Zombies, nerds battle on the dance floor

The Woodside Swing Team incorporated many different swing styles into their dance performance for Battle of the Dance. The team practiced the whole semester up until the night of the show.

A line beginning inside of the Oscar A. Kirkham Building and ending just outside of the Jacob Spori Building was formed on the evening of June 16 as students and community members waited to watch the 12 acts perform at Battle of the Dance. 

Performances included hip-hop, swing, interpretive, ballroom dance 

and more. 

Hannah Hintze, a sophomore studying dance, and Justine Sanders, a sophomore studying early childhood special education, were the seventh performance of the evening. 

“It’s kind of like a zombie dance. It’s called ‘Ramalama Bang Bang.’ They performed it on ‘So You Think You Can Dance’ in the second season, so we just tried to replicate it with clogging,” said Sanders.

Practicing three days a week for about a month, Sanders and Hintze were prepared to perform for Battle of the Dance. 

“We actually get to be zombies, and it’s the best part,” Sanders said.

Alyssa Elliot, a senior studying art education, didn’t enjoy “Ramalama Bang Bang” so much. 

“I thought it was a really neat idea, but it wasn’t executed quite well,” Elliot said.

Taking the audience back to the 1940s, The Woodside Swing Team was sixth on the program. 

“One of the wonderful things we get to do is we get to just throw girls in the air, which generally at BYU-Idaho we don’t,” said  Jeff Bean, a sophomore studying biology. “In performances we’re allowed to do pretty much anything. So it was fun.”

The Woodside Swing Team incorporated a lot of different swing styles into their performance and included a lot of lifts because they wanted to do things that are not 

normally done. 

For Tyler Atkinson, a freshman studying architecture, this was his first time attending Battle of the Dance. Midnight Snax was his favorite performance of the evening. 

“It was awesome,” Atkinson said. “It was pretty intense.”

Another student attending Battle of the Dance for the first time was Jake Trainor, a junior studying biology. 

“I thought the show was awesome. I really liked all the performances,” Trainor said.

Trainor and Elliot’s favorite performance was the intermission group, LGT. The group didn’t compete because they were a last minute addition.

“They weren’t even competing. It was kind of sad,” Elliot said.

Atkinson enjoyed all the performances, and disliked one thing.

“It was a little bit hot in here, but that was fine for me,” Atkinson said. “Besides that it was quite enjoyable.”

After the show, audience members voted for their favorite two acts. The winners will perform at the Best Of show on July 16 at 8 p.m. in the Kirkham Auditorium.

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