‘Getting back to our roots.’ Virtual event puts Thon’s mission at the forefront for dancers

In December 2018, Thon child Kirra Broadwater succumbed to cancer at age 10. Since then, Addison Albert has been waiting for the right time to dance in her honor at Penn State’s 46-hour fundraising marathon.

She said she didn’t want to take attention away from Kirra and her family by concentrating on the physical pain of standing for almost two days straight.

“I just never saw the point of dancing if I couldn’t put all of my focus on (Kirra),” she said. “This year, I get the best of both worlds: I get to be a dancer and represent her, but I also won’t be in so much pain and I won’t be so tired that I can’t keep her in my memory the entire time I’m dancing.”

Now a senior at Penn State, Albert is dancing for the first time, albeit under unusual circumstances. But even though reduced hours and livestreamed performances are replacing the in-person Bryce Jordan Center event, she said Penn State IFC/Panhellenic Dance Marathon participants are making her experience just as special.

The Broadwaters and the Barnetts are the two Four Diamonds families — Thon’s beneficiaries whose children are or were pediatric cancer patients at Penn State Children’s Hospital — of The Singing Lions, a student-run performance ensemble. The Barnetts’ daughter Lexi died of cancer in 2011.

Usually, Thon families come to the BJC to celebrate, staying in hotel rooms decorated by their respective organizations or playing laser tag with them. This year, Zoom calls replaced most of those experiences, after Thon organizers made the decision last summer to make the event virtual due to the ongoing pandemic.

Because dancers are taking part from their homes this year, The Singing Lions partnered with its sister organizations, the Penn State Thespian Society and No Refund Theatre, to combine forces and spend the weekend together in an off-campus house.

That meant a lot of planning was needed beforehand to keep dancers and volunteers safe. Brooke Schindelheim, another first-time dancer for the Thespian Society, said everyone in the house had to receive a negative test before entering, and only dancers are allowed to go mask-free.

“(I miss) the constant flow of energy from the BJC and just looking around, seeing people in the stands,” Schindelheim said. “But I think that this experience is a little better because I can be surrounded with the people that I love.”

The organizations set up themed hours to pass the time, like PJ Hour, Luau Hour and Harry Potter Hour, as well as various games and activities, including Kahoot and a Penn State-themed scavenger hunt.

Albert said participants learned the line dance from their living room — which gave them more space to move than bleachers normally would — and set up simultaneous Zoom calls with the Thon families, their “blood” families and their friends. Other volunteers set up “passes” for dancers’ friends to give them surprise visits throughout the weekend.

“We set up Zoom everywhere. I feel like there’s eyes on me, and I’m in a fishbowl,” Albert said. “There’s definitely not a moment missed if they’re paying attention.”

This year, dancers rest between midnight and 6 a.m. on Saturday and Sunday — a major change from previous years, when dancing was nonstop. Without access to medical resources at the BJC, Thon organizers encouraged dancers and viewers to take a break overnight.

Becca Lefkowitz, The Singing Lions’ Thon chair, said they aim to give families the best year possible because “all the hardships that we’ve been thrown, they’ve been thrown even harder.”

“Even though we can’t celebrate all together with all of our members, we know that the mission still stays the same,” Lefkowitz said. “Regardless if we’re all the way across the world or right here in State College, we always are fighting for the kids.”

Albert — who went from being a Thon attendee, to a family relations chair for The Singing Lions, to a 46LIVE reporter, to a dancer — said this year will give students a chance to reflect on why they got involved with Thon in the first place.

“For the Thon community as a whole, I hope that they gain a perspective that this weekend, although it’s flashy, is not for anyone but the kids,” she said. “I think that that has been lost in so many years — just everyone being caught up in the emotion, in the commotion — and I feel like this year, we’re getting back to our roots.”

Thon will be broadcast at thon.org/livestream through 4 p.m. Sunday, when the fundraising total for Four Diamonds will be revealed.

This story was originally published February 20, 2021 at 3:54 PM with the headline "‘Getting back to our roots.’ Virtual event puts Thon’s mission at the forefront for dancers."