Faces well-hidden behind their disguises, students from all grades danced beneath the dim lights amidst an air of mystery. Intricately designed masks could be seen all around Lower Right of Paresky Commons as part of Gender Sexuality Alliance’s (GSA) Masquerade Dance this past Saturday. Laughter mingled with the music as students moved through the space, dancing and popping balloons, enjoying the chance to let loose for the night. Attendee Amina Gorman ’26 commented on the crescendo of energy at the dance throughout the night.
“I liked the masks and I liked the balloons. The decoration was cool. The music was pretty good. It’s better than some dances that don’t have any good music… And the energy, got better as the dance went on. At the beginning, there weren’t a lot of people there. But towards the end, people started coming up. There was all the moshing that there normally is at dances and stuff. So I think that it ended on a good note,” said Gorman.
Although the dance started at 9:00 p.m., the preparation process started much earlier. Jorge Briones Sausa ’25 shared the challenges the GSA board encountered during the planning process and the resulting success that came as a result of their hard work and perseverance. He felt that the GSA dance symbolized the meaning of what it is like to be a queer person on campus.
“We had to get pushed up a week earlier, which gave us less time to prepare… And thanks to Mr. [Christopher] Capano, [Director of Student Activities], and the student’s activities office, we were able to set everything up even after all of these challenges… whatever we can do to kind of get ourselves out there and make the queer students on this campus feel more comfortable will always make me very proud of the work that we do, the work that the board does and the work that these students are doing on campus, and even just showing up to our events,” said Briones Sausa.
Coming to school with a masquerade mask in his suitcase, Carter Chen ’28 was well-prepared for the theme of the dance. Though its liveliness initially surprised him, he stayed to enjoy the event and have a lot of fun with his friends.
“It was very different from what I thought masquerade was. I thought it would be more traditional in a sense. Instead, it was very energetic. There was a lot of loud music, which was pretty fun. It’s just like a traditional party, but everyone was wearing masks… I actually came a little prepared, in a sense. I brought one of my father’s old masquerade masks for school, just in case these occasions might have happened. So I thought I’d dress a little more formally and then play the character,” said Chen.
Benedict Dwyer ’28 enjoyed the process of curating an outfit based on inspiration sent by GSA. He and his friends appreciated the casual yet classy vibe of the event, stating that it was a relatively good experience for his first dance. However, he was also surprised by the lack of creativity in some of the outfits.
“I scrolled through the Pinterest posted by the GSA for a little bit, and then after that, I got a vague idea for how I wanted to dress, and I made it work with what was in my closet… I was a bit surprised when I got there because my group was the only people who were really dressed up, and everybody else was in shorts and hoodies… It was nice to have a bit more of a laid-back energy where it was a slightly smaller crowd than I’m used to. And it was useful to have there be a bit of breathing room on the side,” said Dwyer.
Ava Shu ’27 attended the dance with her friends in hopes of finding a safe and fun space to freely express herself. She noted that, while planning outfits, she and her friends expected a Phantom of the Opera theme. Although she had fun, she wished that the event itself could have been presented as something more than just a fun dance.
“I had a suit with intricate patterns that kind of fit that more classical vibe… Last year, the GSA ball was more clearly a GSA event. And even though it was non-affinity, I felt like everyone that went brought that safe energy and those vibes with them. But in this case… no one really knew that it was a GSA event, those who went as queer people and were expecting it to be a GSA event versus those who just went there to have fun as a regular dance, I think that kind of shift felt like we were being pushed out of our own space,” said Shu.
