150 Dartmouth Men Dressed in Tuxedoes
What have you got if you take 150 Dartmouth men dressed in tuxedoes, pair them with an equal number of Dartmouth women attired in long dresses, and put them in the same room with a 19-piece Big Band orchestra? It's not a post-fiftieth reunion or a picture from a pre-war Aegis.
What you've got is the Class of 1974 and their Senior Party, held in Alumni Hall on moon-lit Saturday night, May 18, gliding along (or faking it) to the satin sounds of the Harvard Jazz Band.
After a season of mixed-up politics and equally unpredictable weather, non-sequitur in Hanover dictated that streaking, wherein one bares all in a dramatic demonstration of personal freedom, give way to the complete cover-up, a formal dance recalling the more elegant days of Senior Proms past. Renewed after decades of benign neglect, this year's Senior Party was brought back to life by the Class of 1974 to have some fun and get the class together before graduation. With an eye to she Dartmouth of years past, the party theme became "Lest Old Traditions Fail."
Guests of the seniors, faculty, and members of the administration, plied the floor with some familiarity to established terpsichorean coordination, as did the pretty co-eds. But choreographed grace is not necessarily innate for many of those who became socially aware while Chubby Checker was "twisting the night away." Although no one cared much, there kerned a surplus of left feet on the trickier numbers, while more than one lady led her partner through a fast fox trot or challenging cha-cha, crediting fathers and older mothers with some cursory introduction to ballroom techniques. But no one had trouble on the slower numbers, as clinch-dancing doesn't seem to. have changed much regardless of music.
The band and the party rocked and wailed until the wee hours. In a farewell gesture of Ivy camaraderie, the assembled crowed waited patiently as the departing band members delivered a chorus of "10,000 Men of Harvard," and then let loose under the leadership of Dean Carroll Brewster a cascade of Dartmouth songs. Arm-in-arm the senior partygoers belted out verse after verse of "Men of Dartmouth," Eleazar Wheelock," "Glory to Dartmouth, 'Dartmouth's in Town Again," and "As the Backs go Tearing by" for a truly memorable finale to a grand evening. "Lest old traditions fail" . . . not much chance.
