After a three year hiatus, Williamsville East brought back a winter dance in order to fundraise for cancer research in January. Its success was unprecedented and its ticket sales were reminiscent of this year’s Homecoming craze, even after a week of idyllic snow days. In comparison to the poorly attended and cancelled Sadie Hawkins dances for the past three years, the Snowball, also dubbed as “Winter Homecoming” (and #winterhoco on Twitter and Instagram) was presented to an actively engaged and interested student body. Even more interesting was the hype for the dance which was expressed in spirit days such as jersey day and mismatch day, in which a large proportion of students participated.
In recent years, staff and student council had been led to believe that students were not interested in a winter semiformal dance as of late due to the lack of ticket sales for the Sadie’s dances, and had almost given up on the notion of hosting another one because of the want of student excitement and participation. However, they were surprised at the amount of excitement and student engagement at the 2013 Homecoming dance and celebrations, and the senior class officers saw this as a shift in East’s school spirit culture and fertile ground for something new, or rather, something refurbished: a second homecoming, except this time in January. East students proved that they were interested in the event, purchasing 436 tickets for the 2014 Snowball (in comparison to 2013’s 198 ticket sales and 2012’s cancelled Sadie Hawkins dance, which barely sold 100 tickets, it was a hit).
But what was the quality that made going to “winterhoco,” or Winterball, more appealing than Sadie’s? Prabhu Sasankan, senior class treasurer, said that the success of the Snowball (Winter Homecoming) was first and foremost in its title, and that “‘Sadie Hawkins’ had nothing but negative connotations and added confusion due to the girls-ask-boys history.” This idea that girls have to ask boys to the dance sharply contrasted with the current ideal of going to dances with a group of friends, like at Homecoming, and a dance in the Commons didn’t seem to warrant the need for corsages, boutonnieres, and a date to boot.
Robin Marshall, a sophomore, agreed. “I think people didn’t [want to] got to Sadie’s because of the notion that the girl has to ask the guy and that it’s a date dance, heavily romanticized by being around Valentine’s Day,” she stated. Her opinion on the apprehension many girls faced was corroborated by senior class secretary Nisha Divan, who reminisced upon the 2010 Sadie Hawkins Dance and how awkward it was for her sister to ask a boy to the dance, pressured by her friends who were going with their boyfriends.
Today’s high school dances are generally not monogamous affairs. When asked how many girls he had danced with at the 2013 Homecoming, one male senior laughed. “I don’t even remember! I didn’t actively keep track, and it’s more like I danced with one girl every other song than with one girl all night.” A female junior agreed, saying that she had danced with several male friends rather than just one friend, highlighting the shift in today’s “high school dance” culture. It is no longer an event in which you dance with only one person for all slow dances, but rather an event where you are able to dance with several of your friends without being tied down to a date. By being more “Homecoming-esque” in Marshall’s words, the Snowball had the potential to be more favorably looked upon by girls and boys alike who did not feel obligated to only go if they had a date, and was more culturally relevant.
Sasankan stated that he felt that the dance, pioneered by the senior class officers, was a success due to the “genius of [senior class president] Conor Mulvey, a true visionary.” In an effort to ride the coattails of the immense display of school spirit surrounding Homecoming Week, Conor didn’t waste one moment in making the dance a reality. He quickly presented his idea to the rest of the senior class officers, and then to the Student Council, and the idea was received with much excitement. Most notable about the Snowball in its difference to Sadie Hawkins was that a portion of the proceeds from ticket sales were donated to cancer research, and the DJ, an East alum, agreed to play at the event for free.
Whether or not the popularity of the Snowball is representative of a change in attitude in high school students towards the notion of a date dance is uncertain. Julie Adams, a senior, thinks it’s a bit of both. “Well, I think that one of the reasons I was excited about Snowball was that it was going to be not like JDD (Junior Dinner Dance) since I was going to go and dance with a group of my friends. It was my last schoolwide dance at East, and I am proud to have seen how excited my peers got during the week about showing school spirit later in the year. It really was the best way to bring the student body together one more time during the year!”
