ZETA, ZBT win lip sync competition to finish Greek Week [P]

04/11/06 - The peppiness and excitement among the Greek sisters and brothers inside Keaney Gym was contagious, and the matching outfits and carefully rehearsed dance moves were reminiscent of a certain movie starring Kirsten Dunst in heated competition with the Clovers. Instead of a cheerleading competition, spectators were present for the culmination of the University of Rhode Island's Greek Week: the annual lip sync competition, put on by 10 sororities and nine fraternities.

"The concept is pretending to sing to a song while dancing," said Colleen Lally, a Panhellenic Council member. "It's like putting on a cheesy concert. It's always been the final event, ever since Greek Week started."

The lip sync competition consisted of six minutes per group to perform a choreographed dance and lip sync to a song. Greek members were judged on lip sync ability, originality and appearance. The overall winners of Greek Week, sorority Zeta Epsilon Tau Alpha and fraternity Lambda Chi Alpha, were announced at the end of the night.

The seats were filled to capacity, seating about 1,300 people. Many were there to cheer on their fellow sisters and brothers, or just to be entertained.

The triumphant winners of the lip sync were ZETA and Zeta Beta Tau.

ZETA performed the songs "No Scrubs" by TLC, "Stupid Girls" by Pink, and "Lose Control" by Missy Elliot. The girls paired off for "No Scrubs" with complicated choreography and had a face-off between two groups for "Stupid Girls."

Junior Stacey Leasca paraded in front of the groups of girls with a fake stuffed dog, big sunglasses and an extremely oversized Starbucks coffee, clearly mimicking Pink's video for the song. For "Lose Control," the girls took a few steps from Elliot's video and waved streamers for effect.

The ZETA girls were elated to win the competition.

"It was an awesome way to finish off Greek Week," said Suzi Kennedy, ZETA vice president. "We all put a lot of hard work into this, and not only did it pay off, but it brought us a lot closer and was tons of fun."

As well as winning the lip sync, ZETA also won Greek Week.

"Winning Greek Week overall was exhilarating and unexpected," Kennedy said. "We had a blast with Lambda and were happy with the enthusiasm as a whole."

The other winner, ZBT, was a true crowd pleaser. The group imitated the boy band N Sync with a medley of songs, including, "It's Gonna Be Me," "Tearin' Up My Heart," "Gone," "I Want You Back" and "Pop."

The fraternity started with five members coming out and a brother on each of their shoulders. There were whispers in the audience; some had an idea of what was to come. The brothers acted as puppets in the routine for "It's Gonna Be Me," while it was a boy band frenzy with gray, black and white button-up shirts, jeans and white sneakers dancing across the stage for "Tearin' Up My Heart."

ZBT went back to the original five members for the slow rendition of "Gone," while "I Want You Back" and "Pop" included the entire fraternity again.

ZBT member Jamison Miller was more concerned with the fun the fraternity had while practicing than actually winning.

"It's great to see all the effort we put in really paid off in the long run," he said. "All the Greek houses did an awesome job, and you can tell everyone had a great time. Winning is nice but the good times we have are why we keep doing it."

The runner-ups of the performance were the sorority Sigma Kappa and the fraternity Sigma Phi Epsilon.

Sigma Kappa brought a sexy feel to the show with their renditions of "Sexy" by Destiny's Child, "Boys" by Britney Spears and "Check Up On It" by Beyonce. The dance was complete with shimmies and promiscuous choreography. The girls wore sheer black tops with bright tank tops and black leggings.

SigEp clearly wanted to make the audience laugh; they imitated boy bands with unbuttoned shirts and khakis, but brought a goofy feel with toe touches, pelvic thrusts and push-ups on stage. The audience sang along with "Where Do You Go?" by No Mercy, "Boom Boom Boom," by the Outhere Brothers and "I Like To Move It," by Reel to Reel. The boys also performed fancy footwork and had a face-off and fake brawls among the brothers.

Sorority Alpha Chi Omega and fraternity Lambda Chi Alpha took third place and fourth place went to sorority Alpha Phi and fraternity Alpha Tau Omega.

AXO followed in the footsteps of Sigma Kappa with a more sexy routine that involved tight tank tops with the words "Out of Control" written across them and "AXO" on the back. The sorority had a recurring theme during their routine with a complicated baton-twirling act. The girls often posed with seemingly innocent faces, obviously poking fun at the lyrics in the songs they were dancing to.

Lambda did more of a movie routine than an actual song and dance. They performed the popular Saturday Night Live skit featuring Will Ferrell, "Gotta Have More Cowbell," with Mikko Hurley as Will Ferrell. Two brothers did the rap, "The Chronicles of Narnia."

The real audience pleaser was when the music stopped, and the light fell on two members dressed in bright purple and orange shirts-characters from A Night At the Roxbury. They performed "Don't Hurt Me," by Haddaway.

Lambda, although disappointed they didn't win the lip sync, was happy enough to be the overall winners of Greek Week.

"We were paired with a really motivated sorority, and we have had the goal of winning it since the beginning of the year," Lambda Social Chairman Jeffrey Jackson said.

Alpha Phi performed songs from Britney Spears, including "Oops, I Did It Again" and "Satisfaction." The girls dressed in sparkly black tank tops with numbers and "Alpha Phi" on the back of them. The girls broke into three groups and shimmied and crawled across the floor, with their red lipstick and over-the-top makeup. They ended the routine with "My Prerogative."