Newtown Girls Discover ‘A Million Ways To Be’ Cool

By Nancy K. Crevier

The 1960s icon Andy Warhol predicted “In the future everyone will be world-famous for 15 minutes.”

For four Newtown High School students, the future is now, even if it is more like 5 seconds of fame. A clip from a dance video made by Steph Soder, Libby Feltch and Carly Doherty, juniors at NHS, along with Laurelton High School sophomore Meagan Kelly, appears twice on a DVD included with the November 7 re-release of the indie/alt rock band OK-Go Oh No CD.

OK-Go, out of Chicago and Washington DC, consists of four young men – Damian Kulash, Tim Nordwind, Dan Konopka and Andy Ross – who were the house band for the public radio program This American Life during the show’s fifth anniversary tour. They released their first CD in 2002, but came to attention of most Americans only recently, due more to their extraordinary dance numbers than their music. Many recognize them as “the kids who do that treadmill dance on YouTube.”

But it is the band’s backyard dance video “A Million Ways To Be Cruel” that has brought them to the forefront. It is the most downloaded video in American history, is an MTV Europe Music Award nominee, and is used by Pepsi-Cola in the “Million Ways To Be You” advertising campaign. And it is the “Million Ways To Be Cruel” dance contest sponsored this past summer by the band that has led Steph, Libby, Carly and Meagan to a moment in the sun.

Steph Soder has been an OK-Go fan for at least three years, she said, and it was she who turned her friends on to the group. The four friends have seen the band in concert several times, most recently at Irving Plaza in New York the weekend of November 19.

“They are just awesome. Really, really good,” said Steph.

In late June, the girls discovered a “Million Ways To Be Cruel” dance contest on the OK-Go website, and looking for a way to pass the summer hours, decided to make a video and enter it. None of the girls are dancers, none are cheerleaders, nor are any of them involved in gymnastics. But to watch them execute the elaborate moves in perfectly synchronized fashion, one can only be impressed with the energy and intensity that was given over to mastering the dance steps for the video, viewable at youtube.com/watch?v=camIKCV68Fo.

Beginning with an all-night session to dissect the OK-Go dance video, the four friends committed themselves to learning the dance in time to tape it for the July 30 contest deadline.

It was not an easy task. The only way to learn the steps was by studying the tiny computer generated OK-Go performance on YouTube.

“We had to imagine we were looking out from the computer to learn the dance steps,” said Libby. “Otherwise, we would have learned it backwards, the mirror image.” It was a crucial step, they later learned, that some of the other 184 contest entrants had failed to recognize.

“We had to pause it every few seconds and then we broke it down into lots of little scenes,” Libby explained.

“Beginning was the hardest,” Steph said. “We were up all night working it out, but it was so much fun.”

Dance practices were held at the Soder residence at least three times a week, said the girls. “We didn’t practice all day. We would decide to work on just one section and do that for a while, then take a break. We were together for hours at a time, though,” Carly said.

Rather than driving them apart, the sheer fun of reaching their goal only made their friendships tighter, said Steph.

“Libby and Carly had had like five classes together last year, and Meagan lives in my neighborhood, so we knew each other, and we knew each other from lacrosse, but this really brought us together,” she said.

The girls videotaped each session of practice and during their breaks would critique the moves and figure out how to do each dance section better. Finally they decided they were ready to put the pieces together and send in the final video.

“We were so nervous,” said Carly. “There was this one precision part that we never got right – until that video.”

The video made the deadline on time, but OK-Go’s decision to extend the deadline an additional month, to August 30, gave the girls another chance to tweak their routine and send in a second copy for consideration.

Ultimately it will be the members of OK-Go who will pick the dance contest winners. The winners will be invited to join the band onstage for the dance performance at a future OK-Go concert. What the band — as well as millions of people around the world — will be looking at are the number of hits each video gets and the comments offered by viewers.

“So far,” said Steph, “52,000 people have watched our first video.”

It is exciting, but wait — there’s more.

“I think it was in September, I got an email asking us to send a DVD of our dance to Capitol Records,” said Libby. The re-release of the OK-Go CD was to include a DVD of the “Million Ways To Be Cruel” dance and clips from the contest entrants.

“What was weird,” said Libby, “was that after we sent it in, we never heard back from Capitol about if they had gotten it or not, so we weren’t really sure they were going to use it.”

When the release date of November 7 rolled around, the four young women had more on their minds than election results.

“I was in Massachusetts, and I looked everywhere for it,” said Carly. “I was ecstatic when I heard and so mad that I couldn’t find a copy of the CD, so I had to wait til I got home to see it.”

Libby and Steph were luckier, and when viewing the DVD revealed that their foursome was featured not once, but twice, could hardly contain themselves calling the other two friends.

“Meagan was in school, because Laurelton didn’t have the day off,” Libby said. “When Steph called her, she just freaked out. It is so cool.”

Lots of people in town have seen the DVD and recognized them, said Carly. “Mr Nichols, one of the guidance counselors [at NHS] came up to me and said, ‘Did you do a dance video on YouTube?’”

Steph and Libby have both had other students that they do not even know come up to them in the hallways and mention that they saw the video.

“Libby’s mom is an accountant for a shipping company, so she sent our link to ship captains and people from all over the world were supporting us,” said Steph, and added, “We want to be sure to thank all of our friends and family who continue to send in good comments about our video to YouTube.”

The whole experience has spilled over into other parts of their lives, said Libby.

“Now, everything is so fun with the music, it has kind of changed what I want to do. I was thinking of going into science, but who knows? In chemistry class, our class celebrated ‘Mole Day’ and my exhibit was called A ‘Mole’ion Ways To Be Cruel.’”

Steph has noticed that the hard work put into learning the dance routine has generated creativity in other areas for her. “I’ve been making these OK-Go collages and bags and drawing more.”

If the story ended here, it would be enough of a thrill, said the girls. But with a winner still to be announced for the dance contest, they are keeping their fingers crossed and hoping that when OK-Go makes that final decision, that it will be Steph, Carly, Meagan and Libby of Newtown, Connecticut, that  join the ultra-dance group in the spotlight.

For now, they will gladly take their five seconds of fame.