Ordinary Men, Extraordinary Moves
March 5, 2020 5:35 PM Subscribe
If you happen to visit New Orleans during Mardi Gras, and take in any of the parades, in one of those parades - following behind the floats, and the various school marching bands and cheerleader troupes - you may see a squad of middle-aged men, clad in red jackets and blue shorts, and doing enthusiastic choreographed dances to 80s pop hits. Metafilter, meet The 610 Stompers.
The 610 Stompers started in January 2009 on a dare over drinks at the home of Metarie, LA resident Brett Patron. Patron and a group of friends had regular season tickets for the Saints in section 610 of the Superdome, and were brainstorming ways they could keep affording tickets in the wake of the Recession. Someone joked that Patron should open up a dance school - he wasn't a formally trained dancer, but he had the enthusiasm for it. "I have no shame," Patron later joked. Instead, Patron had the idea to start a dance troupe instead, made up of similarly "ordinary" looking men like himself.
By coincidence, that was the same year that the Saints went to the Super Bowl, and the 610 Stompers made their debut in a celebratory parade. When the Saints won, the Stompers were invited to march in the victory parade as well. The Super Bowl happened only a couple weeks before that year's Mardi Gras season - and the various Krewes noticed the crowds' enthusiastic reaction to the Stompers, and invited them to join the various Mardi Gras parades as well.
Since then, they have danced at Mardi Gras parades, at home games for the New Orleans Pelicans and the Saints, on local television and radio, at various New Orleans charitable events, and even New York's Macy's Day Parade and the “Tonight Show”. While they usually favor 80s pop, they've also dabbled in musical theater and Irish traditional dance. The troupe performs at about 90 events each year, and each year the group hand-selects charities to which they donate all the proceeds from any of their events.
The troupe holds auditions every year, accepting new recruits each summer in time to start working on that year's newest dances in time for Mardi Gras. While only 100 men are allowed to audition each time, about ten times that many show up for a chance to show off their moves. The troupe favors gumption and likeability more so than obvious dance ability - in 2018, they even accepted a wheelchair user into their fold.
The Mardi Gras parades are generally their busiest season, with appearances in most of the major parades, accompanied by their all-female security team ("The 610 Splits").
The 610 Stompers started in January 2009 on a dare over drinks at the home of Metarie, LA resident Brett Patron. Patron and a group of friends had regular season tickets for the Saints in section 610 of the Superdome, and were brainstorming ways they could keep affording tickets in the wake of the Recession. Someone joked that Patron should open up a dance school - he wasn't a formally trained dancer, but he had the enthusiasm for it. "I have no shame," Patron later joked. Instead, Patron had the idea to start a dance troupe instead, made up of similarly "ordinary" looking men like himself.
By coincidence, that was the same year that the Saints went to the Super Bowl, and the 610 Stompers made their debut in a celebratory parade. When the Saints won, the Stompers were invited to march in the victory parade as well. The Super Bowl happened only a couple weeks before that year's Mardi Gras season - and the various Krewes noticed the crowds' enthusiastic reaction to the Stompers, and invited them to join the various Mardi Gras parades as well.
Since then, they have danced at Mardi Gras parades, at home games for the New Orleans Pelicans and the Saints, on local television and radio, at various New Orleans charitable events, and even New York's Macy's Day Parade and the “Tonight Show”. While they usually favor 80s pop, they've also dabbled in musical theater and Irish traditional dance. The troupe performs at about 90 events each year, and each year the group hand-selects charities to which they donate all the proceeds from any of their events.
The troupe holds auditions every year, accepting new recruits each summer in time to start working on that year's newest dances in time for Mardi Gras. While only 100 men are allowed to audition each time, about ten times that many show up for a chance to show off their moves. The troupe favors gumption and likeability more so than obvious dance ability - in 2018, they even accepted a wheelchair user into their fold.
The Mardi Gras parades are generally their busiest season, with appearances in most of the major parades, accompanied by their all-female security team ("The 610 Splits").
I beg to differ. These are no ordinary men.
posted by yes I said yes I will Yes at 6:20 PM on March 5, 2020 [4 favorites]
posted by yes I said yes I will Yes at 6:20 PM on March 5, 2020 [4 favorites]
Inspiring!!
posted by The Underpants Monster at 6:47 PM on March 5, 2020
posted by The Underpants Monster at 6:47 PM on March 5, 2020
I saw a few Stompers representing at this season's Chewbacchus parade among the Time Lords and Steve Zissous.
posted by RobotVoodooPower at 7:55 PM on March 5, 2020
posted by RobotVoodooPower at 7:55 PM on March 5, 2020
My parents have Saints season tickets, and we saw them perform a Beastie Boys tribute at half time.
posted by spikeleemajortomdickandharryconnickjrmints at 9:59 PM on March 5, 2020
posted by spikeleemajortomdickandharryconnickjrmints at 9:59 PM on March 5, 2020
And following the squad of men enthusiastically dancing, there will be the truck. With the beer. And the toilets. And then there will be the squad of men ambling behind the truck. Waiting to swap out with someone who is getting tired of all that dancing.
posted by egypturnash at 10:31 PM on March 5, 2020
posted by egypturnash at 10:31 PM on March 5, 2020
They're completely charming! It's practically impossible not to smile while watching them. They have an all-female security team, too?! Love love love! More of this, please, world!
posted by velvet winter at 12:29 AM on March 6, 2020 [2 favorites]
posted by velvet winter at 12:29 AM on March 6, 2020 [2 favorites]
I LOVE THIS. I LOVE THEM.
