Dance Marathon steps up its numbers

With colored lights bouncing off the walls, students moving to the loud music on the dance floor and platforms, and sweat dripping off the brows of weary dancers, Ackerman Grand Ballroom was transformed into a 26-hour fund-raising dance party by hundreds of enthusiastic Dance Marathon participants this weekend.

From 11 a.m. Saturday to 1 p.m. Sunday, the culmination of 10 months of preparation resulted in nearly 500 dancers staying on their feet in the fourth-annual Dance Marathon. All the proceeds of the event – totalling $197,251.42 – will go to the Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation.

“I’ve never been to anything like this in my life,” said Jake Glaser, who was infected with HIV at birth from his mother Elizabeth Glaser.

Due to this year’s increase in participation, Dance Marathon moved from last year’s Covel Grand Horizon Room to the Ackerman Grand Ballroom with the theme “Time to Take a Stand.”

Though it cost more to move the event, Ackerman was able to accommodate more people. For several hours Saturday night, the room was filled to capacity with at least 1,000 individuals.

“(The large turnout) means we were really successful,” said Shelly Leary, the Dance Marathon public relations chairwoman. “We moved here from Covel, and maybe we’ll need to move to Pauley (Pavilion) next year.”

Dancers pledged to raise a minimum of $200 each to benefit the foundation in the months leading up to the event, in addition to donations from hundreds of other volunteers.

“People have high energy and high hopes and even though their feet are going to hurt for a few days, it’s all worth it,” said Susan Ma, a dancer and second-year marathon participant.

A mixture of volunteers and Student Health Advocates from on-campus housing aided dancers throughout the course of the event. Aside from some swollen knees, cramped feet, minor cuts and lost voices, there were no serious injuries, said Pooja Patel, a first-year undeclared student and volunteer at the medical table.

Dancers still found the event to be a challenge – and painful at times – despite the lack of major injuries.

“It’s harder than I thought it would be. My feet are killing me,” said Jessica Chan, a second-year microbiology, immunology and molecular genetics student and first-time Dance Marathon participant.

But other students said the pain was worth it.

“(Dance Marathon) is one of the most fulfilling things I’ve ever done. It was better than anything I could’ve ever done,” said Dan Kasuga, a UCLA alumnus who flew to Los Angeles for the weekend to participate in Dance Marathon for the first time.

The types of participants in the event were broken up into five groups – dancers, moralers, volunteers, committee members and guests.

To help support the dancers for the duration of the 26-hour event, moralers would arrive for three-hour shifts to help pump up and motivate the dancers.

Each three-hour shift had a different theme which related to the overall theme of the event, including “Dance House Rock,” “Saturday Night Fever” and “A Knight for the Cure.”

During each morale shift, participants would dress up and the decor of the room would be altered to reflect the current theme. Dancers and moralers learned a “morale dance” to the song “Footloose” which they would perform as a group every time a new morale shift began.

Many sponsors donated to the event, including Apple Computer, which gave computer equipment that allowed students to enroll in their classes during the event and facilitated the first live broadcast of the event on the Dance Marathon Web site.

While students were dancing, other activities were taking place in Ackerman, such as a silent auction and a letter-writing to Dumba Mwesige, a 10-year-old Ugandan child. His family was randomly selected by the Dance Marathon Committee to receive $30 a month to help pay for educational materials such as books, as well as food and water. It is unknown whether Mwesige is infected with HIV, but he lives in a community that is affected by the disease.

Also, friends of dancers had the opportunity to make “dancer grams” that were delivered to the dancers’ boxes where they kept their belongings while they danced.

Throughout the event, several special guests made appearances, including celebrities and speakers from the foundation.

Movie actors Camille Anderson from the upcoming film “The Wedding Crashers” and Terry Lewis from “Starsky and Hutch” helped to teach dancers the Electric Slide line dance.

They then judged the competition to find the person who performed the dance the best. Other celebrity appearances included Tina Majorino, who played Deb in “Napoleon Dynamite,” and Kim Webster from “The West Wing” TV show.

To help encourage and inspire students to continue dancing and remain involved with the event in the future, many speakers from the foundation spoke to the crowd including Jake Glaser and Sherry Lewis, an AIDS activist.