Last weekend, I went to see ReFusionShaka, a major performance put on by the student dance groups Refresh, Fusion and Boomshaka. It was my first time attending the show, and I’m not incredibly familiar with dance outside of having watched occasional episodes of Dance Moms – an inevitable part of the American Gen Z experience. Though ReFusionShaka didn’t feature any of the drama of Abby Lee Miller harassing a bunch of small children – so disappointing – it still had me on the edge of my seat.

Throughout the performance, the dancers showcased their incredible flexibility. They twisted, turned and arched most parts of their body and somehow still lived to do bows at the end of the show. I even saw dancers bring their legs to a 180-degree angle, with toes above their heads. Humans aren’t supposed to be able to do this – Isaac Newton told us when the apple fell on his head that gravity is real and pulls things down. Yet, these dancer’s legs went up, which is even more impressive because, with the rise of text neck and chair-bound office drones, we seem to be arcing toward a 90-degree posture. Eventually, we’ll be the ones envious of Quasimodo instead of the other way around.

I admire these dancers and was almost inspired to try one of their moves until I realized I value my life. Also, I wanted to write this article, which I could not do with my entire body broken from dance moves. Even if I did still write the article through speech-to-text, how would I explain to a doctor that I snapped my back trying to dance to Charli XCX? That’s not very brat of me, unless brat stood for back rigidity and tears.

I also want to give a shout-out to Melanie Ahn, Alex Branka, Michael Baim and Alex Yang, who did the lighting design for ReFusionShaka. The lighting was incredible and synced perfectly with the music and the dancers’ movements. The flashing nature of the lights also gave Cahn Auditorium the nightclub feel it was always missing.

I honestly wish that lighting would be applied to every event in Cahn. Imagine how perfect it would be to have a serious speaker say something about democracy and the lights go crazy – the strobing lights would flash multiple colors and absolutely consume the space. Serious political discussions deserve this drunken club feeling because democracy is lit like that. Especially in the current world where people need to watch Subway Surfers next to another brain rot video to pay attention, club lighting might be necessary for students to actually listen to anything.

By far my favorite part of ReFusionShaka was the parents. They were seriously invested, following their kids across the stage with their phone cameras like paparazzi trying to get a scandalous shot of a celebrity doing something completely normal.

I also loved how supportive they were, even though many of the dances were sexually suggestive. These parents were the plaid-shirt-wearing, selfie-stick-owning kind of people. They seemed like the kind of people to consider watching Martha Stewart a guilty pleasure and a little bit dangerous because of her time in prison. Yet, though these parents seemed very square, they clapped and recorded with their little cameras while their kids gyrated on stage. I appreciated that they didn’t seem taken aback by the skillful yet sexual dancing on stage. They valued talent and their children’s passions over antiquated conventions regarding sexuality, and I thought that was a beautiful example of modern parenting.

Overall, I thought ReFusionShaka was a very enjoyable experience, one which I would recommend to other Northwestern students who haven’t yet attended. It’s great to watch dancers show off their abilities on stage, and you get to listen to a consistently hype playlist for an hour and a half, which might even be better than what your friend puts on aux. And, like me, you may just get to see someone do a flip – the trampoline-loving child in me has not recovered since.