How dare someone call them "ordinary" indeed.
posted by BlueBlueElectricBlue at 8:54 AM on March 6, 2020 [1 favorite]
How dare someone call them "ordinary" indeed.
posted by BlueBlueElectricBlue at 8:54 AM on March 6, 2020 [1 favorite]
How dare someone call them "ordinary" indeed.
That's actually the name they adopted for themselves. They want to emphasize that you don't have to have studied for years and years with dance studios or have the lithe and nimble body of a gazelle to dance in public - all you have to do is want to dance. By calling themselves "ordinary" they're making a public claim that "dancing's for everybody".
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 9:11 AM on March 6, 2020 [4 favorites]
That's actually the name they adopted for themselves. They want to emphasize that you don't have to have studied for years and years with dance studios or have the lithe and nimble body of a gazelle to dance in public - all you have to do is want to dance. By calling themselves "ordinary" they're making a public claim that "dancing's for everybody".
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 9:11 AM on March 6, 2020 [4 favorites]
I was expecting better but they seem to be playing it for lulz :/ The fact that the only way this is cool is to be minorly transgressive and ironic about it is not great.
posted by Ogre Lawless at 10:27 AM on March 6, 2020
posted by Ogre Lawless at 10:27 AM on March 6, 2020
I went to my first ever Mardi Gras parade this year (the aforementioned Chewbacchus) so that means I would have seen them! I’ll have to go through all my video so I can get a better look.
posted by kitten kaboodle at 6:32 PM on March 6, 2020
posted by kitten kaboodle at 6:32 PM on March 6, 2020
I was expecting better but they seem to be playing it for lulz :/ The fact that the only way this is cool is to be minorly transgressive and ironic about it is not great.
....I was going to let this go, but I"ll admit it's been bothering me. I've been thinking about why, and I have an answer now. But I'll have to tell a similar story about Konrad, someone from one of my acting classes in college.
We had a weekly singing class, usually with us picking something from the musical theater songbook. People from the class were at all singing/dancing performative levels, of course, and the teachers would always do their best to bring about some kind of improvement by the end of the year, even if it meant they worked the same song over and over and over and over and over with the same person. One year we had a teacher who occasionally assigned us songs he felt would be good for us to try out.
Konrad was one such person who was unsteady with singing. He had an okay voice, but only if it was in a very narrow range. He also was visibly nervous standing in front of us and singing; he was uncomfortable with it, and it always looked like he was being forced to do something he didn't want to do - which, well, he was - and it was cringey watching him, as a result, even if he wasn't doing badly.
....But then - the instructor assigned him the song Mr. Cellophane from Chicago, possibly because there are spoken-word sections. Konrad got the music, took it home, and worked on it for a week, and then brought it back to class.
Well. Something happened to Konrad when he encountered that song. When he did it in class next, he was a little more confident when he got up. The speaking bits grounded him a bit, and he looked like he was not only comfortable, but that he was enjoying himself immensely. The rest of us watching started grinning, because any time anyone is enjoying themselves at something, it's delightful to see. Konrad saw our faces, and that just encouraged him more, and he got more into the song, tapping a toe as he sang, which caused some of us to grin bigger and start clapping. Konrad still wasn't the most 100% perfect singer, a couple of the notes were a little beyond him, but he was all-in with singing, he was enjoying himself, and he didn't care, and his passion and joy was feeding our own reactions. Towards the end he even started doing an improvised dance to it. His voice broke a bit on that final high note on "never even knoooooooooow I'm there...." but instead of cringing he laughed at himself, and we all laughed with him in sympathy, and we still gave him a standing ovation when he was done, and he bowed grandly, grinning ear-to-ear.
I can sincerely say that Konrad's performance of "Mr. Cellophane" in that small studio is one of my personal favorites - more so than Joel Gray or Ben Vereen's on the Muppet Show, or John C. Reilly's in the Chicago movie - because he was having so much fun. He had found a way to escape those nerves and that shyness that plague us all about performing in public; many of us are shy about singing in front of others, even when you're a theater kid. But singing is a joyful thing, and once in a great while people will sing to themselves - and most of us would stop if we knew someone was listening. Same too with dancing. Much of the training that performers go through deals with how to manage that shyness, and that's why the professionals are usually the ones we see dancing in public. But every once in a great while, a passionate amateur just gets caught up in what they're doing and caught up in the fun of it, and it reminds the rest of us that music and dance can be about fun and joy and freedom as well.
