Naperville Central is hosting its 2022 winter dance on Saturday, March 19 at 7:20 p.m. in the school’s field house.

Doors will open at 7 p.m., and the dance will end between 10 p.m. and 10:30 p.m., depending on the number of students in attendance. 

Students can purchase $20 tickets during their lunch periods on the five school days leading up to the dance, starting on Thursday, March 10. 

Senior Class Council and senior class president Anusha Kumar were in charge of planning this dance. 

“The winter dance is our version of a second-semester dance,” Kumar said. “It’s a little bit more formal than homecoming, but usually it’s a lot more low-key.”

Senior Class Council decided on the theme of “It’s All Greek to Me” for the dance.

“[The theme is about] embracing historical and popular understanding of Greek culture,” Kumar said. “Our dress-up days take on a wide array of Greek interpretations.” 

These dress-up days start on Thursday, March 10 with “Greek Gods and Goddesses” day, and continue every school day until the day of the dance.

Other dress-up days include “Greek life” on March 11, “Blue and White” on March 16, and “Winter v.s. Summer Olympics” day on March 17.

March 18, the Friday before the dance, will be a school spirit day, a tradition of Naperville Central dress-up weeks. 

The dance itself will be forced to stray from tradition in several ways, including a lack of decorations.

This difference, along with the date of the dance itself, were both caused by an inability to find a venue compliant with COVID-19 regulations.

Senior Class Council sponsor Jeromy Bentley worked with the group for months to find a safe way to hold the winter dance.

“No matter what we do, we’re always trying to go ahead and provide any experiences we can for the students that seem to be normal,” Bentley said in February, while working to find a venue for the dance. 

The council first planned to hold the dance in an outdoor tent, or to hold it at an outside venue, but neither proved feasible.

After the mask mandate was lifted for Illinois schools, Naperville Central’s field house became a potential venue compliant with COVID-19 restrictions.

This lack of masking has caused some students, like senior Sara Duchmare, to worry about their health.

“After going to the senior party, I know a lot of people got sick, not necessarily with COVID but just in general,” Duchmare said. “I’m a little worried that might happen again.”

For students with concerns like Duchmare’s, other options are provided at the dance.

“We definitely have more accommodations and places for people who don’t necessarily want to dance in the field house because they feel like that would put their health at risk,” Kumar said.

These options include line dancing and Karaoke.

The COVID-19 pandemic forced Central to forgo holding a winter dance in 2021, which has made this year’s dance all the more exciting for many students like senior Michael Kingsbury.

“It means more to me this year since we haven’t been able to have school functions in so long,” Kingsbury said.