A mash-up of music from the movies “Aladdin,” “Crossroads,” “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles” and “Hairspray” fueled the first-place performance of Chi Omega, Delta Chi and Sigma Psi Zeta at Maysing 2010 on Tuesday night.
The pairing of Gamma Phi Beta and Kappa Alpha Psi won second place in the Northwestern Greek community’s annual dance and lip-syncing competition, while Kappa Kappa Gamma and Sigma Alpha Epsilon came in third.
Maysing is presented each year by the four councils that make up NU’s Greek community: the Panhellenic Association, the Interfraternity Council, the National Pan-Hellenic Council and the Multicultural Greek Council. This year’s theme was “Movie Mash-ups.” Chapters from the various councils teamed up to form 12 acts, each containing one Panhellenic sorority, and one or more IFC fraternity, MGC chapter, and NPHC chapter, said Rachel Garrison, vice president for programming for the Panhellenic Association. She said all of the Greek chapters on campus were invited to participate in the event and all but “two or three” did. The chapters chose their own pairings, selecting their music and choreographing their acts, in keeping with a rule that no songs be repeated among acts.
The performances were judged by a panel of NU community members, including Willie the Wildcat, Associated Student Government President Claire Lew, Office of Fraternity and Sorority Life program assistant Katherine Pezzella, and two NU athletes. IFC Vice President for Programming Scott Ritter said the acts were judged on their introduction, transitions between songs, complexity of dance, creativity, enthusiasm, crowd reaction and costumes, among other factors.
This is the second consecutive year that Chi Omega and Delta Chi have won the competition. This year’s winning performance included a student walking across the hands of the other performers to shoot a basket in a child-size basketball hoop to “I Believe I Can Fly” by R. Kelly and two students dressed as Aladdin and Princess Jasmine being tugged across the stage on a small carpet to “A Whole New World.” SESP senior Kat Giertych, who has served as Chi Omega’s Maysing chairwoman for three years, said the performers were inspired in their song selection by favorite childhood movies.
Last year’s victory “set a bar” for this year’s act, said Holly Nwangwa, a member of Chi Omega who performed in Maysing this year.
“It feels so good to win because we spent so many hours practicing,” the Weinberg freshman said. “It was just so exciting to be on stage and show everyone that we’re hardcore, and I am so proud.”
Ritter, a Communication sophomore, said this year is the third year Maysing has been back on campus after a hiatus of a few years. He added Maysing has been a part of fraternity and sorority life at NU since at least the 1930s but has evolved since then from a choir competition between chapters to dancing and lip-syncing.
Ritter said Maysing offers the Greek community a chance to come together in the spring when their chapters have the largest numbers because new member classes have joined and seniors have not yet graduated. Garrison agreed that the event helps create a sense of community.
“A lot of big events are competitive in nature, and this one we feel is more unifying in nature,” said Garrison, a Weinberg junior. “It’s fun that we can all come together and celebrate our chapters.”
