Dance commission hires new DJs

Electronic dance music filled the quad at the Back to School Dance on the first Friday of the school year. Some students seemed to be enjoying it, while others seemed to be unsure of themselves. Music like this hadn’t been played at any of the dances for the past four years.

DJ Sir Edgar is the first new DJ to perform at one of the school’s dances since before the class of 2019 entered as freshmen. According to activities director Matt Torrens, the school was consistently hiring DJ Delicious in an effort to alter students’ style of dancing.

“About four years ago, the administration sat down with the previous activities director and said, ‘We’re having a problem with the freaky dancing, so we need to talk to the DJs about playing music that doesn’t encourage that,’” Torrens said.

Four years later, the administration has achieved its goal. Torrens credits the change to DJ Delicious’s appropriate music selection and the fact that incoming students have gradually transformed the school’s culture. Because of this, dance commission was informed last spring that it was allowed to look for new DJs for the upcoming school year.

“We chose Edgar because he was rated number one on Yelp, and he seemed like a good professional DJ who would bring new vibes,” said head dance commissioner junior Nicole Wong.

Though the change in music was refreshing and fixed the problem of predictable music selection, students seemed to be dissatisfied with the music at the Back to School Dance.

“During the dance, you could see that it was a different style of music,” said Torrens. “It was more electronic. It didn’t appear from my vantage point that the kids were dancing as much.”

Wong agrees with this assessment.

“I liked the songs he played, but he was a little too techno for me,” she said.

Due to the negative response to DJ Sir Edgar’s music selection, he was not hired to DJ at the Homecoming dance. However, the dance commissioners were faced with too pressing a time crunch to go through the process of finding another DJ, getting its choice approved by administration and contacting and hiring the new DJ by Sept. 15. Because of this, they returned to DJ Delicious for Homecoming.

Dance commission has roughly planned out the DJs for the school’s upcoming dances. For winter formal, the commission is looking into hiring a new DJ, and the music at spring fling will be provided by senior Vittorio Bianzino. The DJs at proms are not picked by dance commission; the respective classes choose their own DJ. According to Torrens, the senior class has picked DJ Delicious, and the junior class is still undecided.

Wong has a rough idea of the qualities she and the dance commission will be searching for in a DJ for winter formal.

“I think the ideal DJ is someone who can read a crowd well,” she said. “I know there will always be haters but I think overall if a lot of people say it’s good the dance would be enjoyable.”