November 1, 2016

By Nayah James

Just in time to celebrate Día De Los Muertos, “Day of the Dead”, OLA, the Latin dance team Estilo y Sabor and the Dominican Starlettes put on an amazing performance in the Social Hall Tuesday, Oct. 25.

OLA provided free food, raffles and a photo booth for students and other attendees to enjoy.

Horizontal rows of seats lined the Social Hall facing the dancers acting as a stage. The dancers, a mixture of OLA members and Estilo y Sabor, were dressed head-to-toe in all black.

The girls had their faces beautifully made with makeup and a bold red lip and the guys looked very put together.

The first performance of the evening was the DU Starlettes. The Starlettes fiercely twirled their blue and silver pom-poms to Iggy Azalea’s song “Bounce” from last week’s Midnight Madness routine.

Second to grace the crowd were dancers from Estilo y Sabor. A group of four danced to a slow-edit version mix of Brittney Spears’ “Toxic” and the “Fifty Shades of Grey” version of Beyoncè’s “Crazy in Love.”

Juniors Anissa Vega and Samantha Hoffman performed a sultry salsa duet. Vega works as the Estilo y Sabor Director and Hoffman as the assistant choreographer.

Third to perform was Estilo y Sabor that danced for the crowd as an entire group.

The dance team, comprised of around 20 members, danced together performing a Cha-Cha routine turning and switching members interchangeably.

After the entire group performed, the two Starlette captains, Anna Difronzo and Monica Rodriguez, closed the performances.

When asked about prep for the showcase, the assistant director said, “It was an amazing time rehearsing and getting to know this year’s team! I love to dance and it’s so awesome to share that with everyone that’s a part of Estilo. It felt so good to perform for the first time. Everyone works so hard and I’m really excited to start rehearsing for our next performance.”

Sophomore Angelica Rodriguez and Junior Amari Floyd attended the event.

Rodriguez was surprised by the show’s performers. “The dancing was not at all what I expected, it was definitely a pleasant surprise,” Rodriguez said.

Floyd commented on the quality of the performances. “I honestly thought that it was good. I could tell that they put in a lot of work because the performances were good overall.”

After the performances ended, the Estilo y Sabor directors and choreographers presented a video compiled of all their rehearsals and performance withholding a big surprise at the end.

The video showed each member as their name appeared on the screen, dancing hard or being silly in rehearsals. The video also contained footage of the Estilo’s showcases at the Chicago International Salsa Congress (CISC) in the previous years.

Vega and Hoffman thanked the team for all their hard work and ended announcing they were taking the team to next year’s CISC that will be held in February.

jamenaya@my.dom.edu