Emilia Barrosse hands her phone off. “Hey, my little sister is on the line. She wants to know if she can come on the stage during Dance Marathon.”
Jesse Swedlund laughs a little and grabs it. “Are you or are you not the prodigy?” he immediately jokes to the girl on the other line. There is a pause and a smile comes across his face. “You are? Well, absolutely you’re invited on stage. That’s not even a question.”
He trails off and hands the phone back to his fellow DM emcee. “And this is why it’s going to work,” he comments. “We work well together.”
The two sophomores – Barrosse a Medill student and Swedlund in the School of Communication – were announced as the 2011 Dance Marathon emcees last November after an intensive, and somewhat top-secret, round of auditions.
“Jesse and I danced last year,” Barrosse recalls. “And it became more and more apparent to us as the night went on that we were way more into it than everybody else. And it wasn’t just in the sense that we enjoyed dancing and being in the tent. We were into it in the fact that we got up on the stage all the time and often were the only two people on the stage that weren’t the emcees.”
It is, as she says lightheartedly, their calling.
“I have personally been preparing to be the emcee since I was born,” Barrosse laughs. “It isn’t really just a hobby, I feel like it’s a lifestyle thing for me … And it’s been such fulfilling work.”
Swedlund and Barrosse have worked intensively the past three months to ensure a smooth DM. They’ve attended board meetings, learned about this year’s beneficiaries – the Children’s Heart Foundation and the Evanston Community Foundation – and shot a series of short films to be aired during dance intermissions. And their work is about to come to fruition: DM is now only eight days away.
“Everywhere I go I’m talking about DM,” Swedlund says with pride. “I talk about being an emcee and how awesome it’s going to be, and I try to get people excited.”
This is the 36th year for Northwestern Dance Marathon. Last year, NU raised more than $850,000 for charity (including in kind donations) and had more than 750 dancers.
“Everybody should be really getting excited for Dance Marathon,” Barrosse plugs in a rehearsed voice. But then she pauses, her tone softening. “Get ready not just because it’s going to be fun, but because we’re doing something really important and really special and really powerful. It’s something that goes far beyond the 30 hours we’ll be dancing … Those 30 hours will change lifetimes that we can’t even comprehend or see at that time.”
As for the 2011 dancers, even with the excitement of the good they’re doing, Barrosse still predicts a dance coma to set in around hour 15.
“But that’s where we come in,” she chuckles. “We are very, very energetic and are extremely, extremely uninhibited. And, you know, we won’t be afraid to dance really badly … Or at least won’t be afraid.”
But the million-dollar question: Do they think they’ll get sick of each other after 30 hours? The answer: varying.
“Not really. We’re good friends,” Swedlund smiles, looking at his fellow emcee.
Barrosse jokes, “Only time will tell. I just hope he wears deodorant.”
