(Photo from The Michigan Daily).
This year, I got involved in something I never thought I’d actually be a part of during my limited time at the University: Dance Marthon.
Sure, I’d seen the crazy promotions across campus since I came to visit the University in high school. During my campus day tour* my senior year of high school, the tour guide explained to us that the people on the giant see-saw in the Diag were actually raising money for DM. My freshman year, a person dressed as an iPod walked around campus promoting the event.
*Interestingly enough, my campus day tour was on St. Patrick’s Day. But that’s a different story.
“Maybe I’ll donate,” I would tell myself whenever I saw the DM people bucketing around Ann Arbor to collect loose change. But never did I think I would actually participate in the Marathon.
Until this year. I don’t know what inspired me to join, or better yet, what took me so long to finally do it. But one moment, I was on the UMDM homepage reading information about the Marathon, and the next thing you know, I’m signed up to become a dancer. All in one fell swoop.
BACKGROUND
For those of you who don’t know what DM is, I’ll explain. The basic idea behind DM is for participants to “stand up” (literally) for the children who can’t. It’s called a marathon because you do it for 30 hours. It’s called Dance Marathon because, well, what fun is there in standing for 30 hours if you aren’t going to dance?
DM is actually a pretty popular event at colleges across the U.S. It started at Penn State in 1973, and today about 80 universities hold a similar event. Michigan’s DM program was founded in 1997, and to date it has raised over $2 million for pediatric rehabilitation programs at Motts Children’s Hospital (Ann Arbor, MI) and Beaumont Hopsital (Royal Oak, MI).
Last year, UMDM raised about $350,000.
THE LEAD UP TO THE 2008 MARATHON
As I mentioned previously, my decision to join was sort of last minute. I was part of the final dancer deadline, which meant that I had just about two months to raise my required amount of money.
This year’s requirement? $300. That’s pretty hard for a poor college student. Oh, and while I was raising money for DM, I was in the process of raising $700 for my Alternative Spring Break group to go to Texas and Mexico. (As a group of course.)
Between January and March, I did everything I could to raise that $300. That included bucketing on the streets of Ann Arbor in the cold, bucketing (with treats) at the local bars at 2 AM, going to a charity ball, being a participant in weird psychological studies on campus, and helping out with a one-time clothing sale at the Michigan Union. At 6:00 AM. On a school day.
With about 3 weeks to go before the Marathon (which took place on the 15th and 16th), I got a sort of “warning email” from the DM office letting me know that I still had quite a bit of money to raise. Thankfully, I met the requirement (and even went a little bit above the minimum).
Then, the bad news came. The week before the Marathon, I had to cut caffeine out of my diet. The reasoning? They weren’t going to be providing it at the Marathon. As someone who lives off of caffeine, it was difficult. But I’m proud to say that I made it.
THE 2008 MARATHON: 30 HOURS OF MUSIC AND PAIN
The Marathon happened to fall on a, shall we say, interesting weekend: St. Patty’s Day weekend. Apparently the Pope moved the Feast Day to the 15th so that Catholics could honor Holy Week properly*.
*As an Catholic who’s about 70% Irish, I was conflicted. NOT following St. Patty’s Day on the 17th is like not celebrating Christmas on December 25th. Blasphemous. But I digress.
And on a sidenote: What is it with me and happening to go to important events on St. Patty’s Day?
Needless to say, my walk to the Indoor Track Building on Saturday the 15th was fun.
When I finally got there, I met up with my dance team, Team W. We called ourselves the Wombats. Before you knew it, the Marathon had started, and I wasn’t allowed to sit or sleep until the next day at 4:00 pm.
There were tons of things to do at the Marathon. One of the biggest things there was the Spirit Competition. Each of the teams competed to win the most Spirit Points during the 30 hours. The team with the most would win a huge trophy.
