THE ATENEO Resident Students Association Dance Troupe (ARSA DT), with a score of 92 percent, brought home the championship for the Rhythm-in-Blue (RIB) competition held at the Henry Lee Irwin Theater last September 20.
The Ateneo Management Association’s (AMA) Amaneuvers garned a score of 91 percent, making them the first runner-up.
The second runner-up title went to the Ateneo Association of Communications Technology Management’s Acteam, which received a score of 86 percent.
Aside from receiving trophies for their respective ranks, the champion, first runner-up and second runner-up teams will receive cash prizes of P20,000, P15,000 and P10,000, respectively. The money is set to be given to the winners this coming Friday, September 27.
The top three dance crews received other prizes during the program as well. ARSA DT received Hawkgear bags and championship shirts. Amaneuvers were given gift packs from Ray-Ban and Sun Cellular. Acteam went home with gift packs from Sun Cellular and gift certificates from Dunkin’ Donuts.
Hawkgear, Ray-Ban, Sun Cellular and Dunkin Donuts were among the sponsors of the event.
The judges during the competition were Joyce Bolante, Clarissa Mijares, Prince Paltu-ob, Vimi Rivera and Raymond Santos
RIB is an annual inter-organization competition hosted by the Company of Ateneo Dancers (CADS). Now on its eleventh year, the competition was entitled “Siklab.”
Special awards
Other organizations that competed in the RIB: Siklab were the following: Ateneo Consultants for Organization Development and Empowerment (CODE), Ateneo Association of Communication Majors, Ateneo Biological Organization, Ateneo Junior Marketing Association, Ateneo Special Education Society, Enterteynment Para sa Tao, Bayan, Lansangan at Diyos and Kythe Ateneo.
Four special awards were also given out during the competition, namely Best in Costume, Best Male and Female Dancers, Sun Cellular’s Good Choice Dancer and the People’s Choice Award.
The Best in Costume was awarded to the Amaneuvers.
Imman Pacis of the Acteam won the Best Male Dancer award while Sofi Bautista of the Ateneo CODE Dancers was hailed Best Female Dancer.
The Sun Cellular’s Good Choice Dancer awards were given to Alesi Salvador of the Acteam and Kurt Lim of the Amaneuvers.
Finally, the People’s Choice Award was given to ARSA for receiving the highest number of “likes” in the photo-liking contest CADS hosted through its Facebook page.
Passion of Siklab
CADS President E.G. Bautista shared that the RIB theme was entitled “Siklab” this year because CADS wanted to celebrate what defines them as an organization.
“We incorporated that into the RIB theme. ‘Siklab’ is the search for that certain moment, event or person that sparked the passion within us,” he said.
He commented that the level of competition amazed him this year.
“Each of the ten orgs had the right to win the championship. That’s what made it (this year’s RIB) really exciting,” Bautista said.
Acteam Captain Anna Villanueva shared that her dance crew had initially aimed to defend its title as last year’s RIB champion but was satisfied with this year’s results.
“Just by seeing how far we’ve come since day one, we couldn’t be happier,” Villanueva said.
“To manage to pull off a perfect run made us feel like champions already,” she added.
Acteam’s RIB dance this year told the story of two romantic couples.
On the other hand, one of the captains of Amaneuvers, Kiesha Silayan, shared that winning first runner-up was not something they expected.
“[It was] more of something we hoped for. We trained so hard for this and I’m thankful that the judges and a lot of people appreciated our performance,” Silayan said.
She added that Amaneuvers was lucky to have Xernan Alfonso as their coach. According to her, it was Alfonso who thought about her dance crew’s concept for their competition piece, which was about the current pork barrel scam.
Meanwhile, ARSA DT Captain Chloe Gotianse exaplined her team’s choice of theme.
ARSA DT’s winning RIB performance was about the execution of Filipino priests Mariano Gomez, Jose Burgos and Jacinto Zamora by the Spaniards in 1872. The Gomburza, as the three are more popularly known, were charged with subversion punishable by death following the 1872 Cavite mutiny.
“We proved that we can teach a big chunk of Philippine history in three minutes and evoke a great response from our audience,” said Gotianse.
“We wanted everyone in the audience to remember what exactly sparked the revolution that brought us our freedom,” she added.
