The lights flicker and dim before beams of brilliantly coloured light flood the smoke filled stage. 12 people stand perfectly silhouetted against the magically coloured lights before the Fresher song begins. And through the haze of music, lights, and semi-professional dancing the audience can be heard cheering and shouting in admiration and pure excitement. The ICAC Origins dance off was this weekend and boy was it incredible! A huge congratulations to everyone who participated – whether organising the night or stealing the spotlight by dancing!
For those of you who missed out here is this writer’s humble review of the night that was
Trinity opened the night with a blast from the past with everyone’s favourite dorky-80s flashback band – Wham! . The slightly anachronistic 50s style costumes gave this dance a great nostalgic kick. Their cherry skirts and button-down costumes matched the perkiness and enthusiasm of the dancer’s energy. The dance also featured some rather incredible group choreography including quite a few lifts.
Hildas continued Trinity’s 80s theme with a wild dance. Their garishly fluoro yellow and pink outfits were only outshone by their energy and dance moves.
Next up was Whitely and despite the team looking like they were about to go to bed their song gave the crowd more energy than an extra-large quadruple shot coffee plus a bucket of red bull. The team’s song choice – Broken Leg by Bluejuice – had the entirety of Billboards singing along. Although while there is no doubt that Whitely had energy there was a definite lack of chemistry with some moves so dorky they looked like they came straight out of Napoleon Dynamite.
Another 80s flashback dominated the stage as University College began their dance to ‘Everybody Dance Now’. The pink and yellow fluoro once again flooded the stage blinding nearly everyone. Teasing and hairspray were obviously used in bulk for UC’s dance as their hair exploded into some wild afros. One IHer was overheard saying they looked like an “aerobics instruction video”. This historical caricature of the 80s enthused the audience into a frenzy.
Janet Clarke Hall jumped back onto the stage to bring us out of the 80s and back into the 50s styles – fit with suspenders and bow ties. The JCH team were incredible together with really great gymnastics, completely synchronised group work and enthusiasm to spare. By the end of the act security guards had to be brought out to move the excited audience back from the stage so the next act could continue
Queens – determined to bring us back to the 80s – danced to a rendition of Footloose that would have made Kevin Bacon proud. Despite (or perhaps because of) some overtly sexualised school uniform costumes the dance was picked to be the audience favourite of the night. Each dancer in the Queens team was given the chance to show-off with some incredible solos.
Next up was, in my incredibly unbiased opinion, the best dancing team ever to have been assembled in the history of this planet. The IH bundled onto the stage in their (admittedly confusing) tribal-sports costumes. Everyone on stage looked like they were having an amazing time with incredible group work and some really well choreographed solos.
After our amazing performance first-timers Medley College took to the stage. They were really enthusiastic and their anarchist school uniform costumes reminded the older colleges that Medley are here to stay.
St Mary’s routine managed to get the whole club excited with their dance to Up Town Funk. The 70s style groovy-ness was mixed with the pure enthusiasm of the team. Commendations for St Mary’s for pulling of the dorky-cool dance move of the group ‘rope pull mime’
Newman quickly followed with a great dance anthem that managed to get themselves and the audience pumped. Last up was Ormond. Grouped together in a pack the song’s beginning felt like an 80s dystopia with the dancers clad in dark clothes and fluoro face paint. This sense of trepidation was quickly brushed away as the song, Walk the Dinosaur, filled the crowd with energy. Ormond were amazing with some incredible synchronisation – notably the hand boning breakdown of the song. The dance made for a fantastic finish for the night.
Winners of the Night
In first place was Trinity College followed by our very own International House team with Ormond coming in third place
