Dance party bridges cultures with music

By Andy Wright

Posted on Monday, December 3rd, 2007, 12:00 am

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Having never been to a dance party overseas, one can only imagine what it would be like. Oronoka took hundreds of local residents to such an occasion with the convenience of driving five minutes off-campus and paying five dollars to get in. WMEB, the University of Maine run radio station and the International Student Association (ISA), teamed up to put on this twice a semester craze.

Oronoka has presented two opportunities per semester, for roughly the past three years, to party with locals and international exchange students alike.

Located above the Bear Brew Pub – next to Pat’s Pizza for those of you under 21 – in Soma 36, one would assume that there would be tons of people. They would be right, but not until about an hour and a half into the program. Even on a Friday at 9 p.m., no more than 12 people were in the entire bar/dance club, including the security guards and the bearded bartenders.

The bartenders weren’t the only ones with remarkable hair Friday night. The disk jockeys were sporting dreadlocks and a few giant beards fit for Gimli son of Gloin. There were five DJs over the span of the night, starting at 9 p.m. and ending at 2 a.m. Around the time that the third DJ stepped into the booth and took out his records the dance floor was a sea of international dancing fiends.

No one could stop the feverishly dancing crowd, even if the fire alarms went off. Everyone was so happy to be there. It was a taste of home for many of the international students and a taste of culture for the American students at the club. Each DJ had his or her own style, ranging from techno to ’90s Hip-Hop to Eastern European.

However, Oronoka isn’t all about the music. It supported charities and culture. The charity it happened to be supporting, this time was Ofelia’s. With two student organizations working together to help support a single charity, who wouldn’t want to pay the five dollar entry fee?

As the night went on, people shuffled in and out, but there was never a dull moment with that crowd. Everyone was happy just to be dancing with some old favorites and some new “off the beaten path” material. By the end of the night, there wasn’t a single face in the room without a smile to go with it.

The family feeling that one got from dancing with groups of friendly strangers like those in attendance at Oronoka, all out to have a good time, was incredible. That was all thanks to the student groups of WMEB and ISA. Everyone was a friend by the end of the night, and not a single quarrel broke out, as happens at similar night club events to ruin the night. It seemed like the way to party.