Lights, music, action! Last Saturday night’s lip sync competition amazed the judges with unforgettable performances from nearly every dorm.
The lip sync is an annual competition where students from each dorm perform in front of judges and fellow students in order to gain points for the ongoing Williympics, a yearlong contest designed to boost student spirit. The selected themes varied in style, students performed to songs from Drake, Michael Jackson, and many more. EMV impressed the judges with their performance set to songs by Macklemore, stealing the winning title from Logan House, which placed third this year; Mem East placed second. This year’s lip sync took place Feb. 1.
Alyssa Matriciani, an EMV Proctor from Greenvile, S.C., shared some secrets that led to EMV’s success.
“EMV probably started a week and a half in advance,” she said. “We would have 30-minute practices every night during study hall, minus the weekends. Our first meeting was just brainstorming and the week of we learned our group dance within like two 30-minute sessions, which was pretty awesome.”
Alyssa was in charge of the music, which she spent an hour and a half on. The dancing was mostly choreographed by Mr. Brooks and Juli Tatar.
Brooks played a big role in EMV’s performance this year.
“To speak on Mr. Brooks behalf, he helped rally an entire group of girls and just made stuff happen, which was really incredible to see,” she said.
As the second dance choreographers for EMV this year, my role included teaching my group a hip-hop routine to “Thrift Shop” and rallying the dorm’s 40 girls to learn the choreography for “Can’t Hold Us.” The girls’ enthusiasm and dedication were incredible, and it was so cheerful to see the dances come together just as I had envisioned them.
Each dorm picked their own theme and created their own soundtrack; there was a combination of mashups from all kinds of artists. EMV performed to songs by Macklemore’ Mem East danced to tracks from the musical “The Greatest Showman;” Hazen White danced to Michael Jackson; Hathaway danced to a medley of songs by Drake and Kendrick Lamar; Mem West performed to “Tik Tok” by Kesha, “One Pound Fish” and “Die 4 You” by The Weeknd. The day students danced to tracks from Hannah Montana; Wold House lip synced to Disney songs, and lastly, John Wright House performed to songs from the “Rio” soundtrack.
The purpose of Lip Sync is not just to be a competition, but also to be a fun event that brings people in the dorms together. While Alyssa loved seeing that happen in EMV, there were some aspects she found disappointing.
“I think this year was less competitive than other years, because people didn’t put in as much effort as the years before,” she said. “EMV put in the baseline effort, like practicing a week in advance and just having a really good performance. Ford didn’t even go, which I was kind of surprised by. It can take them 30 minutes to come up with something. It was kind of disappointing.”
However, it was not all just disappointment in her eyes. She mentioned how she was “amazed” by John Hazen White. She said, “They definitely showed up this year, which was awesome.”
The Willistonian spoke with John Hazen White proctor Zh’ky Tuzo from Bermuda to get his insight into his well-received performance which he choreographed. Zh’ky is a two-year member of the Williston Varsity Dance team.
“Before the year even started, I knew that I would have to play a big role in the lip sync,” he said. “I was very hesitant at first given that this is an all-boys dorm and I was not sure how the boys would view the lip sync or if they even wanted to do it. In the beginning, some of them were very stubborn, you know they just want to talk and have fun.”
Although challenging at first, Zh’ky was able to make the lip sync preparations fun for his proctee’s and as time progressed it become “easier” for him to manage them.
“I started seeing the boys began to enjoy it more and more, which made me enjoy it even more as well,” he said. “I was really proud seeing how far we came, given that in the beginning, no one really wanted to do it. In the end they wanted to do more things, and they wanted to have special roles in it, which was nice to see. I was glad that I was able to create that environment for them and let them express themselves.”
Ford Hall decided not to participate in the annual tradition this year, and an anonymous Ford resident was disappointed by it. They initially planned to perform a Bruno Mars song; however, most of the guys didn’t show up, leaving only one proctor in attendance.
“Our lip sync wasn’t going to be very special, but we were going to go up and lip sync it at least,” he said. “I think it would have been much better to go up and do something instead of getting called out in front of the whole school.”
