“Glow” Bright Like a Diamond: Neon Strikes Benson for Another Saturday Night
Photo Credit: Rose Huang
By Rose Huang ’29
7:30, Saturday night. Doors open. Lights drop. A beat starts, and Benson loses its mind. For the next two hours, the dance floor belonged to anyone willing to glow.
The Neon Dance in mid-September is one of St. Mark’s long-running traditions, and the crowd came ready. Bright pink and yellow shirts flared galvanically against the dark room, thrift-shop finds from the previous night debuted on the dance floor, and neon paint turned faces and arms into glowing tattoos. This year, Neon was held on September 12.
Getting there took work: Ms. O'Connell, faculty members, and student volunteers hauled in the equipment and decorations on Friday night, then spent Saturday on ladders, stringing neon curtains and hanging neon posters. Ms. O'Connell bought the decorations with no fixed plan for one mission— where anything went, students and faculty used their artistic vision and, together, improvised the room by instinct.
As the sky darkened, the DJ took over, and the old reliables never let you down. As "Beauty and a Beat" by Justin Bieber sounded, the floor detonated. On your way to Benson, through the windows, you could glimpse neon lightning striking the dance floor with every beat. Walking in, a heat wave washed over you as you beheld the crowd bunch into a tight circle, the bravest jumping hardest at the center while the energy rippled outward. On the rhythmic songs, hands went to shoulders and a train wound through the room where people scurried to find the ends and gripped the shoulders of the person in front, whether they knew them or not. By the time the night thinned near nine, the diehards formed a ring like a stage and took turns diving in for flips and tumbles while everyone else cheered them on.
Not everyone came to dance. Tucked to the left, the photo booth was brought back, drawing some of the loudest praise— and the longest lines. "They brought back the photos, which I think is really cool, because people always like to get dressed up and take photos," said Alexa '28, a returning student who came with three friends. “We came because we went freshman and sophomore year. We always have a lot of fun." She figured this year was "an upgrade" from last, and gave part of the credit to the food: "It kind of draws people to the event more." Outside, the ice cream truck kept a steady queue of dancers cooling off between songs.
The dance beats, the photos, the truck each gave people a different reason to show up, and, for exchange students, a first impression of St. Mark's. "It's really fun. It's quite different," said Alexia, coming from an all-girls school in Australia, where dances are called "socials." Maybe different, but year after year, wherever the crowd comes from, under the neon, everybody glowed the same.