Is love blind? This age-old question is aimed at determining whether attraction to others is based on emotional connection or initial physical attraction. In 2020, Netflix premiered a reality TV show based around this concept, aptly titled “Love Is Blind,” and last Wednesday, the AfroDance Team, African American Student Union and Black Graduate Student Association brought that same idea to Tech’s campus.
The AfroDance Team was established just under two years ago as a cultural club focusing on sharing African dance through performances at Tech and in the local community. After recently registering as a student organization, the club has branched out to include other events to grow its membership and positively affect the community.
This event, in particular, set out to form a connection — and perhaps romance — between not only Tech students but those from Emory, Spelman and Georgia State University as well. The AfroDance Team strived to stand out and host a unique event that was both interactive and entertaining for the audience, which led them to the “Love is Blind” concept.
John Eseku, third-year CME and the Community Outreach Chair of AfroDance, shared some behind-the-scenes insight into the planning process as one of the hosts and coordinators for this event.
“The biggest inspiration was blind dating videos on YouTube where you slowly reveal the person behind the curtain, and I was like, ‘Okay cool, so this is how we’re going to do the “blind” part of it, and then it’s going to be a love-themed event for February.’… it was a good way to get social interaction, and people love messiness,” Eseku said.
The night featured three main contestants with six potential matches each. Each contestant would ask questions like “If you were a musician, what kind of music would you make and who would you collaborate with?” or even “Do you believe in second chances when it comes to cheating?” in order to get more familiar with each of their potential matches. Based on their answers, the contestant would eliminate one of their matches, stepping out from behind the curtain and revealing themselves to each other. Each round, the curtain would rise, revealing the line-up’s shoes, pants, and then tops, leading to their final “ideal” match at the very end.
AfroDance considered people who filled out an online form before the event to participate, and finding the right candidates to be on stage was not an easy process.
“Who’s really looking for love? Who shows the best interest in actually finding love? Along with that, we looked at hobbies, we looked at some of the answers to their questions, and we were looking, if this person likes this, they could potentially like this, along with this person, kind of making it so everybody had the best opportunity to find love when we paired them with their potential match for the main contestant. We just looked through and fostered a lineup from there,” Eseku said.
The crowd’s energy was dynamic — shouting out different questions to ask, cheering for answers they liked and booing when the contestant eliminated a crowd favorite. One Tech student, Karsten Richardson, third-year CS, was a main contestant. He found his match by asking questions such as “What is your favorite saying or quote?” and eliminating based on the lineup’s shoes and outfits. Once he and his final match saw each other for the first time, the hosts asked if Richardson was her ideal type, followed by an awkward silence and boisterous laughter from the audience.
“When we were creating the lineups, we were like, ‘Okay, these people seem like they have the best opportunity to find somebody in these lineups.’ It [doesn’t] matter how much it pairs well, sometimes, when you get into that final stage, you really feel that they’re just like, ‘Nah, it’s not for me’… I had some predictions, and then I went zero for three last night,” Eseku said.
Whether or not Cupid’s arrow struck the contestants, the event was still a great success with audience turnout and participation. Eseku explained that AfroDance intends to make this an annual spring semester event.
“There were a lot of people who showed out, but also those who did miss out, and then the day of, they were like, ‘Oh, can we get tickets? Can we get tickets?’ So then it’s up to us to really take that initiative and then get the content out from the show, get that out, foster interest for the rest of the semester, and then try to build that hype. We want to do this; we might have to look for similar collaborators, or we’ll see, but we want to do it next year,” Eseku said.
One audience member, Josh Perez, third-year CME, attended to support his friends on stage.
“They did great. It went smoothly, and a lot of people seemed to enjoy it; I enjoyed it too, so overall, I think it went really well,” Perez said.
As both a cultural and social club, AfroDance is open to anyone interested in learning more about African culture and dance or meeting new people. “It doesn’t matter if you can’t dance, if you can dance, if you’re an undergraduate, graduate, just show up to the interest meeting where we have it, and then just keep coming to practices. We have an event lined up, if you want to perform, if you have time to perform, but just stand over to the side if you don’t. It’s okay, just keep being here,” Eseku said.
See AfroDance perform next on April 12 for AfroIndependence Day and connect with them @gt_afrodance on Instagram for more events and meeting details.
While they weren’t quite able to find the answer this year, Eseku remains ever more determined to prove that love is indeed blind.
“I do believe love is blind because there were times where you could hear the main contestant be like, ‘Oh, I’m really interested in this person.’ The only thing that we didn’t really get to feel was that the line-up was as interested in the main contestant because there weren’t many opportunities for them to answer questions. I think that’s on us to think for next year so that there can actually be more of a connection,” he said.