TSDP revealed!

I was inspired in May by this video:

I really wanted to do something of that flavor, but on a smaller scale. I found the dance first:

OK Go - A Million Ways from OK Go on Vimeo.

I started transcribing the choreography over Memorial Day weekend and trying to think what would be a good venue. The trick was the music. Where could we have music that was already playing that we could start dancing? Eventually it came to me: the auction! Every year The Emerson School has an auction in the fall. There is usually music playing in the background. It would be a small matter to have certain music playing at a certain time and just, surprise, certain people to begin dancing.

Matt was in from the beginning, that goes without saying. I sent an email for recruitment and I started with work people first. My thinking was that if I could get people from work they would already be familiar with the auction (and to the people at the auction.) Plus, being teachers, thier availability for summer rehearsal was much greater than the average American. The email said something to the effect of: "secret dance project to rehearse over the summer performance in the fall. If you are in, email me and I'll tell you more details."

Jo and Julie said yes immediately. So we began our rehearsals for the TSDP (Top Secret Dance Project.) We rehearsed every Friday after school for the remaining weeks of school and then every Friday for an hour during the summer. The first 36 counts were a killer to learn. There was disagreement (mostly between Matt and I) about various things. Then, suddenly, one day in late August we finished! We danced the whole thing straight through. That gave us all of September and October to firm things up. We brought a video camera to rehearsal and taped ourselves, so we could see what needed improvement. We started practicing off site at Edge Fitness so we could clean things up without detection from the rest of the school staff. We kept it a big, big secret. The only people who knew were us, the auction chair and the music guy. Everyone else knew something was going on, but not what.

The night of the auction we all arrived in our normal auction finery. I made distracted conversation with a variety of people for two hours, not listening to any of them. At 8:00 we snuck away and changed into our outfits. We did a tiny walk through in the hallway tucked away from the hubbub of the auction. Then we wandered out individually and stationed ourselves around the hall. The music started and:

http://vimeo.com/7624697

SSDP- A Million Ways from Joshin Yamada on Vimeo.

It was a great time.