Adam Birnbaum has had trouble sleeping at night this week, kept awake by the seemingly endless jobs to do before preparations for Dance Marathon are complete.
“The only thing I could compare it to is producing DM last year,” said Birnbaum, a McCormick senior. “This is 1,000 times more intense.”
As co-chairman of DM’s Louis Room Production Committee, tasked with preparing the room for the fundraiser, Birnbaum has been working tirelessly with other committee members since Monday.
When the 30-hour fundraiser begins at 7 p.m. tonight, about 500 participants will pack into the room, located on the second floor of Norris University Center. To ready the area for the dancers, observers and charity representatives who will attend, committee members have missed classes and worked late into the night.
“I’m hoping to have everything done tonight so I can go have some sleep in peace,” Andrew Bloustein, head technical director for the committee, said Thursday as he crouched amid wires and control boards in a room overlooking the dance floor.
Bloustein, a Communication junior, said he skipped class Thursday to spend his time on DM preparations. He has been working all week organizing DVDs and Power Point presentations that will advertise for sponsors or show messages to dancers during the event.
“This is my first taste of the week before (DM),” said Bloustein, who filmed the event last year. “Last year I signed up two days before because I got an e-mail saying they needed people. I didn’t know what I was getting myself into.”
In addition to setting up video cameras to film the event and capture a “live feed” of activities inside Norris, DM committee members have been constructing the intricate system of overhead lights that will help set the mood for each themed music block.
“It’s a lot of busy work,” said Brent Sandrock, a Communication senior, who is working as lighting director for his second year in a row. “It’s a lot of details. I’ve been programming different sets of lights, different movements for lights and different colors so that during the show you can control them.”
After driving a six-wheel truck from place to place on Monday to collect parts needed for the lighting apparatus, Sandrock worked with other committee members to bolt the huge metal trusses together, attach motors to raise and lower the rig and hang 32 moving lights.
“When I walk away from it four days from now,” he said, “it will be worth it.”
Although working as lighting director is a rewarding task, it’s a lot harder than being a dancer — at least for now.
“It’s physically exhausting,” he said. “Dancers can sleep and go to classes.”
Besides wearing themselves out by working about eight hours every day of the week to prepare the Louis Room for DM, some committee members also feel responsible for the success or failure of the event.
“At times it gets a little stressful after everything we’ve put into it,” said Danniele Meglen, co-chairwoman of the committee. “It’s resting on our shoulders. We run the show.”
For Meglen, a Communication senior, DM is unlike any other experience.
“There’s nothing at this school I’ve put more time and energy into than DM, not even classes,” she said. “Where else do you feel so close to 500 strangers?”
Reach Evan Hill at [email protected].
