This Friday, Chicago will be taken over by college students, dropouts, hippies, yuppies, children, parents and everyone else drawn in by the lights. Fourteen hours of dance, art, performance and activity will rock the Loop, drawing thousands of visitors to the center of the city. Their reign will end Saturday at sunrise with a retrospective in Millennium Park.

This is Looptopia, a 14-hour carnival set to take place May 2nd through 3rd between the Chicago River and Congress Parkway, from Clark Street to Columbus Drive. Last year, the inaugural Looptopia drew over 200,000 visitors to the Loop, home of the largest college population in Illinois, according to a press release.

Ty Tabing, the executive director of the Chicago Loop Alliance and the creator of Looptopia, thinks it’s a perfect event for college students.

“Students tend to have the stamina to stay up all night. I think there’s a lot of ways for students at Northwestern to step up. Some of the schools in the Loop area are participating. DePaul and Harold Washington will be open all night,” says Tabing. “The Loop’s really going to have a lot going on that night.”

While Northwestern University has not announced any plans to participate in the festivities, student dance group Tonik Tap will perform in Daley Plaza at 9:45 p.m.

Harold Washington College will open its doors until 2 a.m., allowing the public to come and paint part of a mural or create a ceramic tile.

“The students are involved in all of it,” says George Bickford, assistant dean of instruction at Harold Washington College.

Students will participate in “Harold Washington Idol,” an American Idol-style singing competition, the finals of which will take place during Looptopia.

If American Idol isn’t really your thing, there will be tons of art, music and theater. Local artists will display their work throughout the Loop, and Blick Art Supplies hosts a collegiate art competition in their Loop area store.

A BRICKHEADZ break-dancer performs for last year’s Looptopia. Photo courtesy of Looptopia.

Music fans can head to Macy’s to hear DJs in “Club Looptopia,” or see any of the live bands and dance groups that will be performing throughout the Loop, including break-dancing troupe BRICKHEADZ, and rock bands White Hot Knife and Flowers for Dorian.

For theater geeks, Broadway in Chicago will present “Late Night Cabaret,” featuring actors from several of their sellout shows such as “Wicked” and “Jersey Boys,” and the Auditorium Theater will be open all night for a variety of comedy shows.

But best of all, there will be circuses. Many circuses. According to Looptopia, The Le Vorris and Vox circus troupes will be “telling fairy tales through circus arts,” the Midnight Circus’s Soul Sonic Circus will be “an interactive acrobatic and musical explosion,” and Kooza Kite Action, of the Cirque du Soleil, will be “flying into Looptopia to cause a scene.”

In offering these and many more activities, The Chicago Loop Alliance hopes to highlight all of the Loop’s cultural offerings and draw people into Chicago who wouldn’t otherwise visit.

“It is a chance to see the rebirth of today’s Loop,” says Tabing.

Larry Stuelpnagel is an assistant professor who teaches journalism and political science.

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“It’s a great program that helps people who need it the most,” she said afterward.

A two-time survivor of Hodgkin’s lymphoma, Rafferty talked about receiveing a shopping spree at Oakbrook Center from Bear Necessities:

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[See post to watch Flash video]

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Looking at the totals Dance Marathon has raised every year since its inception in 1975, the upward trend over the 33 years looks impressive.

It raised almost $700,000 more in 2007 than it did in its inaugural year. Or at least, that’s the picture using nominal dollars. But in the alternate economists’ world, a dollar today is worth a quarter in 1975.

For example, using the value of 1975 dollars, DM brought in only $170,000 more in 2007 than when it began with 21 couples dancing in Blomquist Memorial Gymnasium. So while DM has exploded in size, inflation has exaggerated the true value of funds raised.

DM’s growth in 1985 from it’s inauguration was more than half accounted for by inflation. It’s like zooming in on a picture on a monitor and then expecting the printed result to be larger — inflation, by making a dollar worth less, is a visual trick. This is why adjusted totals give the truer and considerably more conservative impression.

Annual growth in DM totals, adjusted for inflation

And while it seemed DM did better from 2000 to 2001, adjusting the change for inflation shows that they actually saw a loss in total raised. Plotting the change from previous year and adjusting it for inflation reveals how DM hasn’t seen the constant growth its real totals would otherwise suggest.

* All calculations made using the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ inflation calculator that uses CPI with base year 1975.

There’s something about Dance Marathon I find strange and monolithic. One of Northwestern’s most unifying traditions, DM has been a presence on campus for 33 years. Founded by the Alpha Tau Omega fraternity and ASG, it has since grown insanely in scope and size. The first DM raised $9,100, and this year’s incarnation is expected to generate over $700,000. Supporting charities is always a worthwhile endeavor, but it is curious that DM is the most popular and prominent student group on campus.

Considering our campus is notoriously devoid of serious social and political activism, it follows that the most popular group is also the most morally unambiguous. Who doesn’t support helping kids with cancer? DM is a great reputation booster for frats, sororities, residential colleges and religious groups. I lived in Willard last year, and there wasn’t one day between October and March that I wasn’t bombarded by e-mails, fliers or dance marathon maniacs entering my room unannounced to convert me to their benevolent cause.

DM dancers face no real downside for their participation, besides potential exhaustion or traumatizing their peers with garish dance moves. If I were protesting against the Iraq War or supporting Jena 6 on this campus, I would generate some stares and ridicule from other students. Activism is the exception, not the norm. I remember an anecdote from The Daily Northwestern last fall about a group of black students, protesting the violent rape of a black woman in West Virginia, who were miffed by sororities handing out candygrams and blasting rap music at the Rock during their protest.

In a way, DM is a way of assuaging our collective guilt for being so distant from pressing social and political issues. We may not give a shit about racial dilemmas on our predominately white campus, or feel troubled by our endemic political apathy come election time, but it’s all good in the end because we help out some dying children along the way. DM is the perfect philanthropic outlet for our community because it is easy to get involved with and even easier to participate. But even better, it offends no one in our basically conservative community. Dancers keep on dancing, but their moves aren’t exactly bold.

Brittany Schaefer, dancer

In the week leading up to DM, first-year dancer Brittany Schaefer said her preparation came down to two things: “The main agenda [has been] homework and laundry,” she said.

Schaefer said she’s working to make sure she’s caught up in all her classes, and won’t have to work on Sunday. The money isn’t a problem. She and her partner had already raised enough, but even still, they got a few more checks last week.

Costumes are on her mind, but not because she’s planning anything elaborate.

“[My partner and I] are trying to coordinate sweatpants and shirts,” she said. “We’re not trying to win best costume or anything. I’m just making sure all my comfortable clothes are washed by Friday.”

Lindsey Barst and Adam Miller, food committee co-chairs

This week at the food committee, Lindsey Barst and Adam Miller, food committee co-chairs, have been following up with vendors and confirming deliveries and pick-ups.

They, along with the other co-chairs and production committee, have been at the Louis Room everyday at 8 a.m. to help set up. The exec board stays all day, leaving only when they have class.

The food committee is a 30-hour committee. That means that members have to be there the whole time. While they’re there, they’ll be slicing, dicing, preparing, and serving all those snacks and meals that keep the show going.

By Jason Plautz

Krysta Kauble and Tara Corrigan, DM co-chairs

Krysta Kauble and Tara Corrigan ran around Norris from 8 a.m. to 10 p.m. Wednesday, with only a break between 3:30 and 5. Busy finalizing every detail, they didn’t even have a moment to spare for an interview to talk about how busy they were.

By Melissa Tussing