American presidents go to Camp David. Catholic cardinals huddle in an enclave in the Sistine Chapel. And when the task at hand is as monumental as the line dance for the Interfraternity Council/Panhellenic Dance Marathon, the event's organizers also retreat from the masses.

"It's easier to do it over time than to do it all at once," Line Dance Coordinator Beth Beckman (senior-kinesiology) said. "We already have the topics when we go into the retreat. People come up with couplets [for the song lyrics] throughout the year."

Beckman's main task is to plan the line dancers' retreat, a weekend get-away during which Thon morale captains work together on the famous line dance. The retreat took place at one of the captain's houses this year, said Nan Daly (senior-Spanish), a morale captain.

Daly said the first part of the process was smoothing out the lyrics that go with the dance.

During the past school year, the 20 morale captains have been compiling several months' worth of brainstorming for the famous dance, Beckman said.

Captains have to pick songs and current events that Beckman called a "long process of gathering ideas." She even keeps a document titled "How to Make the Best Line Dance Ever," which she has continually updated with new material.

"People just write down ideas they've heard on the news, so we're not waiting until the week we make the line dance to get our ideas together," she said. "A big help is when they do the [yearly pop culture] recaps on VH1."

Not only do the event ideas have to be chosen, but the background music is a big consideration as well, Beckman said.

"You basically want an upbeat song that relays a certain message. It's not necessarily focused on the lyrics, since ours go on top of it," she said. "When we found one that fit everything, it just clicks; you just know what song it's going to be."

Beckman had to choose two co-captains to help teach the line dance during Thon weekend. One of those captains is Daly.

"There wasn't one point in the weekend when I was frustrated," Daly said. "I could do it a hundred times over again and never get sick of it."

Once the ideas, song and lyrics are in place, the fun begins with making the dance moves.

"I'm a fitness instructor here at Penn State, so I made sure we focused on different muscle groups," Beckman said.

Michele Kosteva (sophomore-accounting) will be one of the many dancers stretching her muscles at Thon this weekend.

Only able to admire the dancers in Thon 2007 from the stands, Kosteva said the line dance was her favorite part.

"Just being at Thon last year was so much fun and such an adrenaline rush," she said. "Being able to actually do the line dance on the floor with everyone is going to be awesome."

Kosteva said staying up for Thon is not a "walk in the park," but she is excited to be with so many people working for a cause.

"Well, I'm no ballerina," she said. "I'm pretty glad there are 700-plus other people dancing with me though, or else I would be making a fool of myself."

When choreographing the dance, Daly said the morale captains try to keep in mind the stamina of the dancers when creating the specific moves in the dance.

"We tried to make it easier," she said. "We do take into consideration 'Is this going to hurt the dancers' feet? Will they want to jump this high? Or bend down this low at 4 a.m. on Sunday?' "

Beckman said it wasn't too hard keeping the dance a secret. Her main concern was making sure all the captains had a part in making it.

"My main goal as a coordinator was for everyone to ... be able to say 'I contributed to that,' " she said. "It's not my line dance. Once we show it to people, it's Thon's line dance. It's Penn State's line dance."