Now I see the appeal

As a young and confused high school senior, I came to visit Kalamazoo College during a Visit The Zoo weekend. In my complimentary folder I found my itinerary, my meal tickets and a ticket for something called Frelon. I entered the theater unaware of what to expect from something called Frelon. All I had been told before seeing it was that "It's great!" Whether it was great or not is a matter of personal opinion, but I can factually and accurately tell you what Frelon is. Frelon is Kalamazoo College's student run dance company that performs everything from ballet to hip-hop to salsa to things that I don't think I'd ever be able to pull off. Seeing it for the first time as a slightly terrified prospective student I didn't really understand it. Everyone else seemed so thrilled by it, but all I could think about was if this was the school I wanted to go to. Now as a freshman here, I decided to give Frelon a second chance.

I didn't realize how popular the spring Frelon performance would be because when I got there 45 minutes before the show, the Fine Arts Building was starting to look like a cramped subway car. Due to the chaos of all this, the show was accidentally oversold and people without reserved tickets had to volunteer to give up their seats.

Once the show finally opened and students started rushing the stage donning flat brimmed caps and Nike high tops and began dancing to Ludacris's magnum opus (here's My Chick Bad if you have some free time on your hands) something finally clicked for me. The point of Frelon is not only to entertain yourself with student choreographed dances, but rather the true joy of Frelon is seeing friends and people you know dancing their faces off. As the thirty dances progressed I started to notice tons of friends and classmates on stage displaying a level of enthusiasm and flexibility I didn't know they possessed.

Each dance lasted less than three minutes so if I found a dance boring or, in one case, insufferable due to the song choice, I found comfort in the idea that it would soon be over and possibly replaced by a better dance. And there were many better dances that I enjoyed such as a voguish dance to Clams Casino's She's Hot and a sweet dance to Bath's Hall. Some of my senior friends have told me they've never seen Frelon and don't plan on it. I think that's kind sad seeing as the performance demonstrates the vast interests and talents of Kalamazoo College's student body.