NBN sat down with Dancer and Beneficiary Relations Chairs Max Sterling and Sigalle Reshef to talk about their roles during the 30 hours.
NBN: What does DBR do during the 30 hours? What about prep work?
Sterling: In preparation for the 30 hours, we work a lot with the beneficiary, bringing them to campus for events like our BUILD program. Now we’ve had a couple of events: One of them was the Day at Northwestern recently, where we brought build families from Cradle to Crayons to community partners. They came … to experience life at Northwestern. We had parents attend an info session from someone in Northwestern Admissions, we had the Undergrad Chemistry Council come do an explosion, Deeva came as well. Little parts of campus coming together, trying to give the kids from Cradle to Crayons a microcosm of what it’s like. That’s what we do on a beneficiary side, we facilitate those events before the weekend of.
Reshef: And in terms of what DBR does during the 30 hours, we basically just work to motivate the dancers at all times: Make sure that everyone has energy, and that they are keeping in mind the message of Dance Marathon and our beneficiary throughout the 30 hours, so that everybody is ready to go for our final Total Reveal at the end of Block 10.
NBN: One of DBR’s main roles is to motivate the dancers. How do you guys keep yourselves motivated to pump up others?
Sterling: Definitely the motivation has always been the beneficiary. … Any of the years I’ve been a part of NUDM, the motivating factor has been … impact that we would eventually have. That would be – in terms of pumping up dancers, it’s definitely the message that I also want to pass along to dancers about why they’re dancing in the tent. It’s not about the event itself; it’s more about what you’re doing and what that’s symbolic of.
Reshef: Something that has kept me coming back to this committee all four years is the sense of excitement that you get, and the ability – even if it’s not always easy – of every DBR member to keep up the energy and happiness because of the beneficiary and what we’re working on, has always been so inspiring to me.