Title: Winter Tour Group Discussion
General Information about Item:
- Customary Folklore: Ritual, Tradition
- English
- USA
- Informant Data:
- Tara Joshi ’18
- Age: 21
- Hometown: Los Angeles, CA
- Joined Dodecs Freshman Fall
- Current President
Contextual Data:
- Social Context
All members of the Dodecaphonics who participate in the winter break tour, participate in this ritual. All members are encouraged to go on the tour and every year almost every member goes. This ritual happens on one night of the tour and began 2 years ago. A previous President, Emma PeConga, created the ritual and it has stuck. The informant first participated in the ritual when it started two years ago.
- Cultural Context
Giving each member of the group 15 minutes to talk about anything they want, and share their feelings helps group members get to know each other on a deeper level. This reflects the culture of the Dodecaphonics greatly. The Dodecaphonics think of themselves almost as a second family, and this ritual helps to strengthen the familial bonds that exist on the team.
Item:
Every winter break, the Dodecaphonics go on a tour and sing in different places. The tour lasts for 10 days. During the tour, group members become much closer as they spend all of their time together. One night of the tour, all of the group members sit in a room together. One by one, each person has 15 minutes to talk about whatever they want, and anything said is confidential.
Associated file (a video, audio, or image file):
Transcript
“I think one thing since I joined the group, we started doing was over Tours — we do a tour over every Winter break and its the time where we really get to each other, especially with the new members because we’re spending every day together for like 10 days. And I think we started doing about 2 years ago, one night sitting in a room together all of us. We go around, everyone gets 15 minutes to talk about whatever they want. And it’s just a really nice time to trust each other and have complete honesty. Everything in that space is completely confidential, and you learn so much about people and how they think and what they want to do in the world, and it’s a really really cool experience. It’s one of my favorite things that we’ve introduced as a group. I think it was our president, Emma PeConga at the time who introduced it [2 years ago].”
Informant’s Comments:
According to the informant, this is an incredibly special time for the Dodecaphonics. The stories that are shared really give people a better view of one another and is a great time for the group to bond as a family.
Collector’s Comments:
Moments like these, sharing your thoughts and feelings to a group of people, are almost always incredibly powerful and require a great amount of trust in each other. I can definitely see this time as one where the members of the group can discuss topics beyond anything superficial, and as a result, the group will become very close.
Collector’s Name: Marcus Reid
Compiled/Analyzed by: Alex Chan/Sruthi Pasupuleti
Tags/Keywords:
- Singing
- Acapella
- Discussion
- Tour
- Team
- Bonding