Look at me I'm, look at me I'm, look at me I'm dancing!

[venta]

Do you live in Oxford? Do you have a passing familiarity with city centre pubs? Are you free on March 5th? Would you like to give up your entire Saturday for no money?

Some of you may already know this: my sword-dancing team is organising the national, annual rapper competition this year. In Oxford.

Details here.

Extensive experimentation in previous years' competitions has shown that the only way to get a gaggle of sword-dancers from one pub to the next is to put them in the care of a reasonably responsible, reasonably sober human. Said human will then shepherd them lovingly from one pub to the next, making sure everyone gets to the correct place at the correct time.

In fact, it's best to have two of these humans. (You know, one to stay with the body and one to go for help).

My team is quite small, and various of us are doing other things - organising judges, calculating scores, clearing up after breakfast, extracting badgers from dishwashers (don't ask). Accordingly, we find ourselves a little short of humans.

To be a suitable human, you must be:

• able to pass as human


• willing to make a firm commitment to show up in the city centre on March 5th at 10:30 for a briefing, and stick with your gaggle of sword-dancers until about 4ish


• willing to sit through a certain amount of sword-dancing, some of which might be bad


• reasonably responsible


• reasonably sober (even after a day spent in pubs)


• in possession of own sense of direction, and familiar with Oxford


• have own teeth


• lots of teeth

If that sounds unappealing, it is of course possible just to show up in one of the pubs for half an hour and watch the dancing, whilst being as drunken and irresponsible as you please. You're actively encouraged to do that, in fact.

If it does sound appealing to anyone, let me know. There is no remuneration available. There may be the prospect of a hot evening meal and free entrance to the evening showcase performance, I'm not 100% sure on the details as yet. The showcase does, of course, contain more sword dancing so you might be totally sick of the stuff by then anyway.

Comments

[ebee.livejournal.com]

Lionshaman and I are already on the list right? I WILL be mobile by then( or with pet Shetland to ferry me) and between us we have great experience at herding drunken crowds. Might be willing to split up if u need more teams. Can cross post this if u want joanne etc to help. And yes, we will prob stay. V excited. Ex

[venta.livejournal.com]

Do you think you know Oxford well enough? (Always a bit confused by your levels of Oxford knowledge...)

More bodies may be needed later, so will get back to you on people like Joanne... familiarity with Oxford more important than numbers, at present :)

[ebee.livejournal.com]

Yup. He used to live there, I have excellent sense of direction (and iPhone) and actually do know my way round pretty well - spent nearly a whole uni summer hol living nr summertown. But I'm currently extra good at sitting at tables fielding 'where is my entry/I'm lost/where am I sleeping/can I buy a tshirt in purple/is that badger really dead' type problems from too much con & guiding work if that'd be useful for the Friday eve when Mabel Have vital Cake Inspection work to attend to!

[venta.livejournal.com]

I have excellent sense of direction (and iPhone)

OK. The problem really arises when you get people saying "we're in Pub A and we need to be at Pub B in half an hour, which means we can stop off at hypothetical Pub C and squeeze in an extra-curricular dance on the way"... then you have to find a suitable C! Googling for "high-ceilinged wooden-floored pub with friendly landlord" doesn't always work out so well :)

Sitting at tables answering exactly those sort of questions is very useful, though, so we may co-opt you for that too :)

[venta.livejournal.com]

But in answer to the question, yes, you're already on the list (thankyou!). Just you were listed as a general person rather than necessarily as a guide - which means you might end up selling t-shirts, or keeping judges in order, or (as a last resort) aiding with the badger-extraction.

[ebee.livejournal.com]

HAppy to do whatever helps most. Multi event skilled ;-) I handle radios, clipboards and drunk crowd herding with a grin. And happy to talk down scheodingers semi-dead-traumatised badgers down from leaping off climbing frames, if unable to get up them! Both of us are also first aid qualified and got kit we will be carrying if u need nominated bods.

Weeeeee! Something to look forward to!!!