The SWYPE dance organization killed Tuesday night’s Halloween-themed performance in the Russell House Ballroom. The showcase incorporated some of the holiday’s scariest and most popular themes, while murderers, creepy crawlers, zombies and monsters infested the room, roaming through the audience and even hopping up on stage.
Many dances incorporated Halloween tunes like the “Monster Mash,” while others incorporated storylines into their performances.
One dance, choreographed by Darryl Arevalo, told his story of surviving "The Purge," while another dance, choreographed by Michael Sanchez, told his story of being murdered at a campsite and rising from the dead to perform to Childish Gambino’s "Bonfire."
From sexy boudoir zombies to 1950s-style jiving, the dancing the audience experienced several different styles, including one foreign style of dance that was incorporated by SWYPE’s special guest, USC co-ed dance team Moksha. Moksha uses classical styles of Indian dance and fuses it with western-culture. By incorporating hip-hop music and western dance moves into their routines, the team creates its own original style of dance.
In between the dances, SWYPE’s emcees tested the audiences’ Halloween knowledge with trivia and obscure history, and after realizing the audience knew very little of how Halloween came to be, emcee Nereo Legaspi asked the audience, “Do you even Halloween?”
During intermission, there was a surprisingly talented dance competition between three random volunteers from the audience, who displayed their unique talents like headbanging, ballet and Moksha-like dance moves.
The ballroom was packed with students enjoying refreshments and candy corn decorated sweets, while EDM and hip-hop music set the dance tone from the beginning with well-known artists such as 2 Chainz and Nicki Minaj.
SWYPE members said they were generally satisfied with the turnout and were glad to know people were pumped and excited to watch them.
“I think we did really well. I think we killed it with our performance,” said Sara DesMarais, a second-year exercise science student and SWYPE dancer.
SWYPE President of Dance Daquan Williams, spoke during intermission and expressed how thankful he was to be a part of a family as great as SWYPE and hoped people enjoyed the performance as much as he did.
“This is my family. I love my family. We all work hard,” Williams said. “We taught them 10 choreographies, and they just came in the middle of September. That’s dedication.”
For more SWYPE performance, visit the team's YouTube channel.