Street Dance, the crowd-pulling dance face-off organised by the Department of Theatre began at 2 AM at the Rotunda. It was a battle between the dance troupes of seven colleges from all across the country.

The contest consisted of two rounds, the first being the team dance showcase, wherein every team was given ten minutes each to perform hip-hop to a soundtrack that was submitted by the teams themselves.The second round was a face-off battle—an impromptu show of talent to a song that the teams had never heard of before.

The event began after an hour’s delay, with the emcee announcing the rules and thanking the sponsors, Tik Tok. An excited crowd that filled the Rotunda stands eagerly awaited the teams’ performances.

The first team to take the floor was the dance group “Vibe” from Delhi Technological University (DTU). Their style included some classic break-dance moves, and their track was primarily EDM and rap. The boys and girls in green sweatshirts opened the competition enthusiastically, raising the bar quite high for the remainder of the teams.

The next college on stage was the PDM University, Delhi. What stood out in their performance was a prolonged solo by a female dancer, which captivated the spectators’ attention. A segment of their routine also incorporated robotic movements complemented by suitable music.

The Satyawati College dance team was next in the contest. Their hip hop style, although a little more subtle, was still packed with energy. They were the first team of the competition to dance to Bollywood music, and their team chemistry was commendable.

Shaheed Bhagat Singh college changed the mood from western rap to a remix of the Punjabi bhangra music, and pulled off the fusion with finesse. Their formations were not as quickly changing as other teams until that point, but their incorporation of retro music into their performance was a daring feat which they were able to impress the audience with.

Up until this point, the crowd was quite timid, with only a stray cheer or two every time a stunt was performed. As compared to previous years’ Street Dance events, this came as quite a surprise to the entire organizing team. However, the crowd’s mannerism saw a drastic change the moment the announcer called upon the host team, the Dance Club BITS Pilani onto the stage. The cheering did not cease, even as the team gave the cue to the sounds booth to start their track. Their timing was in sync, and the roaring crowd goaded them to maintain their enthusiasm. They even included a short audio clip from the old Bollywood  song “Its Magic” and performed B-boy to it. The audience went wild when three of the team’s members pulled off ‘‘the worm’’ with unrealistic perfection.

The last of the individual performances was the one by IIT BHU, which was the only team to be dressed differently from each other—trying to be as close to the raw street dance style as possible, with their baseball caps and different coloured hoodies. The different songs in their soundtrack did change mood abruptly at times, from slow Bollywood to fast-paced EDM, but the team did manage to pull the act together, putting forth a decent performance.

The second part of the contest began with the three-way dance battle between Satyawati, IIT-BHU and PDM University. Satywati’s forty five second act comprised  mainly of a particular dancer who grooved to the spontaneous music like he had practiced it for days. IIT-BHU had a more coordinated performance, as did PDMU, during their face-off showcase. The last forty five seconds were a joint performance by the three teams on stage. The teams started dancing outside the demarcated area, making it difficult for the jury to identify the team to which every dancer belonged, and mark them accordingly.

The second face-off was between DTU and BITS Pilani. An intense battle that commenced with DTU, who spent around ten seconds trying to feel the music and then proceeded to perform for whatever time remained. BITS Pilani on the other hand, spent a large part of their time performing stunts and doing solo helicopters, in perfect sync with the comparatively slower soundtrack. Both teams performed equally well in the joint forty five seconds.

PGDAV faced Shaheed Bhagat Singh in the last battle, with the former resorting to a set of predetermined moves that were tweaked to be in rhythm with their song, while the second team danced confidently to their music. The teams got very competitive in the third leg, and the competition seemed to have ended.

However, a video review of the second face-off i.e. DTU vs BITS, showed that BITS were given more than forty five seconds due to a technical issue at the sounds booth. Hence, the battle was conducted again and judges re-evaluated the teams’ performances.

With that, the contest drew to an end as the crowd dispersed from the venue. At the time of writing, the results were yet to be announced by the Department of Controls.