Vibe Dance Competition Back at UCI

With one of the top dance programs on the west coast and countless dance teams and clubs on campus, it is no wonder than one of the biggest hip hop dance competitions in Southern California is held right in our very own Bren Events Center. Vibe Dance Competition, hosted by the brothers of Lambda Theta Delta (LTD), is an annual dance competition where local and international dance teams compete for cash prizes, a trophy, and first place. The Bren is transformed into a theater fit for dancing, music, good energy, free stuff, and the very large dance community. Vibe is also a philanthropic event, where this year $2,000 was given to the Alzheimer’s Association.
 
UCI has a strong presence in Vibe, with three teams based at UCI competing, 2 exhibition projects performing, and many UCI students and alumni competing on other teams in the SoCal area. Kaba Modern, a team branched from the Filipino organization Kababayan, put together a movie–themed set, with pieces highlighting movies such as 300, Scream, and Titanic. They incorporated many different costumes, props, and styles of dance into an amazing performance, even utilizing the screen above the stage to their advantage. Many people in the crowd gave extremely positive reviews about their set, saying how they made all the different components work. With this set being the last performance of their current season, they definitely put together a great show.
 

Common Ground, a dance team composed of UCI and non-UCI students revamped their set from the Bridge, a dance competition that started off the competition season in December. The set told a story of a man with the stresses of life upon him such as being fired from work and having a rough time at home, who finds a place of escape to get away from reality. Max Tran, a 5^th year at UCI and a member of LTD who has worked on Vibe for five years stated before the show, “I really look forward to Common Ground. They always do something different, they aren’t like the other dance teams, with like their songs and dancing.” Personally being able to see the set from when it debuted till now, I think that they did a great job with the story and what they presented on stage.
 
CADC, a dance team branched from the Chinese Association at UCI, put together a collection of hype, energy, sexiness, and control with their performance at Vibe. Highlights from their set noted by other audience members around me included their boy’s piece choreographed by UCI 3^rd year David Lee and UCI Alum Mark Romain, and the moment where licorice was throw into the audience. During intermission, I heard an audience member say “Doped dancing and a snack! I’m down for that.” With all the members of CADC being UCI students, they all had to balance going to class in Social Sciences and MSTB and dancing through hell week with late and tiring practices. When asked about how she felt about the performance after all the practices and hard work, Heidi Ro, a 4^th year at UCI said “So good.”
 
Other highlights of the show that audience members noted to me included S2K, a project founded by UCI Alumni Hikari Murakami and Irene Choi, who presented a very fierce performance, as always, GRV’s performance, full of swag and raw energy, the Japanese teams Dazzle and Kaori Alive, two teams new to Vibe this year who surprised the crowd with their theatrics and skills, and Boogiezone Entity’s very sensual and mature piece to “Dance with You” by Beyonce. A wonderful surprise was Surreal’s second performance, where one of the founders of Surreal, Christopher Bitun, put together a beautiful performance for his fiancé, Ria De Jesus.
 
Congratulations to Choreo Cookies, Academy of Villains, and Kaori Alive, who won first, second, and third place respectively. Can’t wait to see next year’s Vibe!
 
All photo credits to Alek Chan