Transporting students into the world of cinema, A&M’s 79th annual Ring Dance will let seniors and fellow ring holders celebrate across four rooms of the MSC on Saturday, each one corresponding to a familiar movie title.
Kayleigh Wiggins, Ring Dance director and senior psychology major, said this year’s “Lights! Camera! Action!” theme will bring a Hollywood feel to campus, complete with a red carpet.
Hoping to cater to a variety of tastes, Class Councils has designed rooms that will model the “The Wizard of Oz,” “Inception,” “Titanic” and “James Bond.” Siatta Massaquoi, senior biomedical sciences major and Class Councils member, said the rooms will have unique games that match the different atmosphere from room to room.
Each room will hold decorations unique to each movie, including a set of train tracks running up the ceiling and a Leonardo Di Caprio cutout in the “Inception” room and a yellow brick road in the “Wizard of Oz” room.
“There’s lots of candy, and they’ve built signs that say ‘Munchkin land this way,’ and ‘Emerald City that way,'” said Rachel Norman, senior health major and senior class president. “There’s a possibility that there’s going to be freshmen dressed up like Wizard of Oz characters, so people can take pictures with them.”
Norman said the Rocket Brothers band will provide entertainment and that another photo opportunity will be Titanic themed.
“They built the front part of the boat for photo ops,” Norman said. “You know, when Leonardo Di Caprio and Kate Winslet are doing the whole ‘king of the world’ thing.”
Wiggins said this year’s Ring Dance is a considerable evolution from the first one in 1936.
“[Ring Dance] was created by a group of seniors in the Corps of Cadets to celebrate their time at A&M,” Wiggins said. “It was originally where turning the ring to face the outside world started. What would happen is the men would take their dates under the ring, and the dates would turn it for them and they’d steal a kiss.”
MSC ballroom doors will be open from 9 p.m. to 1 a.m., and for Norman and other event organizers, the walk down the red carpet can’t come soon enough.
“We’ve all got like five tests this week, so we’re all ready to get dressed up for ‘prom on steroids,'” Norman said.
Profit from the event goes toward purchasing the Class of 2014 gift for the university.