As THON enters the first night, all 708 dancers are looking to keep their energy and spirits high. Members of the dancer relations committee have been circling the floor since THON kicked off in hopes of maintaining the positive mood of the dancers, and there’s no better way to garner the dancer’s attention than by officially kicking off Color Wars.

Color Wars officially started on February 10 at the Multi-Sport Facility, a week before THON kicked off. Dancers are split into teams represented by four different colors: purple, orange, red, and blue. The teams competed in pre-THON events such as a giant rock, paper, scissors competition that came down to two dancers from different teams, with Purple ultimately taking home the gold.

More than a dozen various Color War activities and games are planned throughout the weekend. The variety of events are meant to help calm the mental fatigue that comes with dancing for 46 hours. Public relations committee member and senior Sydney Failor believes Color Wars play an important part in THON morale.

“Color Wars helps the dancers’ spirits and the excitement helps them push ahead,” Failor explained. “It keeps their mind off of the toll their body is taking.”

Each different activity is worth a certain number of points. Whichever team garners the most points takes home first place and bragging rights, with each concurrent team taking following place, based on points. The teams don’t know the number of points they have until the very end, but the current rankings are released periodically throughout the weekend. At “press time” (aka the last time they announced the rankings), Orange was in first place.

Events this year include an obstacle course, a giant game of Jenga, and various interactions between the dancers and the crowd. The weekend is then capped off with a final event, after which point totals are tailed and the winner of THON’s 2016 Color Wars is declared.

With THON 2016 well underway, Color Wars hopes its competitions benefit the dancers during their strenuous weekend.