Big I! (A month late)
Alright, so Big I might have happened a month ago, but I’m really bad at using my camera so it took me about that long to figure out how to get pictures off of it and onto my computer, and Big I can’t truly be admired without fantastic pictures.
Big I is a semi-annual party of stunning proportions - all eight houses throw 4 simultaneous parties, one in each of the courtyards of the South Houses. As with all Caltech parties, the themes are picked by students, students build and design the decorations and construction (complete with elevated dance platforms, staircases, and sometimes elaborate gargantuan Trojan horses). The themes this year were as follows:
Dabney + Page: Brought to you by the Letter I (including a 20-foot tall letter I behind the DJ)
Fleming + Venerable: Fall of Troy (complete with Greek-themed murals, togas, and the aforementioned giant Trojan horse)
Blacker + Avery: 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (a wall-to wall mural of Atlantis, a flooded courtyard with a 10-foot paper-maché giant squid, and a submarine that had a hidden dance platform inside along with a deck above)
And, most awesomely, Ricketts + Lloyd: Space (aka Nicholas Cage, the Interhouse).
At Space, we had a pretty simple dance platform with a tarp above to keep the rain off, a much less simple Nebula painted across the back of the stage with flash lights from behind to simulate twinkling stars, beach balls painted to look like planets, a giant flashing LED portrait of Nicholas Cage, blacklight chandeliers, astronauts, floating shark blimps (they were supposed to be painted like starships but we ran out of spray paint), and glow-in-the-dark stars all over the ceiling. After a few frantic days of building right before, it ended up being awesome.
Because it wouldn’t be space without Nic Cage’s face made out of flashing LEDs to make it so he blinks, right?
The ceiling - pretty basic stuff.
The dance platform, with the band’s setup (music provided by Blown Out, a Lloydie band, and Slopycopy, a Ricketts DJ).
