Whether just for fun or for a personal cause, participants tell their stories for dancing through the night.

Hundreds of students powered through 26 continuous hours of dancing for Dance Marathon. This year, Dance Marathon raised $434,515 to fight pediatric AIDS.

Addressing the usual Dance Marathon crowd of people, dressed in colorful, wacky outfits, organizers announced that UCLA’s Pediatric AIDS Coalition raised $434,515 for this year’s Dance Marathon.

Atomic Walrus rocked the Dance Marathon stage for its third year in a row, pumping up exhausted dancers who were just a few hours away from finishing the event.

Red light flooded Pauley Pavilion early Sunday as hundreds of dancers raised glow sticks in the air for a vigil honoring people living with HIV.
Students participated in a moment of silence and used the glow sticks to recognize women living in sub-Saharan Africa with HIV and AIDS at the Dance Marathon vigil, which began at 3:45 a.m.

Four large taiko drums took over the stage as Dance Marathon neared the end of its 26-hour run with a performance from Yukai Daiko.
“The reason we decided to audition was just to bring the sound of Japanese drumming into the mix of the other performers,” said fourth-year art student Hoi Leung, one of the co-directors of the group.

Dance Marathon participants began incorporating handstands and planks into their dance moves in order to give their legs a break during the 22nd hour of the event.

This post was updated April 9 at 11:25 a.m.
Exhausted dancers looked for ways to relieve their aching feet as Dance Marathon entered the early hours of Sunday morning.

Marathoners were still bursting with exuberance in their 16th hour of dancing at 2:30 a.m. The lively beats and lyrics of Drake’s “Hotline Bling,” Taylor Swift’s “Blank Space” and Meghan Trainor’s “All About that Bass” filled Pauley Pavilion, channeling some much-needed energy to the crowd.

Several Pediatric AIDS Coalition at UCLA members showed off their own musical talents during the 19th hour of Dance Marathon.
Following the event’s vigil, which shared life stories of children and young adults affected by HIV, UCLA students and one ambassador entered the Pauley Pavilion stage to perform the Andra Day song “Rise Up.”
The stadium’s lights suddenly sprang on during the song’s first note, but began to darken as the empowering number progressed.