The cultural clubs, united in Scala, are dangling between two locations in a way. After having been accommodated in the characteristic but meanwhile dilapidating building De Bunker (just outside the campus) for many years, associations like Footloose (dance), Quadrivium (classical music), Studentproof (jazz), the Knights of the Kitchen Table (roleplay), Dekate Mousa (photography and film), Doppio (drama) and Kinjin (Japan) hope to move to De Plint (in the basement of residential tower block La Luna on the campus) in the autumn. That is why during the daytime of this Intro they present themselves in the Auditorium (appropriately situated halfway between De Bunker and De Plint), while the associations in De Bunker are still organizing nocturnal activities.

The Japanese culture can be found on the second floor of the Auditorium. This is an ‘acquired taste’ which is not given to every student. While the enthusiasts of groupOnesie One Love (not in the photo) - can of beer in hand - jointly sing along karaoke-style with the song All Star at the top of their voices, scouts from other groups make a precipitate retreat to make themselves scarce. Which is a bit disappointing, considering that the Japan-buffs of Kinjin, which at this moment numbers sixty members, have meanwhile come down a peg or two: last year there was still an obligation first to sing along with a Japanese song, before the Intro goers could select a song in another language themselves. Another thing to be experienced at Kinjin: Dance Dance Revolution, manga drawing and a course of Japanese.

Secrets of the salsa

The Senaatszaal at the back of the Auditorium has temporarily been laid out as a dance hall. Nevertheless there is a tangible awkwardness to be felt among the students when they are initiated in the secrets of the salsa by a female instructor of Footloose. It begins even when the question is asked whether anyone is prepared to take the woman’s role - of course the proportions between the genders are never equal, which is even more true at Mechanical Engineering. Rock, paper, scissors it is, to decide who can lead and who needs to follow. 

In the Blauwe Zaal prospective students of Chemical Engineering and Chemistry can venture a rendering of Guus Meeuwis’s Brabant. Whistling over beer bottles, to be accurate. Intro daddy Sjoerd van Deinse sprained his ankle a week before the Intro so he is walking with a stick by day. During the parties at night that is only a hindrance, he says, so then he leaves it at home. For which he has to pay the price the next morning, naturally. 

Anyway, carrying that stick does make him an ideal conductor, according to his Intro kids. So Sjoerd can point at the colored notes on the life-size score of the alternative provincial hymn of Brabant. Each color corresponds with a bottle. Much can be said about the result - especially how difficult it is to blow over the top of a bottle when you cannot help laughing.

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