Care To Dance: Stepping Up For Chicken Soup Brigade

Now in its fifth year, the Chicken Soup Brigade's annual dance-a-thon fund-raiser, Care to Dance, is poised for a huge jump in quality and quantity when it moves to the Washington State Convention & Trade Center this week.

"It's much more organized than ever before," says the group's development director Judy Werle, founder of Care to Dance. "I have this incredible staff this year that's paying attention to details and making it huge."

Thanks to the work of newly appointed event manager Amelia Ross-Gilson, Werle is expecting "better miking, better sound and better staging" in the Convention Hall. The high-ceilinged space will also make for a more conducive dance floor than the squat Seattle Center Exhibition Hall.

Scheduled performances this year include sets by the "Queen of the Discos," Gloria Gaynor ("I Will Survive"), a return visit by the Village People ("YMCA," "Macho Man"), and rising star Robin S of MTV fame ("Show Me Love"). Comedian Suzanne Westenhoefer and advice columnist Dan Savage are hosting. There are also a couple of major surprises in the works.

Werle, a self-proclaimed "party activist" whose past efforts have included Give Peace a Dance and Club Soda, doesn't simply lasso a few name acts for her party. Despite the somber situation that drives the Chicken Soup Brigade's daily activities - volunteers shop, feed, drive and clean house for an ever-rising number of men and women suffering from AIDS in King County - its annual dance-a-thon has always turned full focus on whooping it up.

The Convention Center site will hold from 3,000 to 6,000 people, depending on the number of halls the group finally claims (a removable door can turn two halls into one grand space). They may need it all. Add the group's "ubiquitous" advertising campaign to word-of-mouth raves to the general retro-disco revival, and the numbers start growing. Last week Werle's "best guess" was an expectation of somewhere between 2,500 and 3,000 dancers, up from 1,500 last year. "There are twice as many people registered today as we had this time last year," she says.

Those numbers will skyrocket if a certain civic-minded platinum-selling local rock band (that's expressing strong interest in participating) decides to stop by the party.

Chicken Soup's preferred way for dancers to participate is to register by team: Each individual collects at least $100 as well as providing crucial new names for the group's donor rolls. Yet last-minute individuals, with $100 at the door, don't get turned away. This year, close to 100 teams are preregistered, including groups from Microsoft, Nintendo, Washington Mutual, American Airlines, the Spruce Street School, the Solid Waste Utility Department, a class of graduating seniors from the Women's Studies department at the University of Washington, and many more.

The single drawback of this fund-raiser's immense popularity, explains group's communications director Sally Clark, is that the high entertainment quotient the dance provides has led some people to believe that the Chicken Soup Brigade is simply a party producer, not an AIDS service organization. "We're trying to keep it in front of people that the reason we do this big dance and have a great time is so that we can serve people the rest of the year."

Care to Dance takes place Saturday at the Washington State Convention & Trade Center. Check-in starts at 4 p.m.; the party starts at 6 p.m. and runs to midnight. Participants must have $100 in donations to dance; registration forms available at all Mutual Travel offices or through the Chicken Soup Brigade Office at 322-CARE. Because of the volume of dancers expected this year, the office will stay open till 9 p.m. nightly this week so registrants can deliver their money in advance.