It’s the one night where almost everyone you know 'dresses to impress', where a sumptuous three-course dinner makes a great break from the usual pasta dishes and beans on toast, and the one where you get to spend a night in euphoric and celebratory surroundings with great friends to see off a grand year of performing in style. As this was my final one (as a student here, at least!), I was naturally hugely excited and couldn’t sit still come Sunday morning in eager anticipation of the evening ahead. Little was I to know beforehand just how incredible this year’s would be.
It started, as usual, with a house trip to the huge shopping centre in the middle of Southampton, the ever-popular West Quay. The Ball is an occasion which almost everyone treats pretty seriously in terms of looking smart – when it’s once a year, you have to! – so we set about stocking up on supplies, grabbing formal bits and bobs and making sure we were set for the night ahead. From my perspective, I remembered just how amazing it is that your pair of cufflinks can somehow vanish when you’ve not worn them for a year – though I bet I’ll find my (now “old”) pair soon enough (typical)!
After successfully raiding shops galore, we returned home and spent a few hours attempting to be productive. Unfortunately, for almost all of us this just entailed a general pretence of working, while in reality we were actually just eagerly checking the time while hovering in anticipation!
Soon preparations began; suits and dresses were on, photos with one another taken, and people came round so we could all take taxis together to complete the glamorous experience. I was also sure to conform to what now seems to be tradition, getting a photo with my housemate of nearly four-years now, Robyn, just beforehand!
It’s been a brilliant four years!
We arrived at St Mary’s Stadium to a very salient reminder of just how flashy the venue was, with champagne reception, striking decorations and photo booth ready to go. Luckily, as we were one of the first groups to arrive, we were able to take full advantage of the lack of queues for the latter to begin with, getting in pictures while we still all looked relatively prepared for the evening!
Me and my housemates for this year – the affectionately-nicknamed “Aviary”! Credit: SUSU Photographic Society
St Mary’s made for an incredible venue – thank you so much for having us!
Enjoying such an amazing reception and greeting what seemed like a fair number of the few hundred people who walked through the door, we were swiftly reminded of just how many people are involved in the Performing Arts. It was a great chance to see everyone looking their best, enjoying one another’s company and celebrating loads of achievements together.
It was then time for the three beautiful courses that always befit such an occasion. Sitting with a table of many of the Showstoppers (the musical theatre society) who I’d progressed through the University career alongside, we had a great time talking about the future, reminiscing about former shows – and cracking jokes at one another’s expense, particularly after an accidental drinks spill or two (if you’re reading this, sorry Josh)!
Following this, we had a boogie on the dance floor, during which I again kept up a personal tradition of losing to one of my friends at a pretty terrible standard of ‘dance-off’, before heading on to a nightclub to enjoy the rest of the evening.
We had great company at our table! Credit: SUSU Photographic Society
After three other Performing Arts balls, all incredibly well organised and put together, I knew the night would be a terrific one, and I was enjoying every moment of it. That was, however, until I became completely overwhelmed; I was chuffed to see many of my best friends achieve so highly in the annual Performing Arts awards, including Highly Commended for both Achievement and Commitment to the Performing Arts, but I could never have imagined I’d have the honour and privilege of receiving the overall award for Commitment to the Performing Arts, with an incredible glass trophy and card to boot. I couldn’t believe that I was amongst such incredibly talented hard workers and legends of the Performing Arts, and spent the rest of the evening in something of a fluster as you can see in the photo below!
A little bit overwhelmed towards the end of the evening – thank you so, so much, everyone!
Because my friends on Facebook have already had to endure a long (quite soppy!) status full of thanks to them, and because I can still only struggle to articulate what this meant to me, I won’t write too much here. It suffices to say: I will never forget that night!
And because I can’t resist: just another huge thank you to everyone who nominated me, although it left me in a state somewhere between disbelief and euphoria for the rest of the night (and hasn’t really worn off yet)!
And so another Performing Arts Ball has been and gone and, as a heavy batch of coursework assignments finds its way onto my metaphorical plate, I feel hugely invigorated by an evening, and resulting set of memories, that I will truly never forget. Thank you so much to everyone who helped organise the ball (especially the brilliant Caitlin and Anna), and thank you to everyone who was there! What a night.
Robin
No comments:
Post a Comment