Eastipedia: MORP

Senior Sarah Bromley closes her left eye and holds the brush to her face. With a steady hand, she paints a black diamond, stretching from just beneath her eyebrow, emcompassing her eye lid, and then ending half an inch below her eye. Clowing her right eye, she repeats the process. When she’s finished, she paints the rest of her face white, and colors her lips a bright red. Placing a bowler hat atop her head, her costume for Morp is complete — she’s a ring leader.

“I just wanted to have a lot of fun because it’s my senior year, so I just went all out,” Bromley said.

Morp, which spells “prom” backwards, is a dance held every November that’s known for attracting wild outfits and crazy makeup, like Bromley’s. The theme of the 2013-2014 school year was Circus. Ring leaders, red pettiskirts, black and white tights, tie-dyed shirts and wigs filled the room. Each year, STUCO chooses a new theme. Last year, it was Holidays, and the year before it was neon, where bright morph suits made their debut. The dance was held in East’s cafeteria, after the sub-state football game against Olathe North.

“Winning the game, and then heading to Morp was just the best thing ever,” senior Katie Leonard said. “Everybody was so pumped up, and we were all excited to be heading to state.”

Tickets were $10 in advance, and sold for $20 at the door. All of the money spent on tickets were donated to the Johnson County Christmas Bureau (JCCB). November is the month that STUCO raises money for JCCB, through competitions between classes and clubs.

One thing that makes Morp unique is that it’s the norm for students to go in huge groups of friends, rather than with dates.
“It’s so much less stressful,” Leonard said. “We just got to act crazy with our friends and not care so much. This was my first morp, but I’d been to homecoming and prom, and this was definitely the best school dance I’ve ever been to.”

Look below for links to past years’ galleries:

2012
2011
2009

Read Katie Sgroi’s opinion on MORP

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