This past Saturday night, Vinnie’s Jump and Jive on Main Street was a happening place. A crowd of witches, vampires, and other odd characters danced the night away at the WESU-sponsored dance, “Struttin,” held every fourth Saturday of the month.

About 100 dancers filled the floor throughout the night. A projection on the wall added to the excitement, cycling through black and white footage of various periods and styles of dancing. This was the fourth “Struttin” held by the radio station. There was one prototype held to test the idea out, then due to its success, dances were held in July, August, and September. According to most dancers, this evening received the best turnout so far.

“This one’s a hundred times better; the people are all looser. You know, costumes make people feel sillier,” said Muriel Abeledo ’09, who hosts the WESU show, “Musica Pa’ Gozar.”

The dance features rare funk and soul spun by Jason Villani, also known as DJ Lord Lewis. Villani has been a community volunteer with WESU for five years, and he hosts a show every Monday night called “The Rumpus Room.”

“We’ve had a few really professional dancers here in the past,” Villani said. He pointed towards the center of a half-formed circle. “Like that guy, people are kind of staying away from him.”

Similar to the music on his show, Villani spun a range of underground 60s, 70s, and contemporary deep funk, soul, Afro and Latin rare grooves. In between switching out records, Villani expounded on the importance of the music.

“I wanted to get a special night going; there’s nothing in Connecticut [like] this. There’s a sort of underground current scene that takes from soul [and] funk,” he said. “These are really the roots of a lot of music today.”

Few of the dancers seemed to find a problem with the music, even if it was unfamiliar.

“Funk is almost a universal kind of music. You don’t have to know the sounds to like them. It’s just good beats,” said Jeff Wong ’08, Vice-President of WESU who also hosts his own show.

According to Villani, he had been developing the idea behind “Struttin” for a long time. He approached the owner of Vinnie’s Jump and Jive, who volunteered the space to be used in return for free unlimited underwriting on WESU.

“It’s been a long time coming,” Villani said. “I always wanted to get something together.”

All proceeds from the night go to the radio station, so it serves in part as a fundraiser for WESU. According to the station director, this latest “Struttin” was their most profitable yet. According to Villani, however, the event began primarily to promote more interaction with the community.

“It’s for outreach. It also acts…for fundraising, but we want people to say hell, this is a cool thing the radio’s doing, maybe we should check it out,” he said. “[We] want to try to get more local interest… it’s really hard.”

The majority of the crowd was made up of students, although Wong estimated about 30 or so community members showed up. According to him, the WESU staff is about a 50/50 split between students and community members. Much of the student staff has expressed the wish to see even more community participation.

“There were some community members…but that’s one of the things I want us to work on for the future: more involvement with the listeners, too,” Abeledo said. “I think this event can really help.”

The WESU dance also gave some students a chance to see some new people from the community and hear some new grooves.

“It was different than other dance parties held at Wesleyan because it was just actually good music to dance to, and everyone was just having fun,” Sarah Edelman ’09 said.