Fear Confrontation: Embarassing Myself

Last night, in an unexpected fear confrontation, my friend Matt and I danced for all of Skidmore to see. We stood on Matt's 3rd floor window seat in Howe hall and danced to Lady Gaga.

Allow me to explain; we are gifted interpretive dancers (not really). While we were studying abroad in London, we developed this habit of dancing in the hallways to Regina Spektor. We didn't care who saw us because it was so fun and our friends usually joined in. For the first time last night, we brought the tradition to Skidmore. What started off as an average interpretive dance session turned into a two person flash mob of sorts. We jumped up onto the window seat, turned off a few lights and opened the windows for everyone to hear. I was unsure about how everyone would take to our fabulous moves, but at least it was dark. People were surprisingly responsive; one guy started dancing with us on the ground below. Then Matt had an idea to make this more interactive. He made two posters of the hashtag #danceonhowe in hopes that people would see us and tweet about us. We wanted a bigger audience, and we got it. We noticed that a few people had told their friends because larger groups would walk by immediately looking up at us (if they didn't, we would scream down to them). People would yell back up to us and dance a little too. Eventually, our friend Brooks came up to see us and joined in. As cheesy as it sounds, it was exciting to make all these people smile.

It wasn't scary after a while, just loads of fun. The degree of anonymity did boost my courage. Seeing as we still don't know many people here on campus, I was nervous that people would recognize us and think we were idiots. It was helpful that our faces weren't too visible, just our silhouettes. Seeing almost everyone that passed by get excited about it made it more bearable too. If no one had thought it was funny, I wouldn't have been so brave.

We had such a good time that we want to make this a weekly activity. On Saturday nights around 9-10, if you happen to be walking through the quad, look up and join us! Also, don't forget to tweet us at #danceonhowe and tell absolutely everyone you know!