpin