Students work to make Fight Club an official organization

Fight Club, a stage combat organization on campus, is preparing to become an official Student Government Association organization.

The times and dates of Fight Club’s meetings have yet to be announced. Luke Eddy, assistant professor of movement in the School of Theatre, is going to act as the organization’s faculty advisor. He said students approached him at the beginning of the semester with the idea of reviving Fight Club as well as new structural ideas.

Tessa Neeno, theater and performance junior and member of Fight Club, said Fight Club used to have a loose structure.

“What Sophie Pritzkau’s doing right now is really admirable and is going to be really good and actually get a more consistent footing for it, so we can actually exist and have more consistent longevity, rather than just four of us kind of messing around in Studio A for an hour,” Neeno said.

Neeno said Fight Club has not been a stable group in the past and Sophie Pritzkau, acting junior, is working to bring back Fight Club.

“She’s been a little on and off,” Neeno said. “I think sophomore year is when it really took off. It was something we wanted to do freshman year, and then it kind of died off, and then it was solid for a little bit last year, and then it kind of died off again.”

Eddy said the money Fight Club would receive through SGA may be able to help them offer financial support to students wanting to go on weekend-long stage combat workshops, as well as helping them to buy new weapons for their armory.

“If we have some extra funding sources through the SGA, maybe we can get some more scholarships and pay for more students to go to these networking and stage combat workshops,” he said.

 Hannah Hamel, acting junior, said she has developed teamwork and comradery through Fight Club. She also said stage combat has helped her in other ways.

“I know as a woman, we talk about going out at night by yourself. It makes me more confident that if I got into a situation, I wouldn’t immediately go to panicking,” she said. “Not to say we work specifically about if someone attacks you, but still knowing how the body moves, feeling that you as a person of any stature, height, weight can be physically intimidating and confident and present within the world around you, I think is really nice.”

Callie Dewees, acting alumna and former Fight Club member, said stage combat helps in theatrical careers.

“I think it’s great,” Dewees said. “I think that it’s a valuable resource to have the ability to learn stuff like that in a safe environment; It becomes very, very useful after you graduate.”

Neeno also said they think stage combat is an important skill for a theater professional.

“Combat has been very important for me from a very young age,” Neeno said. “I’ve always done some form of combat: judo, or fencing, or stage combat, most recently. I think knowing combat and knowing how to control yourself in space is a very powerful thing. There’s a million different things you can do with it.”