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Airband 2003
By Adam Petty
Features Editor
FILE PHOTO
'Disco Nights, featuring Foxy Cleopatra' dances the night away before a crowd of thousands.
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[ special Airband 2003 photo coverage ]
Last Friday night during Homecoming week, Calvin students both past and present attended one of the college’s most popular traditions. Airband has become one of the most recognizable and anticipated events in the Calvin calendar, and this year was no different.
Students were lined up outside of the Fieldhouse more than an hour and a half before the show started, and the building was filled close to its capacity as in past years.
However, certain students were disappointed with this year’s Airband program.
“Everything seemed a bit tired,” said sophomore Jonathan Henshaw. “It wasn’t as entertaining as it has been in years before.”
“It wasn’t as exciting as people said it would be,” said freshman Rebekah Kent. “It didn’t measure up to the way the upperclassmen described it. But there was a lot of talent, at least as far as dancing.”
Airband has gotten a reputation for starting off the show with an elaborate opening. This year was no different. After the lights went down in the Fieldhouse and students started cheering, a film clip familiar to many came on the video screens. It was the opening from the Disney film “The Lion King,” but with a slight alteration. Over the face of the young lion Simba was superimposed the face of Calvin College President Gaylen Byker.
“I did think ‘The Lion King’ opening was funny,” said freshman Grace Boomsma.
After that came a version of MTV’s “The Real World,” adapted for a Calvin audience. For this video, President Gaylen Byker, Chaplain Dale Cooper and Vice President for Student Life Shirley Hoogstra were sharing a house with a group of students living off-campus. Byker was shown playing Ping-Pong, Cooper stole his roommate's food, and, in a close-up, Hoogstra was shown ogling movie star Brad Pitt. (For more on the story behind this video, read the other article in this section.)
The first act of the night was titled “Snoop Dogg and the Seven Dwarfs,” which featured a dancer wearing a Snoopy costume, seven dwarfs dancing to rap music and a male student dressed in drag as Snow White. This was performed by members of the Calvin Improv team, which could account for the act's lighthearted feel. Some students found this act to be their favorite.
“I was disappointed that the dwarfs didn’t win,” said junior Matt Hall.
“The other acts took themselves too seriously,” said Henshaw. “There was less satire in the live performances, barring the dwarfs act, which was good.”
After the dwarfs act came one titled “Disco Knights featuring Foxy Cleopatra,” a s themed performance that took its cue from the film “Austin Powers in Goldmember.”
“I really liked the disco dance,” said Boomsma.
“I actually wanted the disco one to win,” said Kent.
The video preceding the performance showed Foxy Cleopatra rescuing the dog Bess from Dr. Unholy. The part of Dr. Unholy was played by Campus Safety Patrol Supervisor Douglas Coin.
However, some of the students thought some of the videos this year were confusing and had too little to do with the dances themselves.
“The videos last year were better,” said sophomore Jona Francisque. “The ones last year summarized the dances better.”
Another video was unpopular with some students as well. The one in question featured Martin Luther and John Calvin as opposing rappers trying to best each other in a contest. The audience was rather quiet during this clip, and the silence was most noticeable when the one of the reformers used a vulgarity,
“I thought the rap video with Luther and Calvin was inappropriate,” said Boomsma.
“I didn’t like the song,” said Kent. “I thought the language was inappropriate, and it wasn’t my style of music.”
After the Disco Knights came an act titled “Walk this Way.” This performance was based on a music video featuring the rap group Run-DMC and rock band Aerosmith. One of the founding members of Run-DMC, Jam Master Jay, was killed last year, and a memorial photograph shown on the video screens dedicated the performance to Jay’s memory.
Next came the act that would eventually go on to win Airband 2003. Titled “J*Walk,” it was a medley of several popular songs. The whole performance actually took its structure from one of the central tenets of Reformed theology, with the N*Sync section being introduced as creation, Britney Spears as the fall, and Justin Timberlake as redemption. The video featured the cast of the performance sitting in a classroom, passing notes to each other while ignoring the basic beliefs of the Christian Reformed tradition as explained by Professor Richard Whitekettle of the religion department.
“Rydell High, Class of 2003” was the title of the fifth and final act, a smaller amount than in Airbands past. Set to the music of the musical “Grease” and placed in a contemporary setting, it also featured the largest cast of any act during the evening, surpassing the Disco Knights by one dancer.
“I liked the Rydell High act a lot,” said Kent.
Other than the lip-sync performances, notable Airband events included the video parodying the Fox television show “Cops,” which featured the well-known Airband character Campus Safety Officer Rizzo on his final patrol. The student who played Officer Rizzo, senior Brian Risselada, is graduating this year and so is unable to return in the future. However, rather than retire quietly, Officer Rizzo met a more unfortunate end.
On his final round of one of the dorms, he told a student to leave a room because open-house hours were over. Rather than comply, the student pulled a gun on Officer Rizzo and shot him multiple times. The special effects used to show Rizzo getting shot were actually quite detailed.
“I was happy to see Rizzo die,” said Hall. “A bit of a cheer went up in the Fieldhouse when he got shot.”
After he died, Rizzo arrived in heaven, where he proceeded to arrest John Calvin for the ingestion of an illegal substance.
One of the final videos of the performance featured one of the famous Red Balls in a cameo. This video was a Calvin parody of the film “The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring,” with the new Calvin’s Crossing standing in for the bridge upon which the wizard Gandalf fought a large monster.
Even while saying that there were successes at this year’s Airband, junior Erin Fields thought there were areas for improvement.
“They took the same jokes that they’ve used before,” said Fields. “It was sort of like Dance Guild, but with videos. It used to be that the point of Airband was to have fun, but now people take themselves so seriously that they’re not necessarily having fun anymore.”
Still, Airband impressed freshman Boomsma enough to look forward to the next performance.
“I would go again next year,” she said. “It was fun.”
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