The Winter Garden was buzzing with excitement on First Day as the incoming Class of 2017 got to meet each other as well as current students, who welcomed them to the Booth community. Just as everyone was about to grab lunch and go to class, the crowd in the Winter Garden got a huge surprise… a FLASH MOB!
How were over 100 Boothies able to pull off this flash mob of epic proportions? The Booth Dance Club (BDC) co-chairs organized it all. Norman Wang, Srividya Pandya, and Emily Theis garnered volunteers through word of mouth and the class Facebook pages. Emily explained that once they got a few people involved, “it grew more organically after word started to spread, and more people wanted to be a part of it.” Understanding everyone’s differing levels of commitment and busy schedules, they offered multiple sections with varied amounts of dancing, as well as a flexible practice schedule. How did they keep track of everything? “In true Booth fashion we had an Excel matrix that highlighted what every group was doing throughout different sections of the song … it was very Boothie of us,” Srividya joked.
It was impressive that so many people got involved, but even more so considering that the BDC is one of the newest clubs on campus. The club was only officially approved three weeks before the flash mob! The co-chairs were all passionate about dancing, and after running weekly dance classes for months, they convinced the school that there was enough interest to make the club official. Emily went on to say that the BDC has “created a platform for people that enjoy dancing and learning from their classmates. It doesn’t matter your background or experience level, everyone can have fun with it.”
While we definitely had fun watching and those who participated had fun dancing, I think it also says a lot about the Booth community that so many people were willing to put in the time and effort to learn the dance in order to make First Day a special day. The BDC and the flash mob are representative of the selflessness and pay-it-forward mentality that pervades at Booth and the co-chairs of the BDC expressed this sentiment through the medium they know best, “we were so excited to welcome the new class we organized a flash mob to show them.” And we all thank you for that.
(Also, a big thanks to those who recorded the action and to Eric Jeng for editing this amazing video)
