By Tara Stanzione | Staff Writer –
Colored lasers shot lights across the great hall of Ochre Court as students dressed in effort to glow-in-the-dark and danced the night away at Salve Regina’s popular blacklight dance last Friday night.
At the height of the event, between 10:30p.m. and midnight, as many as 150 students rocked the floor. To maximize the effect of the blacklights, most women wore cut-up white shirts and neon-cut-off tanks and shorts, while most men wore jeans and white tees. The WSRU radio station sponsored the dance and Salve’s own DJs showed off their skills. The DJs spinning that night included Lizzie Mozer, James Aguilar, Kristin Wilinkiewicz, and Julian Barcelo. They played top hits including “Summertime Sadness” by Lana Del Rey and Miley Cyrus’s “We Can’t Stop.” Most music was hip-hop and pop, but they threw in a few throw-backs like “Jump Around” by House Of Pain which students loved.
DJ Lizzie Mozer, a senior at Salve Regina, stated that the dance is sold out every time, selling 400 tickets at 5 dollars each. Mozer says that past radio station president, Frank Gaspar, began the Blacklight tradition when she was a freshman. “He had run the idea of the ‘wave rave’ past his higher-ups, but Salve was concerned about the image of raves and how they’re usually the product of drugs. He was looking for a good balance between what the school wanted, and what the students wanted. That’s how blacklight was born,” Mozer said.
Though most students were freshmen, many upperclassmen attended as well and there seemed to be an equal amount of men and women on the dance floor. Everyone was given a highlighter green paper bracelet, permitting them to come and go as they pleased. As always there was a room with cups, water, and chairs for students to relax, refresh, and step away from the dance when they needed a break or when the strobe lights came to be too much for them. Briana Tosado, a Salve freshman, proclaimed that she loved it at blacklight. “The music [was] so good; I will definitely come back next year!”
The sponsor of the dance, WSRU, is Salve Regina’s student run radio and was officially recognized by the university as an organization in 1998. Students became very interested in it starting in 2007 and they have been successfully broadcasting ever since. This organization is always looking for students to let their creativity shine and join their family. To learn more about WSRU stop by the station in the bottom of Wakehurst room 007.
