After three years of colored powder explosions, Leadership cancelled this year’s Color Dyephoon, citing security issues and lack of club and student attendance.
Since the first Color Dyephoon in 2015, student attendance has risen to 350 students, yet this number is relatively small compared to the attendance at Homecoming and Formal, which average 700 to 800 students.
“It’s our least well-attended dance,” said Leadership adviser Melissa Perino. “Leadership is funded through … the extra money that we make from the dances. So if [we] have an unsuccessful dance then that directly lessens the amount that we have to give back to the student body.”
A concern over event security also contributed to the Color Dyephoon’s cancellation.
“Every year we always have students sneaking in,” Perino said. “If I can’t take positive attendance of who is there … that makes it an unsafe event.”
Another factor was club participation.
“Clubs used to be really involved in doing all school events like food fairs, and this year we struggled to even get 20 of the 54 clubs to participate in the food fair,” Perino said. “[The] fact that we have had such lukewarm results from the clubs this year in events that are being held during the school day makes us feel like we can’t really rely on them for [the Color Dyephoon].”
Perino decided to cancel the Color Dyephoon last year, but students are still hoping to bring the dance back.
Some students organized a petition, amassing over 70 signatures in hopes of bringing back the Color Dyephoon.
“We created the petition in hopes of changing Perino’s mind,” said a senior in leadership who wished to remain anonymous. “We had a lot of people sign the petition, but we gave up on it after we heard Perino wasn’t going to change her mind … I think it was somewhat unfair because when she cancelled the Color Dyephoon she never consulted our leadership class about it.”
Perino said in an email to the Outlook that she was not aware of the petition, and said that the decision could not be changed through democracy.
“While I appreciate and support democracy in schools – and have created numerous programs honoring this … student safety is of upmost importance and is not something that can be ‘voted on,’” she said. “For the past three years, we have had students sneaking into the dance despite our best efforts (including bringing on extra security).”
Other students expressed their disappointment at the event’s cancellation.
“Our Leadership class … still want to do it because people actually enjoyed it and it’s our only casual dance” said senior and ASB President Bianca Araneta.
Junior Cassidy Trizuto agrees that the informal nature of the Color Dyephoon was what made it so endearing.
“I like it because it is different,” Trizuto said. “For other dances, you have to dress up and you have to look really nice. And the Color Dyephoon, you can wear comfortable clothes and it is more about the color and the dancing and less on looks, and I feel that’s what makes it more fun. I think it is more inclusive.”
