Anyone here dance in the festival? I think there were 10,000 dancers, so odds are....

I was in the Latin Dance: Cha Cha and Samba.

Anyone?

I was in the Dance Festival at the Rose Bowl in 1976. A wee bit earlier than you.

It was the bicentennial celebration.

-Dennis

Dennis Moore Wrote:
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> I was in the Dance Festival at the Rose Bowl in
> 1976. A wee bit earlier than you.
>
> It was the bicentennial celebration.
>
> -Dennis


Dennis -- so was I!
Somewhere I still have the white(ish) outfit and the gold sash...! :)

Yahoo!

Varsity Drag and another number. I wanted to hang out with the other ward from the same city because their food was better.

Good times! At that time in space. That's the year I graduated from high school too.

Do I dare ask where in SoCal you are from? I'm still here in the Inland Empire.

Dennis Moore Wrote:
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> Good times! At that time in space. That's the year
> I graduated from high school too.
>
> Do I dare ask where in SoCal you are from? I'm
> still here in the Inland Empire.

I was a sophomore, graduated in '78.
I was there from the Escondido stake (northern San Diego county). Though I moved around a bit, I'm back in rural San Diego now. :)

ificouldhietokolob Wrote:
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> Dennis -- so was I!
> Somewhere I still have the white(ish) outfit and
> the gold sash...! :)

As was I!
I no longer have the outfit, though...with no regrets :)
From Escondido Stake at the time.

I did the first Rose Bowl one. I believe it was in '72.

Best I can do is a Gold & Green Ball, Las Vegas 2nd Ward Chapel, September, 1961.

Next morning in priest quorum we all lied about how many bases we got to. But the blue balls were a fact of life, as was the cure, and the lying about the cure.

Good times, good times!

Mormons used to have Gold and Green Balls. Then the word got out and they were embarassed about it so now they keep it quiet.

Robert Hall the Utah Photo GOD Wrote:
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> Mormons used to have Gold and Green Balls. Then
> the word got out and they were embarassed about it
> so now they keep it quiet.

Robert, I'm laughing my ass off at your line. Maybe nobody else got it? Perhaps it takes another photographer...:)

Regional Dance Festival held at Taft High School, 1971. I was a Beehive and we did some really lame dance. I remember them measuring hem lengths, lol. It was fun being there, though. Enjoyed it.

TG

I was in one at the University of Utah stadium, I think the summer after I got home from my mission, so 1970? I'm not a dancer, never have been and still don't but somehow a ton of people danced in the stadium.

Don't remember how long it lasted nor what kind of dancing or costumes. It's hell getting old.

First: Gold and Green Balls were an annual event and were for adults, predominately and done on a Ward or Stake Level. My husband and I attended several of them until they were discontinued many, many years ago. They were very nice affairs. Very dressy, good music, etc. This was the 60's and 70's in particular. Major events.

The Dance Festivals in California were for MIA (Mutual Improvement Association ) as it was called then -- the young people, usually high school age or junior high.
Those were from around 1973 to 1990. My daughters participated in at least, one of them. Huge events. Amazing. Very impressive.

They didnt end in 1990 there was one when I was a deacon... about 2004

Our stake still held Gold and Green Balls in the 90's. 14 & up was the age range. But it wasn't as dressy (rather said, I didn't have a fancy dress) as what I had always heard it would be.

I was there in 85. I still have pictures from the event. I remember the anti Mormons outside the gates and how intrigued\ torn I was even back then...

I was there too! It was at the Rose Bowl stadium. What a crazy thing to do. Thousands of kids were there. Events like that made the mormon church seem like it was growing so fast that it would take over the world.

Sadly, our dance coordinator was a closeted gay male who was married with two kids. I am not sad that he was gay; I'm sad that he was gay and buried deep in the closet. He had unprotected sex with other partners contracted AIDS and died a year later, in 1986.

We all judged him, I know I did. I'm mad at myself for being so judgemental and not being a real friend. I find my past full of truly cringeworthy events like that. I was such a judgemental idiot...but I was a mormon.

Oh, I just remembered our number. We did the Varsity Drag. It was an Americana-themed thing with a 1920's edge to it. We wore red-white-and-blue sequined costumes. all 500 of us.

I remember the Gold and Green Balls as well. All three of my sisters were "presented" their senior years.

