30th WINTER CARNIVAL A BRILLIANT SUCCESS
THE HOLDING of the 30th Annual Winter Carnival on February 9 and 10 was more than a birthday celebration. It was, to the Outing Club, to Dartmouth, and to the skiing world, the marking down of a great event in the book of the thoroughly tried and proven.
What Fred Harris did in 1910 has been told many a time; what has happened at each successive Carnival has appeared in more or less garbled fashion in news-reels, newspapers, movies, and magazine articles. And, unfortunately, the result has been that Carnival appears to most people to be an annually recurring event, rather than an expression of the constant development and maturing of the Dartmouth Outing Club.
There is no doubt that Carnival is now a big business. The Committee starts functioning every year in May, the finances run up past $9,000, the total personnel of workers and administrative assistants exceeds 150. Often, in the last three or four years, the question has been raised as to whether or not Carnival is too big. That is still an unanswerable problem; for the present, as long as the undergraduate body does not kick about the size of Carnival, Carnival will continue on the same mammoth scale. However, the fact that the problem does come up now and again means that it must still be given consideration. Perhaps, after a really searching study (which has not yet been made) future college generations, future Carnival Committees will find the necessary resolution.
Carnival always seems hectic, always seems glamorous and modern and shiny; yet there is a constant undercurrent of the tradition of the Dartmouth Outing Club running through each of the yearly events. Some day I hope that a real Outing Clubber will be interested enough in Carnival to find and write its history. Maybe that's a preliminary step to any adjustments that may be needed in Carnival's size or aspect. And certainly, a realization of that history—a thirty-year history of skiing, of skating, of mardi-gras-on-ice—is necessary to an understanding of Dartmouth's winter sports annual in terms of a tradition of Dartmouth out-of-doors.
WINTER SPORTS HIGHLIGHTS
The 30th Carnival maintained skiing and skating as its highlights. The winter sports events were emphasized as the important aspect of Carnival. But to the guests in fraternity houses, to many a newspaper reader in the East, Carnival meant Outdoor Evening and the campus snow sculpture and the wee-hour dances. That's the glitter of Carnival.
And this year the glitter glittered as well as ever—in some places, even more brilliantly. Last year's feature sculpture of Eleazar retains the record for size. But Nat Sample's rendition of Kwanupakwa, The Star Shooter, gave the 1940 Carnival an artistic edge on things. Depicting an Indian shooting straight into the sky, the statue was remarkable for its movement and rhythm, for the expressive simplicity of its lines. Kwanupakwa served as the theme center for the whole Carnival—for the fraternity and dorm sculptures, and for the Outdoor Evening show script.
Friday night of Carnival the mardi-gras aspect reached its height. Starting at the campus statue with a broadcast of Fred Waring's glee club, the crowd paraded down Rope Ferry Road through the snow gate to the Outdoor Evening Set. There, Gerry Schnitzer, playing Eleazar, was the master-of-ceremonies for a revue of skating and skiing all kaleidoscoped with bright lights and sky-rockets and the birthday cake set.
The shows of the past four years have all been strictly in the musical comedyrevue tradition, but without any continuity save that provided by the announcer. This year, the script tracing the development of Carnival divided the show into four acts—one for each decade year. The drawing of each act into the scheme of the whole program proved more than successful; the possibilities for change and improvement in scripts opens up endless possibilities for future Outdoor Evenings.
One of the most interesting features in this year's program was the skating act by the Reverend Mr. Fisk and his towniebarn dancers. With remarkable precision and timing, the group of eight couples carried off a Virginia Reel and a Danish Reel on the artificial pond such as has seldom been seen on any square dance floor.
Eleanor Wilson and Eleanor O'Meara each did solo skating acts which held the crowd in delighted suspense; but the Caley Sisters carried off the pond honors with a military duet that matched any team known for perfection and balance.
As always, the skiing acts were effective and exciting. The Hanover Ski Kids schussed and turned and jumped like veterans under the guidance of Jack Durrance. The ski team members burlesqued the early days, of skiing in the first part of the program, and provided a flashy finish just before rec hill went ablaze with fireworks.
BROOKLYN GIRL QUEEN
But the crowd waited for, and finally received, the prize package they were waiting for all evening in the announcement of the 1940 Queen of Winter Carnival. Marjorie Jean Carlin, from Brooklyn and Georgian Court College, was this year's ruler over the Dartmouth campus. Presented in a galaxy of flood and spot lights with "Pomp and Circumstance" heralding her entry, Miss Carlin took her domain in hand and charmed the undergraduates and guests.
The Queens and Outdoor Evening Shows and feature sculptures still make Carnival the scintillating rhinestone of winter sports events in the country. The oldest and still the most glamorous of Carnivals, Dartmouth's winter week-end maintains its own standard of excitement and dash.
Nineteen hundred and forty may bring in other things besides a new decade. It may be as much of a change in college life as the thirties were from the twenties. And it may mean a redefinition, a better understanding for Dartmouth of what Carnival is, and what Carnival means. It may mean a realization of an unusual thirty years when the Outing Club grew from a struggling infant to its present well-knit, well-developed body. Carnival has come, with the D.O.C. to middle age. If nothing more, it's now able to run for the Senate.
