Cabaret at Stafford Cripps
Our batch had to maintain a tradition – perform a cabaret event during the orientation week. Now before someone gets me wrong, it isn’t the typical cabaret as one may imagine – we keep our clothes on – though a few could be in weird attire.
The preparations were on for many hours, since almost all streams had decided just last evening what they would perform. The occasional sounds of chanting from a lecture room were the only signs of who’s doing what. All streams made best attempts to keep their concepts under wraps. As the clock drew nearer to the time of start, one could feel the adrenalin rise and hearts beating faster. Our stream was the first off th
e block with a medley of international songs as a symbol of diversity – after all we have 18 countries represented by 41 of us in Red stream. The audience hummed along with the songs of China, Columbia and Mexico, cheered on the song of Britain, swayed to the lyrics of Indian “Chaiyya Chaiyya” and Kenya’s “Hakuna Matata”. The next performance was “Percussions” – a piece prepared by our Stream Rep Tom, who is a drummer himself. And what a performance it was – the sounds of cascading drums and other equipment juxtaposed with each other in a rhythmic fashion – the entire audience was on its feet, clapping thunderously. I missed the overall impact because I was concentrating so hard on my part of the beats – so I trusted the audience when they were all praises for our performance. Our third performance was a parody on Bohemian Rhapsody and referred to the experience at Cranfield so far. It was all the more amusing with Charlie (Britain), Marieke (Netherlands) wearing big black wigs and singing in strange high pitched voices, thereby creating the look and feel of the band “Queen”.The last performance was another song and then the Red streamers retreated after a scintillating cabaret performance. 
The Green stream started on a serious note with Marc (German) standing behind the podium wearing a business jacket and tie and gelled hair to remind one of the great infamous General of war history. He invited us to experience the German sense of humour and stepped out from behind the podium …………. And the audience fell off their chairs. The other piece of the business suit was missing and instead he wore fishnet stockings………… Surprise….surprise………John Glen - our Director of FT MBA - was invited to the stage to receive a symbolic and huge cardboard cheque of “25 big ones” (representing the damage to our pockets for fees) that was handed
over extremely ‘reluctantly’. John was at his best and matched the witticism of ‘reluctant handing over’ by kissing the cheque and hugging it…… and also Marc.
Green stream started with a dance performance on a Punjabi Indian song led by Varinder Anand (India) which brought the audience to their feet. This was followed by a classical dance performance by Seema Padman (India) supported by a host of international students dressed in the Indian dress – salwar kameez. A skit followed depicting the trials and travails that students undergo at WAC time. For the uninitiated, the WAC (Written Assessment of a Case) is a dreaded assignment to be done in extremely tight timeframe. The MBA Diary will surely give a blow by blow account of actual WAC experiences later. The skit was followed by a couple of group songs that were loudly cheered and applauded.
Blue stream took over and well……….actually held the audience spell bound. The start was delayed due to endles
s preparations that went on behind the curtains. The curtain was removed to show the long lost twin “weeman” brothers’ – of Blue stream orienteers Paddy Radcliffe (Britain) and Santi Mayo (Spain). What we were about to see were a few accounts of dwarf twins Paddy and Santi’s daily routine on campus. The Blue streamers had recreated the magic of theatre. It was an amazing performance by David Stark, James Peer, Nick Williams and Nicholas Shaw. This was followed by a spirited Latina song and dance number with Aleida Martinez (Mexico) and Alex Mita (Peru) in the lead.
And then the lights went out. In pitch darkness, suddenly a flicker of a matchstick came up to light a candle, and another candle and another……. Slowly, there were host of candles burning and we could see the entire Blue stream on stage swaying to music. I literally got goose bumps when they started singing an improvised version of “We are the world, we are the children”. It was an amazing and pretty creative setup done by the Blue streams. Thus ended the performances by the three streams. But it wasn’t the end of the evening.
After a few minutes break, the band went on a roll, and everyone hit the dance floor. This was the MBA Band – Paradigm Shift – from the outgoing MBA batch of 2003/04. With Kofi (orienteer) as the lead singer and Prof. Sean Rickard on the electric guitar, they played until the wee hours of midnight. It was a treat to hear Claire – the lead orienteer – as the fitting finale to the night.
