Title: The Medley
General Information about Item:
- Customary Folklore: Dance, Tradition, Song
- Language: English
- Country where Item is from: USA
Informant Data:
Ethan Isaacson lives in Lexington, Massachusetts, and is currently a student at Dartmouth in the class of 2018. He was born on January 5th, 1996, and is studying chemistry and physics. He went on freshman trips when he was an incoming freshman, was a trip leader his sophomore year, and was on Hanover Croo, known as HCroo, this past fall, so has seen many different aspects of the trips program.
Leigh Steinberg was born and raised in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and was born on April 19, 1996. She is a student at Dartmouth in the class of 2018 and is a history major and plans on going into consulting after graduation. She was a trip leader before her sophomore year of college and was on Hanover Croo, known as HCroo, this past fall.
Contextual Data:
The Medley is taught first by HCroo and then by Lodj Croo again to the trippees. It is the first thing that happens on trips, as before trippees even meet people on their trips or their trip leaders, they do the medley, making it a defining moment in their Dartmouth careers. It is meant to build bonds and reduce the awkwardness.
Item:
One of the most iconic parts of trips is the dances to certain songs. The playlist of songs, known as the medley, all have choreographed line dances that HCroo and Lodj Croo members teach the incoming freshman each year. The playlist changes slightly every year, but there are some permanent fixtures like Everytime we Touch, I’m on a Roll, and Blame it on the Boogie. However, there are some songs that only are in the medley for a year, like Waka Waka and September. The dances really help freshman overcome the awkwardness, and by the time trips ends, people get very into the dances.
Transcript of Informant Interview:
So we call it the medley. So it’s like 4 or 5 per year, some of them are permanent fixtures, some of them rotate. They are pop songs that most people know with simple dances that we can easily teach people. Line dances. Um that’s like pretty much it. It’s like very much a cornerstone of trips culture. I would say especially Everytime we Touch, which is the main one. It’s a fun way to break down barriers, and I don’t know, as an HCrooling, it is cool because we got to see them do the dances at three different points. So they did them like the first afternoon when they got to the lawn. Some of them were super receptive, some of them, like section B for us, we couldn’t get a single one to do them. It was brutal. But then we also see them dance again later that night after the safety show. And even in those like 8 hours between those two, they are so much more comfortable dancing in Sarner Underground with us after we have performed the Safety Show and everyone gets really into it. And we also get to see them when they get back from the Lodj, they may or may not be sick of it, but they definitely participated and were happy to do it one more time, so it’s kind of cool we get to see them, like the uh it’s like a proxy to see how they are feeling about trips and Dartmouth at that time. And to see them getting more comfortable and enjoying them is cool.
The songs this year, the permanent ones were Everytime We Touch, which we learned cuz we crashed a wedding was, is more recent than we think, maybe from 2011. So its super recent. And then Blame it on the Boogie by the Jackson 5 is a permanent one. Yeah that’s permanent. So like sunshine moonlight good times. Um, another recent one is I’m on a Roll. My ex wants sex tonight, we pulled that line out. And um Salty Dog Rag, those are the four.
Every year, the directorate makes a new one, but these have a varying degree of stickiness. For example, one year it was Waka Waka, but I think that got cut out. One year it was Shut up and Dance, but that year, the Lodj captains for our year, made that, so they did it at the Lodj but we didn’t because no one on our croo knew it. And then September was this year and it was not a well thought out dance so we did not have people do it.
Informant’s Comments:
- They said that after a few days of doing the dances multiple times, they got sick of them quite quickly.
Collector’s Comments:
- Not everybody knows that it is called the medley, as some people just know them as the trips songs and dances
Collector’s Name: Henry Senkfor
Tags/Keywords:
- Medley, Everytime we Touch, DOC, trips, dance, tradition