Sororities will dance off in front of judges for best performance at the Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity’s second dance competition Thursday. 

The competition will begin at 7:30 p.m. in Gifford Auditorium of Huntington Beard Crouse Hall. Organizers said the event will raise money for Upstate Golisano Children’s Hospital and showcase the dance skills of SU’s greek life. 

‘We feel like there are a lot of different fundraisers on campus for different organizations,’ said Matan Cafri, the co-philanthropy chair of SAE. ‘For us, we enjoy dancing a lot and thought in a college environment, dancing is something people are good at, and we could put on a really cool show.’

Ten sororities on campus will be competing in the showcase, with Alpha Chi Omega as the defending champ. A panel of judges from the Syracuse band Sophistafunk and the owner of Funk ‘n Waffles, Adam Gold, will judge the performances on creativity, originality, chemistry and overall performance, Cafri said.

This year’s winning sorority will receive half of the money raised through tickets sold at the door to donate toward a philanthropy of its choice. The other half of the ticket sales and money raised through registration fees will go toward Golisano Children’s Hospital.

‘We’ve been donating to them for the past couple of years. Last year we helped raise money for their dance and music programs for sick children,’ Cafri said. 

The competition was moved from its location in Hendricks Chapel last year to Gifford Auditorium because of the centrality of Gifford’s location and the size of the venue, Cafri said. The event is open to the public to watch, and Cafri said he expects to sell 400 to 450 tickets. 

A video of SAE’s tour in the hospital will kick off the showcase, which two SAE brothers, Sam Klemmer and Joe Nehme, will moderate, Cafri said. The hosts will introduce each performance and provide some comic relief between acts.

‘We hosted the event last year, and we were invited back this year to host again,’ said Klemmer, recruitment chair of SAE and a senior television, radio and film major. ‘We’ve also been best friends since freshman year, so it seemed like a good fit.’

Their job is to keep the program on schedule and keep the audience entertained, said Nehme, a senior marketing major.

‘We don’t want to bore the audience,’ Nehme said. ‘We’ll do some quick one-liners to keep the audience attentive, but we won’t make the whole thing about us.’

The competition will feature a stroll performance by the Latina women’s service organization Omega Phi Beta and a performance by the brothers at SAE, in addition to the competing sororities’ numbers. 

Sororities competing this year include Delta Delta Delta, Kappa Alpha Theta, Delta Gamma and the newly reinstated Alpha Gamma Delta.

‘I’m hoping the newbies, the AGD girls, do well,’ Nehme said. ‘They’re trying to establish themselves, and they’re definitely a dark horse in this competition.’ 

Tickets will be sold at the door for $5. Klemmer said that while he and Nehme are trying to make the event fun, they want to remind people the reason they are holding it. 

‘While it’s fun to know who the best dance crew of all the sororities is,’ Klemmer said, ‘the main goal is to raise money for charity.’

medelane@syr.edu

Published on November 17, 2010 at 12:00 pm

Contact Meghin: medelane@syr.edu | @meghinwithani