Prepare for the exciting, exhilarating, energetic, and, of course, entertaining dance performances of Iowa Shout.
Shout has been a tradition for many years, and it is a highly anticipated Homecoming event for both the local community and UI students. Participants use both humor and charm as they perform dances and skits that they have been working on for a couple weeks or even a couple months. The competition will take place on the Pentacrest at 7 p.m. today.
UI senior Mike Connors of Sigma Nu says his fraternity has been preparing for a few months.
“The skit took a lot of time for us to write,” he said. “One of our juniors wrote the script — it took him a couple weeks to write it out. We’ve been working on the dance for a couple months.”
Pi Beta Phi member Angela Perpiabosco has been preparing for numerous weeks as well.
“We started four weeks before [the competition],” the UI sophomore said. “As we get closer to this week, we’ll have practice every night to make it perfect.”
Samantha Peterson, the executive director of the Homecoming Council, said 14 teams will participate in this year’s Shout. Categories include a male dance, a female dance, and a co-ed version. All performances should incorporate the theme “Black and Gold Never Gets Old.”
“The girl dance is usually more dance-oriented, and the guy dance is usually more fun and entertaining,” Peterson said. “The guy-girl dance is a lot of partner things — just how the theme of each pairing choose to take their skit. I would say they’re more silly.”
She estimated that last year’s event pulled in more than 1,000 audience members. There could be more for this year, because there is a new addition to the tradition: the participation of six student organizations not in the usual greek-system teams. The expanded entries include local dancers, Dance Marathon members, and various step teams.
The involvement of these student organizations, Peterson said, was “just to show that Homecoming’s about the entire university and not just the greek system, because I know a lot of people are deterrent from participating because they think its geared toward one thing in particular, and it’s not.”
The larger number of participants in the competition has received positive feedback.
“It’s awesome that this year we’re incorporating student organizations, and, hopefully, we are going to have it grow from there next year,” Shout coordinator Joey Diaz said.
More participants mean more competition while striving toward the ultimate prize, which Connors refers to as “bragging rights.” Black and gold never gets old, and neither do the amusing and astonishing acts of Shout.