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The Underground at the Schine Student Center was bustling with students, booming with music and decorated with red and yellow balloon towers. Students entered through the doors of The Underground to a large room, outfitted with tables for guests to eat at, food to enjoy and a wide open dance floor.

On Friday, Orange After Dark hosted its carnival-themed Spring Formal event. Following the success of last semester’s formal, OAD planned and executed this semester’s end of the year event to include more activities.

Hannah Katzman, a senior on OAD’s event board, made a Pinterest board to plan for the formal. She wanted to find ideas that encapsulated the carnival theme, including the welcoming balloon towers situated in front of the dance floor’s entrance. Katzman’s ultimate goal, though, was for students to have fun.

“I hope it definitely gets exposure to OAD events so people come in the future. I just hope they have fun,” Katzman said before the event. “I’m just excited to see how everything turns out.”

To Katzman’s goal, dozens of students showed up in their best, taking full advantage of the games and activities the formal had to offer. Songs ranging from early 2000s hits to modern dance classics fired the crowd up and had attendees singing along.

Freshmen Jaymi Garrido and Clareese Bonsu attended OAD’s fall semester formal, which had “music, a DJ, food and photo ops.” Compared to the previous event, the spring formal had more activities, such as carnival games, Garrido said. The atmosphere, music and making memories were what Bonsu said she enjoyed most about the dance.

“(The carnival theme) makes it more light-hearted. Anybody can come — if you don’t feel like dressing up, you can still have carnival food and play games,” Bonsu said.

Other activities included a photobooth, DJ, caricaturist and plenty of room for dancing. OAD also served light refreshments, including popcorn to emulate a traditional carnival environment. The event’s organizers also conducted an instant camera raffle, which students could enter by playing a game of Plinko.

Caricaturist J.P. Crangle is no stranger to events at Syracuse University. As a Syracuse native, he’s had 43 years of experience working in and around central New York, and the OAD spring formal was right up his alley.

Crangle loves “making the kids happy with these fantastic caricatures, on-the-spot entertainment,” he said. “You get to meet fabulous people, and I get to enhance your natural beauty.”

The caricature table stayed busy through the night, with students lining up individually and with their friends to receive a piece of Crangle’s work, which he was providing for free. In addition to drawing students’ likenesses on the page, Crangle added a touch of color to his pieces to provide a fun sense of realism.

Jeffry Mateo, an assistant director with the Office of Student Activities, had overseen the formal’s planning from start to finish, beginning around six or seven weeks ago, he said. Mateo was originally skeptical of the carnival theme but said he was proud to see it come to fruition so successfully. He, too, wanted to prioritize student engagement as his goal for the event.

“The interaction, having the students come out — it’s been two very tough years with COVID, so we haven’t had this event in a while,” Mateo said. “I’m just hoping that students find it. … Those that are here, you can see that they’re having a blast.”

Published on April 25, 2022 at 11:06 pm