Dance lessons, dinner draw crowd of 250 to MLK week closer Unity Ball Friday

• Tweet
• 

Martin Luther King, Jr. Week ended on a musical note this year on Friday night with the 19th annual Unity Ball.

About 250 attended the event in the Bovee University Center Rotunda.

“Last year we had a sort of play, but this year we decided to do dance lessons,” said Keisha Janney, assistant director of Minority Student Services.

Janney said the Unity Ball caps off the week-long celebration of Martin Luther King, Jr. Day.

“I enjoyed the event,” Lansing freshman Kevin Reeves said. “I came because I wanted to (end) MLK week with a big bang.”

Students from Flint public schools attended the event along with university staff and students, including University President George Ross and his wife.

Soon after the buffet-style dinner was served, audience members had a chance to participate in dance lessons. They could learn basic ballroom dance steps and varieties of the hustle.

“I liked the dance lessons a lot,” said Southwestern High School senior Kalieha Stapleton. “I never knew there was so many different versions of the hustle.”

The demonstrations started off with a thin group, but the entire dance floor was filled by the time the last hustle was being taught.

A live disc jockey and The Charles and Gwen Scales band alternated in providing the music.

The three-vocalist band sang their own renditions of popular tunes from artists such as Mary Mary, John Legend and Ne-Yo.

A Michael Jackson impersonator also appeared wearing the star’s iconic silver sparkling gloves, red leather jacket and hat. He danced, sang and lead the crowd through some of Jackson’s biggest hits, such as “P.Y.T.,” “You Are Not Alone” and “Billie Jean.”