Naperville Central held its 2022 winter dance in its field house with the theme “It’s All Greek to Me” on Saturday, March 19.

The dance was attended by 950 students, with space for dancing and karaoke. 

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.”

The dance itself was 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.

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.

Kingsbury’s expectations for what post-COVID-19 dances look like were not met, however.

“It was a little underwhelming,” Kingsbury said. “But it was fun to see my friends there.”

The expectations of sophomore Michael Schatz were more easily met.

“I liked the dancing, I liked seeing a lot of people I knew, I liked dressing up,” Schatz said. “It was a pretty good time.”

Sara Ducharme, a senior, participated in some activities offered as an alternative to dancing.

“In the cafe it was fun. everyone was doing karaoke and being really supportive of each other,” Ducharme said. “Everywhere people were just having fun.”