By Abbie Steinly, Staff writer
Students and families gathered in Weber Chapel to watch the Greek organizations perform in the annual Airband dance competition on Friday April 16.
Airband was the final event in Greek Week, where the five sororities and six fraternities competed against one another. In the end, portions of the money raised from Airband were donated to the winning organization’s philanthropies.
Each organization chose a theme for their dance performance, which was kept secret from the rest of the chapters until Friday evening. Themes included The Lion King, Alice in Wonderland, Empowering Women, Stranger Things, the Purge and Through the Ages.
Students dressed to match their theme and most created banners that hung in the back of the stage while they performed.
Kappa Delta was the winner among the sororities. Their theme was “Kappa Delta Airlines” with the sorority members dressed as flight attendants and dancing to songs such as, “All the Way Up” and “I Believe I Can Fly.”
“One of our sisters did a dance in high school called “One World Airlines” and that’s where we got the idea,” Kappa Delta member, Maeve Schurz said.
As the winners, money from Airband was donated to Prevent Child Abuse America.
Organizations practiced for many weeks leading up to the event to perfect their performances for the show.
“We practiced three nights a week for two hours each night,”Schurz said.
Phi Mu Delta was the winner from the fraternities, with the theme “Mario” and the brothers dressed as different characters from the game.
“Our fraternity really enjoys ‘Super Smash Bros’ so it wasn’t hard to think of our theme. From there, we got a committee together to come up with a story we wanted to show the audience,” Phi Mu Delta member, Malik Black said.
As the winner, portion of the funds from Airband were donated to their philanthropy St. Jude Children’s Hospital.
“Winning air band this year was very important to us because this year has be tough for us as a chapter. Our brotherhood was able to come together for this one event to show the campus that we were still very much alive and well,” Black said.
All of the dances were student choreographed. Finding both time and space for such large groups to practice posed a problem for some organizations.
“One of the biggest challenges that we faced with air band was ensuring that everyone showed up to practice on time. We had maybe 3 or 4 practices with every member being present before we went on stage,” Black said.
Practicing and ensuring everyone knew the choreography was time consuming, but worth it in the end, said Black.
Judges for the performances included President Jonathan Green, the dean of Students and Campus Life Christie Kracker, Eddie Andino from Bot’s Tavern and the Trax-portation driver, Terry.
