On Friday evening, black attire enabled students to show off their inner goth or punk at this year’s Environmental Club Blackout Dance, held in Spirito Hall. Black was the color of the evening; students wore everything from collar necklaces, ripped shirts, fishnets, top hats and black jeans, not to mention the impressive eyeshadow, eyeliner, lipstick and glitter that students wore to complete their looks.

The night started off with the song Cities in Dust by Siouxsie and the Banshees where the small amount of students who had just arrived danced unrestricted while they had the floor to themselves. Others had gathered outside to socialize and show off their outfits.

Environmental Club President Vineta Sondors ‘18 said, “people don’t want to dance unless there’s already people dancing, so it’s hard to be the first person out there,” but with the help of the song, Watch Me by Silentó, students joined in to “whip” and “nae nae” and get the party started.

After 40 minutes, many people started to show up and the crowd got more dense. “When we first got here, it was a little slow and there wasn’t that many people, but it’s started to pick up and it’s gotten really fun,” Carly Leandro ‘20 said.

Students enjoyed snacks while they cooled off outside, but were drawn back to the dance floor by school dance hits like “Low” by Flo Rida and “Hips Don’t Lie” by Shakira.

The blackout theme appeared to be a big hit, with almost all attendees dressed up.

“I think the theme itself makes it really fun, cause it adds kind of like something to think forward to,” and “with this you get to go out with your friends and find some clothes at the thrift store or something and it becomes more of an experience,” Olga Qoshlli ‘21 described.

As for preparing for the dance, the Environmental Club has been organizing the event “for the last month and a half,” according to Environmental Club Adviser and Spanish teacher Josiah Guzik.

“We’ve been contacting the DJ, setting up dance shifts for club members and organizing the logistics,” he said.

They ended up selling 195 tickets in total. The goal of the dance was purely “to bring this back as a yearly tradition because people had a lot of fun last year” and to “hold more fun events like this and have people come to together and dance and spend time with friends and enjoy the snacks and the music,” Sondors expressed.

All in all, the night was full of singing, dancing and laughter; “[it was] a fun start to spring break” Blake Erickson ‘20 summarized.