Nights filled with laughter, singing and having fun with friends are some of the best memories from high school. While these fond memories won’t change, new traditions begin to shape as decades pass.
With dances, there are a few key changes to consider: types of dances, dates, fashion and activities.
Polly Fitz-Gerald ‘68 explained that the major dances in the early days of Xavier were prom, homecoming and the Christmas dance. Today, Xavier holds the Back-to-School Dance and the Father Daughter Dance in addition to prom and homecoming. Brophy and Xavier used to have their own proms before they eventually combined into one prom in the late 90s.
After COVID-19, however, Xavier explored new replacements for the Christmas Dance: for example, the Christmas Carnival in 2023 and the Jingle Jangle DJ-PJ Party in 2024. In 2020, Xavier showcased clubs and teams at a drive-through event for the eighth graders that even included a nativity scene with live animals.
Often, a major stressor of dances is finding a date. Fitz-Gerald explained that before the 2000s, dates were required to attend the big events such as the Christmas Dance and Prom. Now, students are permitted to either go single or have a date.
“Girls just wanted to go together, and people liked going in groups,” Fitz-Gerald said. She added that going to the dances in groups lessened the pressure and awkwardness of finding dates and could even be more fun.
Like deciding on going with a date or with friends, finding the perfect dress has always been a lengthy process as many styles and cuts of dresses don’t align with a Xavier dress code. Fitz-Gerald explained that similar to today, popular dresses in the past were strapless (which weren’t allowed) or spaghetti-strapped. Kaiti-Lynn Beazley ‘17 remembers bodycon dresses were all the rage, but the dress code wouldn’t allow students to wear these tight dresses. Gina Iker ‘97 explaied that she wore a spaghetti-strap dress with zig-zag lacing in the back in order to gain approval for the dance.
“In the 50s, the girls would go by the convent to have their dance dresses approved. The old story goes that if the dresses weren’t approved, the nuns would put tissues over parts of the dresses. Nowadays, the dean is in charge of the dress code,” said Fitz-Gerald.
Fitz-Gerald, Iker and Beazley all remember wearing formal dress shoes to the dances. Today, students prefer to take photos in dress shoes and change into sneakers for the dance. Fitz-Gerald explains that “Xavier girls are practical” and loves that they prioritize comfort over looks. This is mainly due to a decrease in slow-dancing and an increase in moshing, where students jump and dance closely together.
The “jitterbug” was a dance popular in the 50s where students would dance individually and very fast. Fitz-Gerald said that as slow-dancing became more prominent, there had to be rules about how close students could dance to each other.
Every year, there is great anticipation of what games and activities will be at dances. Beazley describes a fun memory from junior prom when the theme was “007,” saying, “It was so wild. They had treats and casino games. They even had an actor pretend to be 007 and he jumped out of a helicopter above the baseball field and parachuted down.”
Beazley also remembers one year when Brophy arranged for horse-drawn carriages to take students around the Brophy baseball field.
Like today’s students, Iker enjoyed taking photos at photo booths with friends and remembers having to wait until after the dances to retrieve them. Today, photos from photo booths can be printed instantly or sent to phones.
Michal Cagungun ‘25 enjoyed homecoming because there were projections of movies and headphones students could wear to listen to them. “It was really nice if you needed a break from the business of dancing,” Cagungun said.
At its core, the dances are about making memories, spending time with friends, and enjoying the high school experience.
