1 Dead, 5 Injured After Tragic Social Dance I Collision
In an unfortunate sequence of events, one graduate student died and five underclassmen were injured after a student let go of his partner during a standard dance maneuver in a Social Dance I class last week. The Stanford University Police Department announced earlier today that, during a “waist slide” movement after a “Texas Tommy,” sophomore Freddie “Stehrmaster” Stehr allegedly utilized too much force and launched his partner, Ginny Raja, into a group of other dancers. Detective Frank Fortress, from the Stanford University Police Department, investigated the incident. Neglecting to dance around the issue, he described the events as “a cross between a Walmart on Black Friday with a bowling alley but with kids instead of bowling pins, I guess,” attributing the catastrophe to an “error in depth perception.” In the ensuing chaos, Detective Fortress reported, a student reportedly wearing tango dance shoes accidentally stepped on the torso of Krissy Brown, a first-year student at the Graduate School of Business, who passed away the next day.
“It was a bloodbath,” stated one student in the class who wished to remain anonymous. “I just can’t believe what happened. I mean, Stehrmaster lost control and had terrible swing-out form. His arm was flung out instead of staying bent at the elbow, and that plus his ridiculously sweaty hands probably led to the whole [incident]. Sure, his actions had fatal consequences, but I’m more concerned with the atrocious use of footwork, an error about which our professor clearly warned us. I’m not that surprised he [messed] up, though, because he was clearly one of the worst in the class. If we got graded or had any fewer than three free absences, he would not pass.”
The ever-popular dance class has become notorious in recent years for its reputation of reckless dancing. Dr. Claire Burton, a physician at Vaden Health Center, noted that there has been an uptick in dance-related injuries over the last decade because of the popularity of Social Dance I. Burton asserted that “all of the male engineers take it to try to meet women, and sometimes when a student is impaired from substances or merely exuberant from the excitement of being around more women than he’s used to seeing in a class, he can get a little too enthusiastic and hurt his [or her] partner.”
World-famous dance historian and class instructor Richard Powers expressed his deepest sympathies about the tragic collision in a statement that he released on his personal website. “With the loss of Krissy Brown, we have truly lost someone who encapsulated a saying by James Gates Percival: ‘To dance is to be out of yourself. Larger, more beautiful, more powerful.’ Ms. Brown lived her life to the fullest, both as the co-founder of a billion-dollar start-up and as a dancer in my class. Her sweet demeanor and her flexibility in moving from a cross-step waltz to a cha-cha will be missed.”
A memorial for Ms. Brown will be held on Saturday in front of Roble Gym. Participants are encouraged to bring flowers and wear socks instead of their street shoes.
