This year’s Semi-Formal dance is themed, ““A Knight in Winter Wonderland.” Read more below. Creative commons image by kismihok on Flickr.

By Sarah Demmon

This Saturday night, on Jan. 28, Menlo will be hosting the annual Semi-Formal dance in the gym from 8-11 p.m.

The sophomore class traditionally is in charge of planning the dance and deciding the theme. After some deliberation, this year’s chosen theme is “A Knight in Winter Wonderland.”

The other themes that were considered were Up in the Clouds, The Great Gatsby, In the Jungle, and All Around the World.

The sophomores will be working in tandem with their class coordinators Andy Kitt and Frances Ferrell to set up for the dance.

Ferrell is in charge of the whole production and has been apart of setting up numerous dances in the past. Kitt’s job is to help the students contribute their own feedback and ideas in an organized way.

“At the first few meetings we discussed how we really wanted to improve the music, generated a list of themes and what kind of decorations we could use for it and what those types of names could be on the card. Then we split into committees in charge of food, logistics, publicity, and decorations, ” sophomore Class President Marianne Siulangapo said.

The Semi budget for this year is $10,000, which is a little tighter than Ferrell and the planning committees would prefer. “We could have done $20,000 but we had to pare down and prioritize what we really wanted,” Ferrell said.

They had to make some decisions based on what is feasible with the budget, but decorations for this year are still sure to create the effect of a “Winter Wonderland”. “I wanted all white draping but it’s too expensive, so we are going to use our existing black pipe and drape. […]. Behind the DJ there will be a 10 by 12 foot video wall. [The vendors] are promoting it for [Menlo] so we will be the first school [ever using it,] so they might have people from their team here as a videographers to use on their website for marketing,” Ferrell said. “For the first hour we are going to [show] snow falling [on the video wall]. Then once everyone is there at nine it will show psychedelic images; it’s kind of trance-like where people just look at but it beats with the music.”

Beyond the video wall, there will also be physical decor to add to the theme. “We are going to have a tunnel of trees like you’re entering winter wonderland, and we also got manzanita trees,” Ferrell said. “We have white couches for people to sit and ottomans and tables. My goal is to create two lounge areas because I don’t [want] the seniors to occupy one and the underclassmen feel like they don’t have a place to sit.”

The most difficult part of preparing a dance is the music concurred both Ferrell and Maya Donato, Menlo’s spirit commissioner who has also previously worked on dances.

This year for Semi, Ferrell and Maya made sure to take student feedback into account when picking the music. “Marianne Siulangapo[, the sophomore class president,] used the [spreadsheet of recommendations] we had from homecoming and pared it down to 80 songs which we shared with the DJ. […] We also came up with [a] top 25 that he must play,” Ferrell said.

“Generally, I tried not to include too many mainstream pop songs because not everyone likes, it and there are a couple rap songs because a lot of people like rap,” Siulangapo said. “I know not everyone will be pleased because everyone likes different kinds of music, but we tried getting a variation in there.”

This year’s dance will feature three geofilters for Snapchat specifically for Semi. These filters were created by sophomore Izzy Banatao, who is in charge of the dance’s publicity.

“I made a Winter Wonderland one which is more wintery and blue with snowflakes–-pretty much what you would think of Christmas, a [plain and simple] ‘A Knight in Winter Wonderland.’ Then, I also did one with a Menlo symbol and it says ‘Menlo ‘17 Semi Formal’ ” Banatao said. “I tried to make more than one so people have a variety and can pick and choose.”