When Urban Soul Movement president junior Robert Zhou performed a “windmill” and a “halo,” the audience screamed, whooed and cheered on the bleachers of the school gym. The Winter Showcase, on Dec. 5, was a chance to improve USM’s publicity and image.
“When you think of hip-hop, a lot of people think it’s aggressive, or really sketchy,” treasurer sophomore Joshua Citajaya said. “We want to tell them hip-hop [is] a lot of things, it’s b-boy and choreo. There’s so much variety to what we can do. We really wanted to express that in the Winter Showcase.”
The performance consisted of four parts: a slow song in the beginning, the “b-boy” song by the male members, the routine by the female members and the final team song. The choreography was mostly done by Social Manager sophomore William Chang with suggestions by Citajaya. The music was chosen by Chang and vice-president junior Shreevika Mitra.
“Our previous officers, they really inspired us to pick songs that have good beats and good messages,” Mitra said. “During my part, we played ‘Nobody Love’ by Tori Kelly. It shares a really good message to try to appreciate what you have now, and don’t focus on the new things.”
One supporter of the club was sophomore Mayank Singamreddy, who sat amidst the cheering crowd. He didn’t have the time to become a regular at the club, but he came to several meetings and USM events to support his friends Citajaya and Chang.
“I like the moves which they were sliding around, it was definitely risky,” Singamreddy said. “If they didn’t land where they were supposed to be, they would be out of formation, but they did it well. You can see that their coordination was through a lot of hard work.”
A challenge for the club during practice was to coordinate all the members. Everyone who agreed to participate in the performance would meet in the dance room during the week and at Memorial Park over the weekend specifically for the showcase.
“The whole group, we feel like we’re really close now, like as a family,” Chang said.
For now, USM will have no more meetings for this semester — they will continue to work on choreography for Cure Cancer Cafe and Spring Showcase.
“In the end, it’s a group effort,” Citajaya said. “I really like what we’ve done,”
Watch the USM’s full performance at the Winter Showcase below.
