Extras
A sassy Wellesley a capella band dating back to 1954, The Blue Notes gather weekly to, as they put it "sing, dance, and generally behave in an embarrassing manner." No embarrassment here, as they sing To Alma Mater during the making of the 2011 holiday video, and graciously swap their trademark Blue Note blue for snowflake white.
Ring in the winter season with carillonneurs Pin Pravalprukskul '12 and Carla Staffaroni '13 as they play To Alma Mater on the 32 bells in Wellesley's Carillon, high up in Galen Stone Tower! That memorable Wellesley sound inspired student composer May-Elise Martinsen '12 as she composed the theme for our snowflake video.
Yanvalou Drum and Dance Ensemble was founded in 1988 by Kera Washington '93, who continues as director. Drummers wear colorful dashikis, but the dancers' attire is snowflake ready as they explore African rhythms in Haitian and Brazilian music and dance. Here's the rehearsal before they danced their way into our holiday video.
The physics project seen in the video is a chaotic pendulum developed by Rachel Zizza '13. When the pendulum is driven at certain frequencies, it swings randomly in a pattern that is impossible to predict. Data about the pendulum's angular position and velocity is sent to the computer, where they are graphed in a Poincaré plot. The result is the above fractal image.
