Glitter and Ke$ha references filled the air during the “Dancing with the Stars” show in the Performing Arts Center Wednesday night.

The UPC kicked off the third week of “DWTS” with a Ke$ha-themed night. The night’s dances and fashion reflected the singer-songwriter’s songs and style.

The Ke$ha theme followed the previous themes of Hip-Hop and Nineties Night.

Heidi DeBoer, UPC Special Events coordinator, is in charge of “DWTS” and creates the themes for the couples each week.  

“I have always loved listening to Ke$ha, so I thought it would be fun to see what the dancers and stars could do with it,” DeBoer said. 

After the second week of dancing, advancing pairs drew a Ke$ha song out of a hat. The song the dancers drew was the song they had to prepare a dance for. The drawing added a new element of surprise to the show, instead of the dancers getting to pick their song selections as they did in the previous two weeks.

“This was a new challenge they didn’t know about, and [it] made things interesting,” DeBoer said. “I think they had fun with it and embraced the Ke$ha theme.”  

DeBoer and her co-hosts, UPC members Alex Kunz and Nathan Langston, kicked off the night with a pseudo-concert featuring DeBoer lip-syncing to Ke$ha. Afterwards, DeBoer announced the Ke$ha theme and said this week of “DWTS” was an event “where anything can happen and the glitter is free.”

The show began with the weekly elimination round. Out of the four couples left, Logan DeBoer and Tressa Tingle were voted off. The couple performed their last dance together before they left the stage.  

The remaining couples left in the competition are Katie Lingle and Josh Jasper, Steph Paluch and Chris Soukup, and Mariah Logan and Nick French. 

Before they danced, a video was shown of the couples preparing for the week’s competition.  The video featured the dancers and stars answering questions and an inside look at what goes on in their practices. After the video was shown, the couples performed their Ke$ha dances.

Costume choices reflected both the hosts and dancers’ “inner Ke$ha” styles. There was no shortage of glitter, feathers and ripped pants.

The dancers showed creativity in their storytelling techniques, threw glitter, participated in costume changes and used props within their Ke$ha dances. 

“The Ke$ha theme was fun, and I liked how the audience got into each of the performances,” said sophomore Jamie Flint. “The dancers were all great to watch and looked like they enjoyed the dances. They really got into the theme with all the glitter they were wearing and made it exciting to watch.”

UPC hosts played “Don’t Forget the Lyrics!” (Ke$ha version) with four randomly selected audience members. The contestants were pulled onto the stage and had to finish a line of lyrics to certain Ke$ha songs.

The dancers were given the opportunity to win bonus points with Ke$ha trivia at the end of all of the dances. If the stars could accurately answer a question about Ke$ha, they received an extra point to be added to their scoring for next week’s elimination round.

The dancers’ scores are dependent on the three judges’ scores ranging from 1-10, plus how many “likes” the dancers’ videos receive on the Dancing with the Stars Facebook page. 

“I was a little hesitant about Ke$ha week,” Logan said. “As Miss South Dakota International, I want to present myself in a way that is appropriate, yet still having fun with the theme. My partner Nick made a really cool mix of Ke$ha’s song ‘Blow’ and his choreography was difficult but safe when talking about shaking what my mother gave me. I am definitely looking forward to the finale and just spending time with the rest of the couples. Steph and Katie are both so hilarious and I would be happy to see either of them win.”