Every few hours, the cue came on for a new “theme hour.” All in all, there were 6 theme hours: Western, Underwater, the Arctic, the Jungle, Outer Space, and Far Far Away land. To get Spirit Points for your team, you could dress up or create crafts that were specific to that theme hour. Our team started strong with creating crafts, but after a while, we lost interest in creating them because we were drained.
You could also win points by winning the team games (our team did once and got to go on stage) or participating in the lip sync contest (we unfortunately hadn’t prepared anything). One team went the creative route and did a Britney Spears-themed lip-sync, with the songs transitioning from “…Baby one more time,” “Oops! I did it again,” and “Gimme More.” It was creative because a guy played Britney, and when they got to “Gimme More,” he ripped off his long wig and pretended to be bald.
There were also endless snacks, basketball hoops, breaks for minute-long massages, downtimes to meet with the families we were supporting, and for dorks like me who felt like studying for Chinese, tables to do homework.
Now, I have a history of physical injuries and odd surgeries, including:
- a broken arm (2001)
- jaw surgery (2001)
- appendix removal surgery (2006)
- arthroscopic surgery to remove fluid in my left knee (2004)
- dislocated right knee (2005)
- broken foot (2007)
This didn’t help in standing for 30 hours. My left knee began to swell up after a few hours, and my former-broken foot started aching a little more than the other foot. And of course, my ankles and heels were starting to kill me. To solve this, I walked around the building a lot and used tennis balls. Yes, tennis balls. They became gold at the Marathon: you simply rolled them across the bottom of your foot and suddenly the pain started to go away.
Yet, at times, I wanted to give up.
Then, of course, there was the sleep factor. In the early hours of the morning, a “rave” was held to keep the dancers up. Though we weren’t supposed to know the time, I’m guessing that it was around 4 or 5 AM*.
*How did I know? All the drunken college friends in their St. Patty’s day gear who came to visit the dancers after closing down the bars were suddenly gone. I told you it was an interesting weekend to hold the marathon.
THE LINE DANCE
To keep dancers awake and entertained, the Line Dance was created. Every few hours, dancers would learn the moves to clips from two songs, culminating in a final 14:00 minute-long dance at the end of the Marathon. Here was this year’s music, sans dance:
Surprisingly, people remembered a lot from the 2007 Line Dance when they performed it on stage towards the end.
VISITORS
As I mentioned earlier, friends could visit, either as “Moralers” or as regular visitors. Some of them, shall we say, weren’t quite in the right state of mind. But it was all fun.
There were also times to stretch, and during these breaks, athletes led them. Members of the soccer, gymnastics and football teams came to help out with that. Mike Hart even showed up.
Speaking of Michigan Football, Head Coach Rich Rodriguez and coaching legend Lloyd Carr visited (at separate times) to give pep talks. But Coach Carr goofed when he told dancers that they had about 2.5 hours left of dancing. After hearing the collective “Ooh…” from the audience, Carr said: “And I guess I wasn’t supposed to tell you that.”
During those last 2.5 hours, the families came on stage to talk about how DM helped them. A lot of dancers (myself included) got pretty emotional during those moments.
RAISING A NEW RECORD
At 4:00 sharp, we were finally allowed to sit down. I can’t tell you how amazing it felt after standing for so long. Words cannot describe it.
After situating ourselves on the floor, the Central Planning Team got up on stage and revealed just how much money we had raised. When we learned that we had raised $428,109.79 (over $75,000 more than last year), some dancers immediately stood back up, practically screaming. It was the most we had ever raised in 10 years as a campus organization.
And I can’t tell you how proud I was to be a part of that.
GOING HOME
When I finally came home, I fell asleep at 4:30 and didn’t wake up until 8…the next morning. The sleep was amazing, though, as all the pain in my legs and feet had gone away.
As for the experience, I was glad to be a part of it, and hope to be involved again next year. Joining DM was probably one of the best decisions I made during my time at the ‘U.’
MORE
UMDM homepage
Michigan Daily Article
This post is tagged campus groups, charity, college, dance, Dance Marathon, music, Personal
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