By: Ale Hedlund
During one of our first class meetings, Xela brought up that there was one show that was interested in having people come and dance in it. I was immediately interested, but apprehensive—what exactly did “dancing” entail?
On Sunday, I went to the Oklahoma students flat with Briana to find out. There, the two of us and the Oklahoma students had a workshop with Mauro Paccagnella, one of the two stars of the show “Happy Hour”, a physical theatrical and dance show. We spent most of the hour discussing the show. He explained his friendship with Alessandro Bernardeschi and how they had come up with the show together from memories of their early years in Italy and their shared experiences of getting older. What they needed from us, he explained, were enthusiastic people who would help to get the audience involved at one point in their show. About 2/3rds of the way through, Mauro and Alessandro invite the audience to come down from their seats and express themselves to music through movement, and they wanted to make sure that people would come down.
I signed up to see the show on Thursday. It was held in the Summerhall Dissection Room, which was a really cool space that I assume was once a lecture room for medical students. The show itself was very unique. I don’t know if I completely understood everything, but despite that, I thought it was amazing. Mauro and Alessandro were incredible with the way they moved and danced. It was fascinating.
The whole audience was so enthralled by the performance that by the time they invited the audience down, I didn’t need to start it off because a guy in the back came straight down. I still went down, of course, along with about seven others. Mauro signaled for the music to turn on and we danced. It was so much fun! It’s very freeing to just let yourself go and dance. This was truly an incredible opportunity that I did not want to miss out on.
During one of our first class meetings, Xela brought up that there was one show that was interested in having people come and dance in it. I was immediately interested, but apprehensive—what exactly did “dancing” entail?
On Sunday, I went to the Oklahoma students flat with Briana to find out. There, the two of us and the Oklahoma students had a workshop with Mauro Paccagnella, one of the two stars of the show “Happy Hour”, a physical theatrical and dance show. We spent most of the hour discussing the show. He explained his friendship with Alessandro Bernardeschi and how they had come up with the show together from memories of their early years in Italy and their shared experiences of getting older. What they needed from us, he explained, were enthusiastic people who would help to get the audience involved at one point in their show. About 2/3rds of the way through, Mauro and Alessandro invite the audience to come down from their seats and express themselves to music through movement, and they wanted to make sure that people would come down.
I signed up to see the show on Thursday. It was held in the Summerhall Dissection Room, which was a really cool space that I assume was once a lecture room for medical students. The show itself was very unique. I don’t know if I completely understood everything, but despite that, I thought it was amazing. Mauro and Alessandro were incredible with the way they moved and danced. It was fascinating.
The whole audience was so enthralled by the performance that by the time they invited the audience down, I didn’t need to start it off because a guy in the back came straight down. I still went down, of course, along with about seven others. Mauro signaled for the music to turn on and we danced. It was so much fun! It’s very freeing to just let yourself go and dance. This was truly an incredible opportunity that I did not want to miss out on.
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