Serious and uptight Duke students beware: KAADATT could be dancing around any corner.
Members of Kids All About Dancing All the Time, a new spontaneous dance club, will shimmy, twirl and leap in the most unlikely places—and even you may have to bust a move.
Led by junior Colin Crowe, 12 to 18 club members danced beneath the Bryan Center walkway arch to the beats of Paula Abdul, Justin Timberlake and popular show tunes Wednesday afternoon.
“I would like to take credit for the idea, but it’s not mine,” Crowe said. The club originated at Macalester College in Minnesota last year; since then it has expanded to Harvard University and the North Carolina School of the Arts.
The Macalester, Harvard, NCSA and Duke clubs share three basic rules. First, the leader must always dance in neon yellow fishnet stockings and a white headband painted with the word “KAADATT.” Second, every dance meeting must end with Paul Simon’s “Me and Julio Down by the Schoolyard.” And finally, every member of the group must stop and dance when they see a fire truck with lights on because, as the dancers say, those are the best dance lights.
The group prefers ’80s and ’90s “trash”—as Crowe put it, “whatever’s got a fast beat.” When 5:15 p.m. rolled around Wednesday, “Sweet Home Alabama” reverberated through the arch, and students could hear the music all the way down the walkway.
As sophomore Bradford Morris moonwalked and did the rabbit, he grabbed unsuspecting students on their way to class.
“Sometimes I spin around on them and see if I can get them to dance,” Morris said as he continued to move his feet to the Dirty Dancing theme song, “The Time of My Life.” “It breaks social barriers—a planned moment going against the mold.” Dressed in red plaid pants and a tie-dyed International Delights T-shirt, Morris kicked off his flip-flops before dancing.
Senior Jen Davis requested “Dance with Me” just as juniors Lee Melchionni and Shelden Williams quickly walked through, trying not to provoke the dancers spinning around them. They slipped away unscathed—this time, at least.
Some students stopped and debated whether to walk through the archway, deciding to grin and bear it in order to take the fastest route to the Great Hall and The Loop; others found a different path.
Senior Patrick Winter expressed shock at the dancers. “It’s just random to see people dancing in the middle of the day,” Winter said.
Senior Kirstin Hopkins didn’t think it was so absurd. “I think it’s kind of cool,” she said.
Junior Lea Harrell was walking through the archway when she decided to break it down. “I just like to dance,” she said, introducing herself to KAADATT member Meredith Tenison, also a junior.
Wednesday’s KAADATT dance party ended just as spontaneously as it began. Crowe said she plans to bring the group to a number of locations, including the Marketplace on East Campus to “scare some freshmen.” But she urged people not to wait for the next spontaneous meeting to get involved. “It’s not just about dancing some of the time,” she said, “it’s about dancing all of the time.”
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