April 11th was Mormon Prom. A few years ago the stakes in the area started doing their own prom because of how expensive and yucky the high school proms have gotten. There are 5 stakes that do it together and rotate the responsibilities from year to year. This year our stake was in charge. This meant that Tyaan, being on SYC, was part of the group that planned and put it together.
They really go out of their way to make it an extraordinary event which I think is wonderful. The theme for this dance was Jungle Book. The setup was done over 3 days and I heard they figured 22 hours overall. I went down on Thursday evening with Tyaan because I needed to get her to a hair appointment that night. I started helping her with the 'ruins' and it turned into a late evening. By then I was really excited about how it was all going together and really impressed with how much they were doing. So, I invited myself to continue helping (not that anyone complained, it was a lot of work!)
This is Thursday evening. They were getting the trees brought in and building the structures that would hold up the rock for the ruins and the rock wall on the stage.
This is the archway structure that framed the door that leads to the kitchen. They got this up and Tyaan put up her ruins from here.
These are the cardboard boxes that the SYC had gotten together to paint a few weeks earlier. They all had to be taped together (which took hours and hours) so Tyaan and I spent most of Thursday evening getting that done.
A member of our ward is quite an artist and painted this huge mural. It was 9 feet tall and over 30 feet long. It had the Jungle Book characters on it. It was a big job getting it up.
They had a guy helping who actually does set design for movies. Apparently some of this stuff was actually used on an Indiana Jones set at one time. They hung the camo and built a structure from wood poles and put trees in around it.
On Friday we got to build the ruins using all of the boxes that we taped together the evening before. Once all of the boxes were stacked how Tyaan liked she put moss and vines on it so it looked old and overgrown. It was pretty impressive when it got done.
Here is the mural on Friday evening. They had started setting up in front of it and you can get an idea of how large it was.
Here is Russell on Friday night! He got put to work in the hallway that became the Nile River for the canoe ride.
At some point Friday evening the stake YW president decided to make butterflies to put around the room. Tyaan had a pattern and traced it onto cardboard which we cut out and spray painted. It was a lot of fun and they came out really great.
This is the hallway between the entrance and the rear foyer. This is where the canoe ride would take place.
At the end of the canoe ride you end up in the foyer at the back of the building. This is the 'shipwreck' Once shipwrecked you walked a short distance down the hall and into the cultural hall for the dance.
On Saturday we went down for a couple hours to help finish setup. Tyaan had 2 hours of swim practice that morning and when we got there they were arranging barricades in the hallways to keep kids from wandering the building. There was one that was going to be really visible when people went from the dance to the kitchen for refreshments (banana splits to go along with the theme) so they wanted it to be decorated. Someone suggested a map and Tyaan got assigned that task. All she had was a box of spray paint left over from our butterflies the night before. I couldn't imagine what she would be able to do last minute with spray paint, but this is what she did. We were all amazed at how great it was. When it was finished it included a marked route of a boat ride from So. Cal to India (which is where the jungle in Jungle Book is). It was really awesome.
This is Saturday once they got everything done.
This is the snake from Jungle book. His body lit up which was great once the lights were dimmed for the dance.
The table decorations.
The canoe ready to take kids down the Nile and into the Jungle. They added lighting, fog machines, and sound to make it really cool.
Here is a video I shot of the cultural hall on Saturday when it was completely done.
Finally after all that work it was time for the dance! Each stake is in charge of doing their own dinner for their youth (you have to be a junior or senior to attend) Our dinner was at the Creekside building and then they came over to the stake center for the dance.
Tyaan and Russell were both going without dates so we sent them with each other. They always enjoy each others company so it was good that they got to go together.
Here is a great picture of Jon and Tyaan.
Here is a video showing the entrance and the boat ride. It was really done well, although the video doesn't do it justice. It was too dark for the camera to pick up much but you can see how smooth they moved that canoe around the building and you can get a glimpse of the fog and how the shipwreck looked all put together. The atmosphere was amazing! The kids loved it and we hear that there was a lot of good feedback from the other stakes.
A couple pictures of Tyaan at the dinner and dance. She had a really good time.
It was a great event and I am so glad I was able to participate in putting it together. I'm really glad that our year to be in charge was a year that Tyaan was on SYC so she got the opportunity to see it all come together. It was a lot of work but it was great to spend time with the other members of our stake that were doing setup. I got to know people better and there was a great spirit there the entire time.
The most amazing thing is that there was a crew there at 10:00 to start taking down the entry/ hallway/ and foyer. The dance ended at 11:00 and they had everything down and put away and the building ready for church the next day before midnight. That's planning and teamwork!
