Photo Credit: Betsy Snow

After the recent Winter Formal, many students can be heard griping about the dance not living up to its expectations. But how high are the expectations anyway?

As I see it, it appears that all people need is music- music and other people to grind on. Despite the current rule in the student handbook stating that students may not partake in inappropriate dancing, students continue to “freak”. Now that isn’t to say that we should all return to the days of ballroom dancing and masquerades (which I hear is a possible theme for Prom ’10), but I don’t think toning down the freaking would be a bad thing. Maybe a “90 degree” rule would be more appropriate that an all out ban. In any case, serious freaking makes dances less of a social event. Do you talk with a person if your hands are on the ground? Didn’t think so. Although its true that you can always find people in circles of friends cooling off and chatting, you just wont get the same effect freaking with someone as you will if you’re dancing face to face.

As for music, the selection at both Homecoming ‘09 and Winter Formal ’09 were simply not up to par.

Esmeralda Garcia, a junior, says, “All they played was rap [at Homecoming], and I don’t know any rap. The music wasn’t diverse enough”.

Rap- and a couple Taylor Swift songs- seemed to be the music of choice by the DJ at homecoming, while at Winter Formal ’09 the DJ chose the iTunes top ten and techno nobody had ever heard of. I think everyone would agree that the best choice for music would be a variety of songs that actually change from year to year.

In my time at Menlo-Atherton it appears that dances have gone significantly downhill since I was a freshman. But as I examine it closely, was there really much of a difference between the dances I attended as a freshman and the ones I now attend as a junior? Looking back, I would have to say no. The sparse decorations at this year’s Homecoming were just as sparse when I was a freshman, the music equally homogenous. And yet many of the people I asked said that dances truly were better earlier on in their high school career.

It is possible that, as a freshman, the idea of going to a high school dance is simply more appealing. It gives you a chance to meet new people, dress up, and go out for the night, even if you do spend most of the time avoiding that annoying kid from English class, or bashing the decorations. It was a shiny new toy compared to middle school dances.

Sophomore Patrick Reed thinks that “the thrill dissipates as you get older” and it seems like there are better things to do than go to a high school dance.

It is hard to get students together to celebrate, have fun and let loose without the majority of them going off and doing something illegal, so I would hope that a Menlo-Atherton dance could be the place for students to have fun in an appropriate way. But unless leadership kicks it up a notch, we’re going to find fewer and fewer people going to M-A dances and more of them… well… elsewhere.

My suggestion is that more people get involved with leadership’s planning of dances, or at least that the process behind planning dances becomes more transparent. In this way we can better come up with ways to cater to all audiences at an M-A dance. Leadership will have a better reputation, the school will have a better reputation, and students will have a better time on the weekend.