Swan Lake Hysteria

Last night I went on a fieldtrip with the 11th graders at the Academy to see Swan Lake on ice. If you are picturing me sitting around something like an Olympic size rink with characters moving around like Disney on Ice scratch that from your mind. We were headed for the performing arts center in Cape Town. I dressed up a bit because word on the street was that the girls were going all out in getting ready.

When I came up to the school to leave, what I experienced was like nothing I have seen. It was like the excitement of Prom, Homecoming, first day of school, first date, winter formal and your wedding day all rolled into one and multiplied by 3. Picture lines and crowds of kids formed for the girls who are going to walk out dressed up the way you might make a tunnel for your teammates to run through. Then, as each new girl exits the dorm room the screams roar and there is clapping and jumping up and down. It is Swan Lake hysteria. All I can do is laugh uncontrollably because I don’t know what other response to give to such a charged moment.

The girls that aren’t going are fake crying and going up to one another fake consoling one another with, “your day will come”. They are giving hugs to each other and begging for pictures to be taken alone and with poses in front of random cars. And each time a new girl walks down the stairs the crowd starts up again with a strange cross between heckling and kind of like yelling, “damn girl, you look good!” I was equating it in my mind to young girls as crazed fans over a boy band. But even the 14 year old boys morphed into crazed fans of their classmates dressed up for an outing into Cape Town. These kids were giving Raider fans a run for their money in their devotion to cheering their beautifully groomed classmates on.