UWMC philosophy professor, Juliana Paradise Hunt, hosted the fourth Dance for Charity Event on Valentine’s Day in the UWMC student union. The first ever charity dance to be held on a Saturday began at 7:00 p.m. with dance lessons, ending at 12:00 a.m. Tickets were $3.00 if purchased beforehand while they were $5.00 at the door. Proceeds from the event were donated to the Neighbor’s Place, a local organization that helps low- income families. Non- perishable items would go to the Women’s Community and other local food banks.

The deep, pulsing beats of the night were provided by Isaiah Stewart, a local D.J. out of Merrill, Wis. and his brother Jake, who acts as a partner. They provided the excellent soundtrack, as well as the music for auction dates to show off their moves.

One of the most exciting events of the evening was the 8:30 p.m. date auction, a first for the charity dance. Attendees ’sold’ themselves to a member of the opposite sex on the dance floor. Bidding went from as low as $4.00 to over $20.00 for dance partners.

Unfortunately, the ratio between guys and girls left the girls digging a little deeper into their purses to buy the handsome specimens. The date auction, conceived a couple of years ago, has been taken as an issue with the university since they believe that problems could arise from such an event. However, the auction was harmless fun that everyone really enjoyed.

Things were slow at first, when the event began at 7:00 P.M., but by 9:00 P.M. everything had changed. The room had taken on a new form, and a new feeling. The penetrating feeling in the air was of deep passion, romance and love. I could feel it thick as free floating mud cluster-fucking the loved into feverish passion, uncontrollable by any natural force. I thought the event might turn into a passionate-nearing-manic orgy in the smoke and flashing lights. For the alone, the unloved, sitting on the sidelines watching with eyes so sorrowful the look itself could break hearts, they were left caught up in the passion, but as observers only, with no outlet, no reprieve.

I observed for sometime, feeling the incredible passion floating throughout the air. I couldn’t help but be simply dumbfounded watching the bunch-clump of bodies wreathing and surging on the dance floor. There was a couple making out on the dance floor.

The sheer terror of the side liner desiring and fearing to both extremes being sucked into the feverish dance was truly a spectacle of the inhibitions and general hypocrisy inherent in humanity. Facing that kind of energy, that kind of swirling intensity of emotion, I can’t say I blame them. All emotions are amplified on a day like this one. I felt it as well at first.

I located my associate Kyle Silvers, who was bumbling about the area running interviews and jotting down information. He sat down next to me as I wrote steadily into a notebook. There was a dance-train spinning slowly around the floor now, connecting every member, like a twirling snake.

“I’ve got the feeling..” I said.

“What feeling?” replied Kyle.

“..It’s strong in the air. Can you feel the passion?”

“I can. It’s thick as sap.”

Kyle and I joined the dance floor with a friend of mine named Ben, and everything changed. The magic began and Ben said, “Juliana announced there would a prize for the best dancing, so come on guys, we’re gonna win this for America. We gotta stop the terrorists!”

“What?” Demanded Kyle.

“He’s from Merrill, enough said,” I replied.

There were 20 to 30 on the floor now. The dance floor moved at once, familiar and unfamiliar faces alike bouncing about rising and falling with the beats and loops. I was covered in sweat after a while, spraying it from my hair as I flung my head back and forth.

We kept dancing, going crazy, enjoying ourselves and later on Juliana Hunt came up to us and told us we’d won the best dancers award. I was shocked, and guessed it was given out of pity for the three of us, more than anything.

We sat down after a time catching our breath, Ben and I heading outside to catch a smoke. Standing outside was Dustin Hinz, a non-trad at UWMC. He commented on the dance saying, “It’s a good cause. I love it. It kicks ass.”

“This is the most fun I’ve ever had dancing to top 40 hits,” added Benjamin Paul Katke, a townie and former student.

Jacob Klade, a sophomore at UWMC, said, “I just wish more people would show up, 20 people is not that much. We really would like the numbers so we could actually move out and serve the community with this.”

After the short discussion, the cigarettes were smoked and we headed back inside, dancing right until the last song. Almost immediately the crowd departed, and so we did as well.

Kyle, Ben and I decided it best to go get some coffee and discuss what we’d seen happen. On the way Kyle and I were pulled over by a police officer who questioned our blood alcohol contents, but we didn’t disclose too much. We were in fact, innocent after all.

Kyle ordered some junky monkey cake, Ben fumbled about with coffee and I sat looking at the “LOVE” and hearts drawn on my arms pondering the events of the evening, once we’d arrived.

One of the main reasons Hunt, the brainchild of the event, continues to host it, even though she says it getting to wear on her, is her belief that: “It’s important to have a school with a social life.” Hunt said when she attended UWMC many years ago, students had a lot more fun than students do now and wishes to bring that spirit back to the UWMC through the charity dances; an ‘exercise in Periclean Democracy.’ She believes dancing is a participatory activity, not a spectator sport.

Hunt, a philosophy professor, often contrasts the lives of the ancient Greek with today’s Americans. The ancients would gather at night to socialize and dance in the streets in a display of collective joy and understanding. Americans on the other hand, tend to retire to their television and shut the blinds after a day at work. The dance is an opportunity for people to come together, lose their inhibitions and have a breathtaking time on the dance floor. Because, after all, as Julie Hunt said, “One hundred people dancing is better than none, don’t you think?”

The essential elements I took from the event were the freedom, happiness, loss of inhibition and social comradery that dancing brought to an otherwise alienated group of people, very well unknown to one another. As Ben Paul Katke, a local had said: “Dancing makes me feel infinite.”

I’d never felt so good, open, or alive as after freeing myself through dance. That much was certain. Juliana Hunt was right after all, you don’t get the experience, you can’t really cover the event, unless you get out on that floor and dance. I’d experienced it several times before, but it had never struck me in that way. Dancing is as much a form of true entertainment and almost untainted happiness as it is a spiritual meditation in the ultimate freeing of the body and soul, unifying them, pressing them together and letting them loose, completely, in the form of dance. What a beautiful form, to witness and to live.