By presented, I mean it was Debutante Ball/Coming Out Party style. The cultural hall would be transformed into a low lit ballroom with decorations covering everything- Not a basketball hoop in sight! The girls wore formals, Dads in tuxedos, formal presentation, escorts in tuxedos, first official dance, the whole nine yards.

I also remember our stake had a Sesquicentennial Ball in 1980. (the 150th Anniversary of TSCC) where we did dances from every decade...leading up to the disco! really fun times!

This might sound crazy, but thank goodness I was mormon WHEN i was!
If I had been raised in today's church?....I shudder to think how I would have coped.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/13/2014 03:04PM by oxymormon.

Tall Man

I was on that team that Wally put together. I took off from working at the Billy Graham Crusade where I was a counselor to participate with Wally.

I had children and women spit on me and call me names that would make a sailor blush.

But we just loved them and trusted God to move on their hearts.

I also remember the shouts of "Christians, Christians" warning people about us.

All because we were armed with Bibles and God's love.

I was there, but as a fresh exmo.

I was just out of the church and had recently met Wally Tope -- a counter-cult missionary and street evangelist. He got together a group of us to go there and pass out flyers with details about the recently-found Salamander letter. We stationed ourselves at the exits as people were leaving at the end of the night.

I recall one worthy priesthood holder took a look at my flyer and ripped all the rest of them out of my hand and threw them on the ground while yelling at me and stomping on them.

A young Mormon woman walked over to apologize for his behaviour and helped me pick them up. It was the best and worst of the church for me that night.

I was there! I don't remember what dance but the costume was neon green and yellow. I was from the Fullerton/Brea area.

Mormons dances were my favorite mormon teen experience and we had great ones in San Diego. I had my first kiss at the New Years Eve dance at the Parkway Plaza mall, the whole mall was a giant mormon party, it was awesome.

It used to be kind of fun to be mormon. as a kid in So Cal we did all kind of fun things like this. Then, they killed it. The top got too intrested in keeping the money. NOw, there is nothing but church meetings. Its a wonder anyone goes...

Our family was there.
We even brought along a Jewish family we were seeking to convert lol (they never joined).

I remember 1985 as a watershed year.
It truly seemed at the time that Mormonism was growing so fast it would shortly take over the world.
We were witnessing ancient prophecy being fulfilled.

And just like that, it all fell apart.
Things changed so quickly in our Southern California stake. At first it seemed like local leadership was going crazy, then the whole church went nuts with ever escalading demands.
At one time they tried to assign 15 families to my husband to home teach, it could not be done.

We started to back away from Mormonism around that time.
But it wasn't until DNA problems became known that we realized what the fatal flaw within Mormonism was.

Anyway, we all left Mormonism within a few weeks after learning about the DNA problems.
It was a relief to realize that our instincts had been correct all along.
We shook the Mormon monkey off our backs and moved on with our lives.

I was at the Rose Bowl in 1985. I don't remember the dance but we wore tuxes and formals.
First time I had seen and participated in the "Wave".

POSTING QUESION: Just curious, no criticism, how do articles like this from late 2014 make it back to the main page today?

Simple. Someone replies to an old post.

I did two Rose Bowl Dance Festivals.

1976 I was in the Polka.

1980 (even worse) Disco!!

They had an enormous Dance for all the performers on the field after the Show.

I started playfully pulling the silver Mylar fringe from my fellow Disco Dancers' costumes.

It turned into a major free for all.

So at least it all ended on a fun note!



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/15/2015 01:58PM by sonoma.

great days

I would do anything to get out of the house, and Mormon events provided a perfect break from home. I was in two of the Dance Festivals at the Rosebowl, the one in 1973, where my younger sister and I were pink Indians doing a precision dance number. Yes, pink, bubblegum pink even, with big, huge sequins handsewn on the end of each fringe on the long hot sleeves, skirts made out of felt, and then the Bi-Centennial in 1976, and I was among hundreds of George and Martha Washingtons doing a waltz. I made those costumes. I was in high school and my mom couldn't sew. Lots of memories-no sleep, junk food, being very uncomfortable in humid hot smog, sunburn so bad I couldn't sleep. Mormon fun was always partly fun. Glad I could be a part of it, tho.

I was in one at the university of utah stadium.
I think it was around 1971 or 1972.