That's why Konrad's "Mr. Cellophane" is one of my favorites, and that's why the 610 Stompers are so beloved. It isn't about "being minorly transgressive" and it isn't "for the lulz". It is about dance being for everyone and being fun, and the love for them is just as sincere as my own love for Konrad's performance. Konrad was having fun and it was joyous. The 610 Stompers are also having fun, and that is also joyous.
To my mind, if you look at their embrace of dance and it makes you uncomfortable, it says more of your own expectations about what dance "should" look like and that may be worth some self-reflection.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 4:27 AM on March 7, 2020 [8 favorites]
....I was going to let this go, but I"ll admit it's been bothering me. I've been thinking about why, and I have an answer now. But I'll have to tell a similar story about Konrad, someone from one of my acting classes in college.
We had a weekly singing class, usually with us picking something from the musical theater songbook. People from the class were at all singing/dancing performative levels, of course, and the teachers would always do their best to bring about some kind of improvement by the end of the year, even if it meant they worked the same song over and over and over and over and over with the same person. One year we had a teacher who occasionally assigned us songs he felt would be good for us to try out.
Konrad was one such person who was unsteady with singing. He had an okay voice, but only if it was in a very narrow range. He also was visibly nervous standing in front of us and singing; he was uncomfortable with it, and it always looked like he was being forced to do something he didn't want to do - which, well, he was - and it was cringey watching him, as a result, even if he wasn't doing badly.
....But then - the instructor assigned him the song Mr. Cellophane from Chicago, possibly because there are spoken-word sections. Konrad got the music, took it home, and worked on it for a week, and then brought it back to class.
Well. Something happened to Konrad when he encountered that song. When he did it in class next, he was a little more confident when he got up. The speaking bits grounded him a bit, and he looked like he was not only comfortable, but that he was enjoying himself immensely. The rest of us watching started grinning, because any time anyone is enjoying themselves at something, it's delightful to see. Konrad saw our faces, and that just encouraged him more, and he got more into the song, tapping a toe as he sang, which caused some of us to grin bigger and start clapping. Konrad still wasn't the most 100% perfect singer, a couple of the notes were a little beyond him, but he was all-in with singing, he was enjoying himself, and he didn't care, and his passion and joy was feeding our own reactions. Towards the end he even started doing an improvised dance to it. His voice broke a bit on that final high note on "never even knoooooooooow I'm there...." but instead of cringing he laughed at himself, and we all laughed with him in sympathy, and we still gave him a standing ovation when he was done, and he bowed grandly, grinning ear-to-ear.
I can sincerely say that Konrad's performance of "Mr. Cellophane" in that small studio is one of my personal favorites - more so than Joel Gray or Ben Vereen's on the Muppet Show, or John C. Reilly's in the Chicago movie - because he was having so much fun. He had found a way to escape those nerves and that shyness that plague us all about performing in public; many of us are shy about singing in front of others, even when you're a theater kid. But singing is a joyful thing, and once in a great while people will sing to themselves - and most of us would stop if we knew someone was listening. Same too with dancing. Much of the training that performers go through deals with how to manage that shyness, and that's why the professionals are usually the ones we see dancing in public. But every once in a great while, a passionate amateur just gets caught up in what they're doing and caught up in the fun of it, and it reminds the rest of us that music and dance can be about fun and joy and freedom as well.
That's why Konrad's "Mr. Cellophane" is one of my favorites, and that's why the 610 Stompers are so beloved. It isn't about "being minorly transgressive" and it isn't "for the lulz". It is about dance being for everyone and being fun, and the love for them is just as sincere as my own love for Konrad's performance. Konrad was having fun and it was joyous. The 610 Stompers are also having fun, and that is also joyous.
To my mind, if you look at their embrace of dance and it makes you uncomfortable, it says more of your own expectations about what dance "should" look like and that may be worth some self-reflection.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 4:27 AM on March 7, 2020 [8 favorites]
I'm with you, EmpressCallipygos. I'm a dancer who is in roughly the same age demographic as the 610 Stompers (although I don't perform anymore). I respect good technique as much as any other dancer, but honestly I'd much rather witness an enthusiastic performance with technical flaws done by "ordinary" people than a slick, jaw-dropping, technically perfect performance by model-gorgeous dancers who are just too-cool-for-school.
The 610 Stompers practically bubble over with effervescent enthusiasm and joyful abandon. I also took note of their good musicality and choreography skills. For me, that combination wins out over shiny "star power" any day.
posted by velvet winter at 11:33 AM on March 7, 2020 [3 favorites]
The 610 Stompers practically bubble over with effervescent enthusiasm and joyful abandon. I also took note of their good musicality and choreography skills. For me, that combination wins out over shiny "star power" any day.
posted by velvet winter at 11:33 AM on March 7, 2020 [3 favorites]
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posted by EmpressCallipygos at 5:36 PM on March 5, 2020 [1 favorite]