'Soiree du Soleil' banquet night of the sun

The 2010 spring banquet was a huge success with over 250 people attending. Elaborately dressed Redeemer students in black suits and colourful dresses began filing out of the coach bus at 6:20pm on Friday night. After mingling in a well-decorated foyer and getting pictures taken, people continued into the main dining hall and sat down at assigned tables adorned with beautiful, lit centerpieces. Waiters and waitresses in professional attire carried out fancy dish upon fancy dish. A delicious main course consisting of mashed potato, vegetables, and chicken cordon blue was complimented by an apple-filled crepe for dessert. As this was such a dramatic change from the regular burnt university concoctions, the students lingered over the meal, enjoying the food for as long as possible.
Approximately forty-five minutes later, as coffee was distributed, two women professionally trained by Cirque de Soleil appeared on the dance floor. Wearing flowing garb that gradually diminished into much more meagre clothing, these girls performed interesting balancing and flexibility feats which they incorporated into their dance. Aaron Vedder says, “The girls were a combination of strange and impressive because I have never seen anyone move like that before.” Their dance was certainly entertaining and prompted a variety of responses.
This set the mood for the remainder of the evening as music by DJ Reid opened the floor to the appropriate Redeemer dancing that was described by MCs Matthew Weverink and Amy Peek. A few of the requirements they named included dancing at arm-length distance from your partner as well as positioning your hands appropriately during a slow dance, and the necessary lack of disco dancing throughout the night. Songs like “Time to Pretend”, “Feel It In My Bones”, and “In and Out of Love” were interspersed periodically with slow songs throughout the evening creating a wonderful variety.
A fierce dance-off that took place part way through the night brought many competitors to show off some of their most impressive dance moves. By popular vote of the observers, Matt and Amy walked despondent dancer after despondent dancer off the floor. Claims were made that tears beaded up in the dancers’ eyes as they trudged offstage. Finally, the dance-off culminated with Julia Bokma victoriously finishing with the win. It was clear that the higher notions of pride, love of dance, and challenge led these dancers to compete despite the enticing prize.
The dance continued until midnight with many people still remaining. Eventually, the coach bus arrived and everybody retired for the evening feeling like it was $28 well spent. Martha Anne Maris sums up the general student response saying, “The activities committee did an excellent job planning and decorating. The food was delicious and the dance was quite exhilarating.”

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