How Will the THON Line Dance Work Virtually?
UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa.- Samantha Mackey is the Dancer Wellness Captain for this year’s THON line dance. Mackey is a part of the Penn State Lionettes and has been dancing since she was four years old.
Each year, the wellness captain is tasked with collecting songs weekly from all co-captains.
“All my co-captains submit, in this case this year, four songs a week that could potentially be used as background songs for our line dance which a lot of people don’t actually know that there’s a song playing in the background throughout all the lyrics,” Mackey said.
An Excel spreadsheet is used to document 12 to 16 topics per verse, from world events, to pop culture and anything Penn State. Organization is key to ensure everything is ready prior to choreographing the line dance.
“It’s kind of a lot of organizing and prepping for creating the line dance as soon as we come back to school in the spring which we did that a couple of weeks ago, so a lot of prep work goes into it even like music mixing,” Mackey said. “We are just trying to get everything ready so that come line dance retreat weekend we can get it all together and have our line dance.”
Since everything will be virtual this year, the team planned to pre-record segments for their live stream.
“We’re going to be utilizing a lot of pre-recordings this year just to be played all throughout the weekend at different times hopefully to get our dancers up and moving all weekend long, Mackey said.”
Mackey said the main focus of the line dance is to put a smile on everyone’s face, keep the dancers healthy and uplift people throughout the entire line dance. Her value’s align with those of the team.
“My main goal in life has been to impact at least one person in a positive way and so combining my love and passion for dance as well as that goal I have really just fell into place for the Dancer Wellness Position and I’m just so thankful that I have the opportunity to carry that on,” Mackey said.”
Courtney McGinley is a freshman majoring in broadcast journalism. To contact her, email cbm5861@psu.edu
