The centipede dance

The centipede dance 

In July of 2016 my worst nightmare came to life — dancing.

Not just any dancing but dancing in front of 200 of my peers on top of a table in the dining hall of a summer camp in Missouri.

And how I got there? I won bingo. Actually, I tied bingo.

On a rainy day in Branson, Missouri, when we were forced to play bingo in the dining hall instead of wake-surfing on Table Rock Lake, I yelled bingo at the same time as another girl a few tables down from me.

And of course the tie breaker was a dance-off.

With the entire camp watching, the girl – her name was Macy – and I stepped up on our respective tables as Katy Perry started blaring from the speakers.

Now I don’t know if Macy was as nervous as I was, but she sure didn’t look like it. She definitely knew what she was doing, busting out all kinds of moves and even doing the worm to cap off her performance.

Me, on the other hand, well, I stuck to what I knew, and the only two dance moves I really knew were the sprinkler and flossing. So, with 400 eyeballs staring straight at me, I spent the longest sixty seconds of my life switching between half-hearted, embarrassed attempts at the sprinkler and flossing. Eventually, my face a bright, tomato-red, I stopped dancing and just watched Macy as the crowd began chanting her name.

When the music finally stopped, I hopped down off that table as fast as I possibly could and tried laughing off my total and complete embarrassment. My cabin mates did their best to encourage me, and the double-stuffed oreos I received as my second-place prize were delicious, but my friends’ words were empty to me in that moment. I was humiliated and wished right then that I was anywhere but in that dining hall in Branson, Missouri.

Later that week, I got my shot at redemption, a chance to reclaim my dignity on the dance floor. But this time instead of busting a move I just invented my own.

With my cabin responsible for putting on a performance at the flag-raising ceremony one morning – again, in front of the whole camp – I had the perfect idea. Normally, whenever it was a cabin’s turn to entertain everyone at flag, they would perform a lip sync or even create camp-themed lyrics to go with a popular song’s melody.

But I wanted to introduce a new dance move of my own creation to accompany a funny song I had heard earlier that summer: “The Centipede.” The song starts with a cheesy 30 seconds of monologue about centipedes, slowly builds in volume and then at the massive bass drop we would cross our legs, cross our arms above our heads and jump up and down, simulating, to the best of our ability, the dance of a centipede.

And it went viral! As soon as we started dancing at flag the next morning, everyone in the crowd began to join in. Campers. Counselors. Staff. Everyone.

At lunch that day, someone requested it to be played on the speakers, and everyone got up from their tables to dance. Pretty soon, it was being played at every meal, at every party. Everyone wanted a piece of the newest craze – the Centipede Dance.

And it didn’t stop there. Even after I left camp, I heard from some friends that the Centipede Dance continued to surge the rest of the summer.

And it still astounds me to this day, but, the next summer, a full year after I had invented the Centipede Dance, it was still a staple at that camp. Even this past summer, despite the complications caused by COVID-19, one can still find a bunch of teenagers doing the Centipede Dance in Branson, Missouri.

So, all goofiness aside, I learned that summer, that no matter my circumstances, regardless of whether or not I just humiliated myself in a dance-off, I can always leave a mark, leave a legacy.

This coming year, I know that the circumstances aren’t ideal. Because of COVID-19, daily life on campus looks very different. We have to wear masks, social distance and juggle between remote and on-campus learning, but that doesn’t have to stop us from leaving a mark.

Just like how I invented the Centipede Dance, silly as it was, I am challenging myself to leave a mark on the St. Mark’s community this year, and I encourage my fellow seniors and all Marksmen to do the same . . . even if it takes another game of bingo.