As the 26th hour came to a close, the tiles lined up and the number flashed onstage.
The record-breaking total: $451,144.03, surpassing last year’s by more than $40,000. Over the past 11 years, Dance Marathon at UCLA has raised more than $3 million to support efforts to combat pediatric AIDS.
Tears and cheers of joy erupted from the crowd. Dance Marathon participants, exhausted, embraced one another in what had been a shared experience among hundreds of people.
At 1 p.m., dancers sat down for the first time in more than a day with a collective sigh of relief. A total of 837 dancers had completed the full 26 hours; hundreds more participated in three-hour shifts as moralers throughout the day and night.
Emotional moments preceded the reveal of the final total. Jake Glaser, whose mother Elizabeth is the namesake of the nonprofit Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation, addressed the crowd before the final total was revealed.
“This is the most people I’ve seen in this room,” Glaser said, tears in his eyes. “My mother was a big fan of dancing. “¦ I want to thank everyone here for embodying that.”
“There are so many lives you are changing today,” he said.
As most dancers filed out of Ackerman Grand Ballroom, some people were already planning for next year. UCLA Pediatric AIDS Coalition President Erin Ward has been part of the planning committee for four years. Although the fourth-year psychology student plans to head off to a graduate school of public health, she said this isn’t the end of her Dance Marathon experience.
“I vowed to myself that wherever I end up next year, I will fly back home for this event,” Ward said.
Pamela Cysner, an adviser for the planning committee and the UCLA Center for Student Programming, has watched the fundraising total increase for each of the 11 years.
“Seeing it from the beginning to the end is amazing,” Cysner said.
For her, what participants learn from their experiences is more important than the actual event, she said.
Talking to the Dance Marathon ambassadors, people who have been affected by HIV/AIDS directly or through a family member, puts a face to the cause, said fourth-year history student Cecybeth Granados.
“Our pain is only going to last (until) tomorrow, but they struggle for the rest of their lives,” Granados said.
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Full coverage
The Daily Bruin covered the full 26 hours with photos, video and stories of dancers’ experiences in two main ways. The first was by using social media to create a Storify post, which pulls together tweets and Facebook posts and integrates the voices of those on the dance floor.
The Bruin also produced on-the-go stories through our mobile journalism blog Mojo. Here are the highlights to help you relive the event:
- “Color Wars” are friendly competitions between dance teams. The very first one was for “best cheer.” That went to the team that remixed a Disney song.
- Dancers made condom art and accessories as a dancing-break activity, a Dance Marathon tradition and part of the event’s HIV/AIDS prevention message.
- Multiple costume changes took place for a variety of themes throughout Dance Marathon. In a second “Color War” competition, a dance-off was combined with hot dogs and beauty pageant queens.
- Our reporter took an inside look at the “bag room,” where dancers keep the gear for eight changes of clothes in addition to snacks and personal items.
- Celebrity guests made appearances, including blogger Perez Hilton and BMX rider Terry Adams.
- Midnight moralers injected a burst of energy into Dance Marathon, pushing through the double doors into Ackerman Grand Ballroom.
- Emergency medical technicians stood by from 10 p.m. to 2:30 a.m. in case a dancer felt dizzy or needed medical assistance. The number of dancers tripled this year, and organizers wanted to put safety first, said Ben White, spokesman for the Pediatric AIDS Coalition.
- As the sun rose and with five hours left to go, dancers belted out a series of classic Disney songs.
- Hot breakfast offered a much-needed break as Dance Marathon neared its 19th hour.
- “Power Hour,” the final hour of Dance Marathon, brought up the energy level as the 26th hour neared.
- The emotional reveal of the fundraising total by the UCLA Pediatric AIDS Coalition was captured on video.
We also asked two first-year students, Katie Machado and Elise Valentini, to demonstrate the morale dance, which is repeated two times every three hours. Watch how they improved over the course of Dance Marathon:
All of the Mojo stories are archived here.
With contributing reports by Devin Kelly, Kristen Taketa, Stephen Stewart, Lynn Rice, Olivia Hitchcock, Ryland Lu, Kassy Cho, Alexander Baklaijian, Byron Lutz, Kate Parkinson-Morgan, Rei Estrada, Blaine Ohigashi, Enid Zhou and James Barragan, Bruin senior staff.