The Mac Weekly

Issue date: 4/18/08 Section: Sports

Media Credit: Daniel Kerwin You can dance if you want to. Jennifer Eler '10 pulls off a spin move.

To truly master this game, you need to have a high intensity, quick movements, a high degree of bodily coordination and the willingness to break into a sweat. I could be talking about any sport, but no, I'm talking about dancing. Actually, it's a video game.

Hold on a second, I'm writing about a video game in a column titled "Culture Sports"? It's not as if such a technicality has been a problem in this column before, but once you really look closely at the true nature of Dance Dance Revolution, calling it a sport isn't as far-fetched as it may seem. Just ask the Norwegians.

"It's actually a registered sport in Norway, and national and international championships have been held in the U.S. and Europe," Carly Salter '07 said.

Salter, a recent Mac graduate, lived at the epicenter of the DDR culture while on campus. That epicenter was the DDR club that Salter helped to create.

"The club began when Dave Swan '07 and I met on Dupre 5E as neighbors and discovered that we were both DDR fanatics," Salter said. "Almost immediately we decided we needed to have a club, and we named each other co-presidents of MacDDRtists."

DDR players would congregate in the Dupre lounges or at the now defunct Aladdin's Castle arcade at Rosedale Mall. For a short time during Salter's reign, the club was an officially chartered student organization.

"Our goal was to share the immense joy that this game gave us with everyone else," Salter said. "We hoped that its infectious fun would spread, and I feel we succeeded with many people."

The establishment of the DDR club came despite the existence of the Mac Gaming Society on campus, revealing a divide between the kind of game DDR is and the kind of games MGS plays. The MGS website states that MGS covers "pretty much all non-athletic kinds of games," including card games, table-top games and video games. It's DDR's athleticism that sets it apart.

"I feel DDR is a video game/exercise video," Jennifer Eler '10 said. "When I think of video games, I don't think exercise. When I found a video game where I could exercise and do a game, I felt overwhelmed with joy."

Continued...

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