It is always a hit or miss with themes for school dances, the student body enjoys them, or they despise them. Here at Perry, themes play a major role on how successful the dance is going to do: such as how many guests will attend. Third quarter calls for the annual morp dance, and this year the dance is going to take place on Feb. 29, from 7-10pm, just a week or so earlier than previous years due to scheduling.

The theme for this year’s morp dance is morpchella, they based it on Coachella, an annual music festival held in California. StuGo chose this theme to really emphasize and promote a big party for students to attend, StuGo president Brintley Spencer mentions, “The idea around Coachella is big and it is a huge festival [or party] which is what we are trying to incorporate.”

Every year StuGo looks for new themes and ideas for every dance to try to improve them and make them more appealing for the students, but there are always mixed feelings among students about the dance.

Junior Joey Rodarte mentions, “I feel like there are better things to do on a Saturday night.” In addition, Junior Branden Scoufos mentions, “I think it will be interesting since the theme is new to the school.”

Coachella, being that it is a music festival, is something that is new at Perry for a school dance theme and was something that they wanted to try out and bring to life here on campus.

“We wanted to do something different, over the last few years we are constantly trying to step up our game and get better every dance and year,” Spencer says.

Coachella is known to be an event that comes with a lot of luggage to consider, such as the outfits people wear to the festival and what the money raised by the event supports. Keeping this in mind, planning for an event with a theme like this one is a lengthy process, one of the main things that StuGo considers while planning themes for school dances, is how they will keep it school appropriate.

Spencer mentions, “Anything that we plan, we are always very careful while planning to make sure things stay school appropriate.”

The main idea of the Coachella theme for morp is the concept of it being a massive party with lots of music and dancing. To continue on the trend of trying new ideas, StuGo is considering making morp a paint party.

Since paint is new, it is more difficult to plan; they will need to take extra steps to make sure it properly works out. There is always an alternative if the paint does not end up working out, such as making morp a foam party instead.

As the date quickly approaches the dance, it will become obvious whether the theme morpchella is a hit.