Harvest Hopes Materialize for Some- Disappoint Others

By: Fleur Strik

Last Saturday was the night we’d been excited about for weeks, Harvest! The theme of the dance was “Hometown Harvest” and was held at Mount Whitney High School. The quality of the dance is determined by several different factors. A thing that can never be missing from the dance is music. It sets the mood and is a big factor if a dance is successful or not. Another factor is the decor; whether or not it is fitting to the theme. What also affects the dance a lot is the activities beforehand; if students come together beforehand, it sets an exciting and cheerful vibe. Students always have an expectation of how Harvest is going to be and If this isn’t according to the students’ wishes it could become a very awkward dance. Did Harvest live up to the expectations? Was it a successful dance? Most importantly, did the High Schoolers have fun?

Harvest is so enjoyable because of the vibe. The majority of the students either go to the dance in groups of friends or go with friends that all have dates. Carson Henry (20’) said, “I went in a group of six that had dates within. Some were couples, some were just friends”. Everyone gets ready and excited by taking pictures with them and then going to dinner. This is the reason why everyone came to the dance around 9:00 pm, making it a little awkward in the beginning, according to Chase Beutler (21’). After a while everyone gets more comfortable and starts to dance more, which resulted in crowd surfing near the end. Keira Zachary (23’) recalls, “There was a good vibe at Harvest. Everyone seemed included.”

The theme was also a success in most was. Zachary said, “I thought the theme was pretty cool and well planned out.” Most people shared that opinion, like Ella Howell (22’), who said that the dance was decorated beautifully and according to the theme. Some however, strongly disagreed and didn’t like the theme Hometown. Beutler argued that, “They should’ve made a more clear theme of what we were supposed to wear instead of just hometown because there is a lot of variation in what we could’ve worn for Hometown”. A lot of people agreed with him about the fact that they didn’t know how to dress according to the theme.

Mount Whitney High School arranged the music at Harvest. This, however, wasn’t what the high schoolers expected, as it didn’t live up to their hopes and expectations. Henry said, “I liked the music but a couple more slow songs would have been cool.” Others agreed to this, telling us that there was no variety in slow and fun songs. Beutler stated, “It was a lot of mumble rap, the music you couldn’t really dance to. It music without a good rhythm.” Many, like Zachary, thought the music fine, they just wished it would’ve been a different genre. Not only was the genre not what the teens had wanted, but the volume also wasn’t the desired level either. Howell said, “The music wasn’t always loud enough.”

The expectations of Redwood High school students weren’t always fully reached, but despite that, they had a lot of fun. The dance was generally as expected and a lot of great memories have been made. Henry told the Gigantea, “It was better than expected, I haven’t had a lot of dance experience but this was an amazing experience and it was great to spend time with everyone.” Harvest was a great success despite some flaws, and a lot of students can’t wait for the next dance, and can’t wait for Harvest next year.