The preparations were on for many hours, since almost all streams had decided just last evening what they would perform. The occasional sounds of chanting from a lecture room were the only signs of who’s doing what. All streams made best attempts to keep their concepts under wraps. As the clock drew nearer to the time of start, one could feel the adrenalin rise and hearts beating faster. Our stream was the first off th
e block with a medley of international songs as a symbol of diversity – after all we have 18 countries represented by 41 of us in Red stream. The audience hummed along with the songs of China, Columbia and Mexico, cheered on the song of Britain, swayed to the lyrics of Indian “Chaiyya Chaiyya” and Kenya’s “Hakuna Matata”. The next performance was “Percussions” – a piece prepared by our Stream Rep Tom, who is a drummer himself. And what a performance it was – the sounds of cascading drums and other equipment juxtaposed with each other in a rhythmic fashion – the entire audience was on its feet, clapping thunderously. I missed the overall impact because I was concentrating so hard on my part of the beats – so I trusted the audience when they were all praises for our performance. Our third performance was a parody on Bohemian Rhapsody and referred to the experience at Cranfield so far. It was all the more amusing with Charlie (Britain), Marieke (Netherlands) wearing big black wigs and singing in strange high pitched voices, thereby creating the look and feel of the band “Queen”.The last performance was another song and then the Red streamers retreated after a scintillating cabaret performance. 
The Green stream started on a serious note with Marc (German) standing behind the podium wearing a business jacket and tie and gelled hair to remind one of the great infamous General of war history. He invited us to experience the German sense of humour and stepped out from behind the podium …………. And the audience fell off their chairs. The other piece of the business suit was missing and instead he wore fishnet stockings………… Surprise….surprise………John Glen - our Director of FT MBA - was invited to the stage to receive a symbolic and huge cardboard cheque of “25 big ones” (representing the damage to our pockets for fees) that was handed
over extremely ‘reluctantly’. John was at his best and matched the witticism of ‘reluctant handing over’ by kissing the cheque and hugging it…… and also Marc.Green stream started with a dance performance on a Punjabi Indian song led by Varinder Anand (India) which brought the audience to their feet. This was followed by a classical dance performance by Seema Padman (India) supported by a host of international students dressed in the Indian dress – salwar kameez. A skit followed depicting the trials and travails that students undergo at WAC time. For the uninitiated, the WAC (Written Assessment of a Case) is a dreaded assignment to be done in extremely tight timeframe. The MBA Diary will surely give a blow by blow account of actual WAC experiences later. The skit was followed by a couple of group songs that were loudly cheered and applauded.
Blue stream took over and well……….actually held the audience spell bound. The start was delayed due to endles
s preparations that went on behind the curtains. The curtain was removed to show the long lost twin “weeman” brothers’ – of Blue stream orienteers Paddy Radcliffe (Britain) and Santi Mayo (Spain). What we were about to see were a few accounts of dwarf twins Paddy and Santi’s daily routine on campus. The Blue streamers had recreated the magic of theatre. It was an amazing performance by David Stark, James Peer, Nick Williams and Nicholas Shaw. This was followed by a spirited Latina song and dance number with Aleida Martinez (Mexico) and Alex Mita (Peru) in the lead.And then the lights went out. In pitch darkness, suddenly a flicker of a matchstick came up to light a candle, and another candle and another……. Slowly, there were host of candles burning and we could see the entire Blue stream on stage swaying to music. I literally got goose bumps when they started singing an improvised version of “We are the world, we are the children”. It was an amazing and pretty creative setup done by the Blue streams. Thus ended the performances by the three streams. But it wasn’t the end of the evening.
After a few minutes break, the band went on a roll, and everyone hit the dance floor. This was the MBA Band – Paradigm Shift – from the outgoing MBA batch of 2003/04. With Kofi (orienteer) as the lead singer and Prof. Sean Rickard on the electric guitar, they played until the wee hours of midnight. It was a treat to hear Claire – the lead orienteer – as the fitting finale to the night.
posted by Sandeep Gupta at
9:28 pm
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