Once a year, Forest Parker Brad Stasell moonwalks and waves his arms around on a Twitch livestream to raise money for a good cause.
The Stasell 24-Hour Dance Marathon will take place for the seventh time April 27, Stasell’s birthday. As in past years, Stasell will raise money for Earthworks, a nonprofit that protects the environment and communities from the effects of gas and oil mining extraction.
But the dance marathon didn’t start off with the mission to impact climate change.
In 2016, Stasell, a union electrician who moved to Forest Park from Willowbrook last year, was in a fantasy football league with his friends from college. Stasell’s team was “overachieving,” he said, and one of his friends — who travels for work, has a lot of airline miles and lives in England — said he’d fly Stasell out if his team won. And if Stasell’s team strayed, his friends agreed he must hold a 24-hour dance marathon.
When Stasell’s team lost, and he forfeited the bet, Stasell danced for a whole day in his apartment. He said around 20 of his friends came over to join in, but he didn’t collect any money to donate.
“I should have set something up and could have tried to spin it like ‘I had to do this dance, but look how much money I raised. Ha ha, who really lost the bet here?’”
Since 2019, Stasell has held an annual 24-hour dance marathon to raise money for Earthworks. He estimates that he’s donated about $7,500 to the organization.
Stasell will continue his fundraising efforts at 9 a.m. April 27, when he starts dancing, taking a five-minute break every hour. The hour-long blocks have themes, such as golden oldies, ‘80s jams and dance remixes. While viewers can pay $10 to request a song during some blocks, others are reserved by people who donated $75 to create their own playlist.
The marathon will also include family-friendly yoga led by Stasell’s fiancée, Mary Korwel, and a segment from Blanketing Covers, a podcast by Stasell’s friends that discusses cover songs. This year, Stasell also has recruited a few hosts to manage the Twitch stream and song queue while he dances. He’s also going to set up a few cameras to flip between for the stream, lights that blink to the beat of music and a disco ball.
“I would love to do a choreographed dance for the first song and last song to see how they differ,” Stasell said.
He added, “I’m happy to try and grow this thing and put it out there to the broader public.”
You can donate to Stasell’s 24-Hour Dance Marathon at https://bradstasell.dance/ and watch the live stream at http://twitch.tv/stasema.
