I flashed to scenes from when I was a camp counselor, and the children I took care of started a band. I got punched in the jaw at that show by a 300-pound bearded man, knocking me back several feet. When this freshman pushed me, memories rushed back to me of the punk show I went to on New Year’s Eve 2020. My second attempt attracted two of my friends and one freshman from Amherst who clearly was not acquainted with their culture. ![]() Amherst students did not like my excitement. My first mosh pit involved myself and a couple of casualties from the side lines. Now, with the skills I acquired over the pandemic, I put my plan into action. This act does not have to involve music, a crowd, or anything that one would expect for a mosh pit. Another crowd-pleaser was moshing with my two roommates in our kitchen. My favorite mosh, socially distant moshing, happens by pretending to ram into someone who pretends to feel your push from six feet away. I have made it my party trick to turn any dance party, no matter how small, into a mosh pit. Luckily, this past year I had many occasions to unconventionally mosh. When the (much better) opening band played, I made my first attempt to mosh. In response, I made it my mission to change their culture. Just as Smith’s culture has remained relatively th e same in the past two years, despite our loss of institutional memory, Amherst students still do not care to dance. That everyone would get excited about the objectively bad emo band after going so long without live music. There have been multiple occasions where I attended a show in the front room of Marsh house, only to find that everyone in the room had the same story as me-we did not go there. These people get the funding and space from the college to bring in Smith, UMass, Mount Holyoke, and Hampshire students to dance. There are approximately four people on their campus that care about live local music. I am not oblivious to the Amherst College alternative music scene. Amherst College paid thousands of dollars to set up a stage, hook up lights and an incredible sound system, and bring in musicians from DC, yet everyone in the crowd sat 20 yards away from the music on a hill. Injuries and even deaths have been reported in the crush of mosh pits.As I arrived at Amherst College’s first live show of the season, sponsored by their radio station WAMH, I discovered that no one was in the mood to have fun. While moshing is seen as a form of positive fan feedback or expression of enjoyment, it has also drawn criticism over dangerous excesses in its violence. Dancing can be done alone as well as in groups. Variations of moshing exist, including "pogoing", "circle pits", and "wall of death". Since then, moshing has occasionally been performed to energetic music within a wide variety of genres, including alternative rock, electronic dance music and hip hop, while remaining a staple in heavy metal shows. ![]() Through the 1980s it spread to other branches of punk rock as well as grunge and thrash metal, which exposed it to the mainstream. ![]() The dance style originated in the hardcore punk scenes of California and Washington, D.C., around 1980. It is intended to be energetic and full of body contact. Moshing usually happens in the center of the crowd, generally closer to the stage, in an area called the "mosh pit". Moshing (also known as slam dancing or simply slamming) is an extreme style of dancing in which participants push or slam into each other, typically performed to "aggressive" live music such as heavy metal and punk rock. Wikipedia Rate this definition: 0.0 / 0 votes
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