Norris Lockdown

Diana Samuels

While the dancers inside are still bouncing along to 80’s pop songs, a veritable army of DM volunteers in brightly colored shirts fills the halls. Some sit guarding doors and checking wristbands, singing along to the music and swaying in their chairs. Others rush around speaking into headsets, running up and down the stairs between the DM office on Norris’ third floor and the activities on the second floor.

About 400 students volunteer with Dance Marathon, and between 150 and 200 will be working at Norris throughout the weekend, said co-chairwoman and Weinberg senior Cecilia Byrne,

At about 1:45 a.m., organizers were conferring through their headsets, trying to work out how to get everyone but dancers and volunteers out of the building before Norris was locked down at 2:00 a.m. Only one set of stairs can be used to get outside after that hour. Byrne said committee members would try to track down visitors and ask them to leave.

Up on the third floor, DM has taken over the hallways. Clear garbage bags of yellow and orange balloons lay waiting in one area, maybe for an end-of-DM celebration (EDIT: nope, the balloons were released at sunrise), next to large black industrial boxes for audio/visual equipment. Students in a small, crowded room at the back of the third floor control the video screen on the dance floor and the DM Webcast. The hall by the stairs is lined with cardboard boxes of light blue and gray t-shirts for dancers, handwritten signs labeling them as large, medium and small. The emcees and cheers from the audience are audible even from the third floor, and the beats of the songs are easily identifiable.

While the volunteers are busy, nobody seems stressed. Byrne described the event as “going pretty smoothly,” though with a reminder that this is only hour seven, and there is almost a full day still to go.

Photo by Chris Danzig.