Week 4 Party Review: Canfield/Kilpat
Day Friday, October 7th
House Canfield
Theme Tops vs Bottoms
Rating 1/5
Dear Canfield,
We’re not angry! We’re just disappointed.
Soooooo disappointed.
And frankly, some of us are angry.
Love and sympathy,
The Lens (and sources)
Last Friday, Canfield broke what no Bennington sorority house has dared to break before: tradition. Let us all first remember Canfield’s tragic loss of their termly party-christening privilege. Our genuine condolences go out to them, and to ourselves who did not get to experience it. When that Friday slot opened up, they had to act fast, as would we all, to claim their consolation prize. A last-minute second chance. Sure, they threw it together in a week, but it’s still Canfield; I mean, what do you call the opposite of an underdog?
So then… where were you guys?? Seriously, this party was dull. The crowd was 90% freshmen, and not even the consistent partygoers (including some of Canfield’s own) showed their faces for more than a song. There were a few possible contributing factors at play here. The BYOB of it all, while understandable and potentially inevitable, removed half the incentive to come in the first place. The theme, Tops vs. Bottoms, was underwhelming and deviated from Canfield’s typical rhyme scheme. Plus, the fact that everyone knew what it was for so long before dried it out even further; the most hype this party got was complaints about how boring the theme was. It was too tangential to the Hanky Code (figuratively) and Dress (literally), yet much broader and more straightforward.
Once you got there, the music left a lot to be desired. The sets were erratic, bouncing across genres and singability every other track. This led to a low dance-floor retention rate and an awkward inside-outside flow, as the crowd wasn’t big enough to split up without it feeling sparse: “no one knows this song, let’s go outside” to “put out your cig, this is my song” and repeat until leaving for good. It may have served as a fine background if you were uber-determined to have a good night, but any gathering could have fulfilled that need. Even a self-aware Canfield resident corroborated the ⅕ rating, noting that it was the worst party of the term.
We commend Canfield for stepping outside of their comfort zone with a midterm party, but after last weekend, it may be time for them to cut their losses and crawl back in. For now, we’re looking forward to redemption at the end of the term.
Day Saturday, October 8th
House Kilpat
Theme Y2K Chatroom I guess…? Doesn’t matter (iykyk)
Rating 4.5/5
POV: you’re on your way to second street. You’re freezing. Maybe naked. The leaves crunching under your Docs ring louder than any other sound in the distance. You’re losing faith as you approach the door. Open it and you’re wrapped up in humid warmth and nitrous fog. You drop your coat (if you bothered to bring one) and follow the graphic (undiverse, some noted) porn images upstairs towards generous faces. Welcome to Kilpat.
This was the first party in a while that really felt like a party. Kilpat had many legs up on Canfield this weekend, when normally they would be playing on an even field. Obviously KP had the advantage of the Dress legacy behind them, but some would consider that a disadvantage: pressure to live up to decades of tradition, especially after being canceled two consecutive years. But without comparing it to Canfield, or to its wild past, when we assess Kilpat for what it was (a Bennington party on a Saturday), it comes out on top.
The turnout was pretty fantastic, with a great balance between lower- and upperclassmen. The menu for indulgences was as good as it gets at an official event. The decorations, as briefly mentioned above, were provocative– conversation starters. Though not exactly immersive/interactive, this is somewhat in keeping with the Kilpat spirit. The music was pretty neutral with some big hitters, but above all broke from the rut we’ve been experiencing for a while now. It was danceable but more club than pop ballad, a shift in the right direction. This would have been more effective if it was louder. Even when the speaker was working, it was way too easy to carry a conversation on the dance floor; our throats should have been more sore than they were Sunday morning.
Sometimes, however, there was no music at all. Weirdly, these were the moments Kilpat shone. The collective drive to have fun within the community became apparent when the speakers cut out and people just kept dancing, filling the silence with their own compositions instead of all just waiting outside like sane people. The other major technical difficulty was the Great Coffee Table Collapse of 2022. Tables break here pretty regularly, but this one hit especially hard being an old coffee table (not the typical picnic table that B&G would come to replace), One Kilpat resident was spotted bawling in mourning and had to actually walk away. Meanwhile, partygoers continued to dance on its grave. The table was basically flush to the floor with everyone still refusing to get off it. This was less like Nero fiddling as Rome burned, and more like a conceptual exhibition. Of course Bennington students would turn furniture they broke into a performance-art improvised interpretive movement piece, and of course it would happen at this particular party. Thank you, KP, for giving Bennington every opportunity to be itself.
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