Title: Dinner/Show at the Lodj

General Information about Item:

• Customary Folklore: Performance (singing and dancing) AND Material Folklore: the dinner

• Language: English

• Country: United States

Informant #1 Data:

• The informant is a Dartmouth ’21 male. He went on a first-year trip in September 2017; the trip was canoeing.

Informant #2 Data:

• The informant is a Dartmouth ’18 male. He went on a first-year trip in September 2014 and was a member of Lodj Croo in September 2017.

Contextual Data:

• Social Context
  • All trips have come back together for one final day/night at the Lodj
  • The trippees are really excited for a real meal, sitting at a table after 4 days camping in the wilderness
  • All trips are sitting together in a huge dining hall ready to eat a dinner together

• Cultural Context
  • The meal itself is prepared by other Dartmouth students (Lodj Croo). They have worked hard to prepare it to offer the trippees a reward after several days in the wilderness
  • The show offers entertainment for the exhausted trippees. Gives them something to just watch and take in, in order to rest and be free of actually socializing during the meal
  • The Croo putting on the show tries very hard to act whacky and embarrass themselves to make all the trippees feel more comfortable

Item:

• Dinner show at the Lodj: On the last night of trips, all the trips come back together at the Lodj after 4 days in the wilderness. All trippees are exhausted, and they sit down for a big meal together, which is cooked by the Lodj Croo (made up of upperclassmen students). During the meal, the Lodj Croo not only prepares and serves it, but the Croo also puts on a show and sings and dances around the tables while the trippees enjoy a four-course meal.

Transcript of Informant #1 Interview:

“The dinner show at the Lodge was awesome. We basically sat down after a lot of activities during the day for this meal at the Lodge, and coming from the canoeing trip, it was going to be the first good meal that we had had in a while; we had had a lot of Annie’s mac & cheese nights where we were just scraping that out of bowls. Then it turned out to be this four-course meal, and it was amazing, and it was filled with songs, and they were singing these French songs that were really cool.”

Informant #1’s Comments:

• Seeing the Lodj Croo singing and dancing around, the dinner table really let him see how fun and cool Dartmouth students were.

Collector’s Comments:

• Informant #1 was able to give a detailed account of the experience that he had on trips.

Collector’s Name: Madison DeRose

Transcript of Informant #2 Interview:

“There’s a dinner show that’s a surprise for students, so they come into the Lodge. There’s a blackout, and the croo ends up popping out and doing a whole dinner show. Every course, there’s a song. This year, we were at the skiway, and because that was important to us, we wanted to continue that tradition. So we ended up having the croolings “on strike” basically and the Lodj croo captains were looking for the croolings during the meals to serve the food and ended up running through the windows and scaring the new trippees and performing for them. Other things we do, during the dinner show, during the final song, the dessert song, all the croolings go and pie or ice cream trip leaders, and trip leaders.”

Informant #2’s Comments:

• “When trippees come back as trip leaders, some of them remember it, some don’t. So it’s really a surprise every year.”

Collector’s Comments:

• Informant #2 was part of the dinner show and really enjoyed his experience.

Collector’s Name: Roshni Chandwani

Tags/Keywords:

• Customary Folklore, Material Folklore, Dinner, Show, Fun, Food