A curious pedestrian in Schine Atrium had one question to ask when she saw the small clusters of people in matching shirts spread out in Schine Student Center’s atrium.

‘Why is everyone wearing red?’

The crimson flash mob kicked off at exactly 12:23 p.m. on Tuesday, as promised by Facebook invites and tweets. Members of First Year Players, clad in red T-shirts, began swing dancing to the song ‘C’mon Everybody’ from the Elvis Presley-inspired musical ‘All Shook Up.’

First Year Players is a student-run musical theater organization on campus that gives freshmen and transfer students a chance to perform in a spring musical. Flash mobs are old hat for the members of the theater group: They’ve done several in the past to promote their upcoming shows.

In their flash mob-style dance, the First Year Players started out slowly. First, only males danced. Soon after, their female counterparts took the floor. Before long, everyone was locked in swing mode. The entire atrium was filled with dancers and staring onlookers.

The turnout was expected to be somewhere around 276, according the event’s Facebook page, but only about 60 students outside of the drama group showed up. The event ended with an announcement inviting students to a dance workshop that was held Tuesday night.

Although many students did not see the performance, some students present seemed to be persuaded to attend the workshop. ‘I was thinking about going to the workshop tonight, but now I’m definitely going,’ said Allie Villa, a freshman broadcast and digital journalism major.

‘We really wanted to get people excited about First Year Players and our various workshops throughout the semester. This year we’re putting on ‘25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee,’ so we’d like people to get excited about that, too,’ said Heather Newkirk, a sophomore music history major who is involved in First Year Players.

’25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee’ is a play that surrounds six middle school students who must compete against each other for a trophy and a coveted $200 prize. A large aspect of this show involves audience members walking on stage and attempting to spell words like ‘syzygy.’

It is not unusual for on-campus organizations to try sparking student interest for recruitment. First Year Players tried generating curiosity through Facebook invitations titled ‘What’s shakin’ in Schine at 12:23pm on Oct. 26?’ Twitter user FlashSU44, who tweeted general messages about the time and place of the event, was even following some students on the social networking site.

Many students admitted they showed up to the Schine event just out of curiosity.

‘I’m not really into theater, and I normally wouldn’t have shown up to an event for this type of thing,’ said Alex Ptachick, a freshman newspaper and online journalism major. ‘But I was just really curious. It was definitely an effective way to get people to show up.’

odibs@syr.edu

A Flash in Time

12:10 p.m.: Arrive at Schine Student Center, full of curiosity.

12:11 p.m.: Make small talk with other students awkwardly waiting around for the ‘secret event’ to begin.

12:13 p.m.: Students begin to move tables and signs out of the middle of Schine Atrium.

12:16 p.m.: Begin to notice an abnormally large number of people wearing red.

12:18 p.m.: ‘Do you have any idea what this is all about?’

12:22 p.m.: A girl in red fumbles with iPod speakers.

12:23 p.m.: Cue music. Dancing breaks loose. 

Published on October 26, 2010 at 12:00 pm