DAYTON SWING SMACKDOWN!

omg, y'all. smackdown.

This past weekend was *amazing,* the culmination of months of really hard work for all the teams in the form of a team performances in front of so many of our friends and family, down in Dayton, OH. Fact: it is scarier to perform in front of friends than strangers.

Big shoutout to Josh Forbes for organizing the weekend- Smackdown is Josh's baby. ::sniff:: and it's getting so big now! Gonna start kindergarden next year.

For those that don't know, Dayton Swing Smackdown is two competitions rolled into one; both city/regional and college teams compete. And two rankings are tabulated, overall and collegiate. Collegiate teams can win overall, but non-college-student teams cannot, obviously, win the collegiate division.

All of the teams brought it hardcore, but I am just bursting at the seams with pride for the Columbus teams. Cbus brought home both trophies- the OSU Jitterbucks took the Collegiate Cup despite fierce competition from Miami University, Ohio University, and University of Dayton teams. And Team SwingColumbus took first overall out of 6 entries, the college teams plus two teams from Lexington, KY.

So, videos! (Thanks to Dave Martin of Columbus for the videography, videos below the jump.)
A playlist of all the team performances, as well as the Solo Jazz finals and the Jack and Jill finals is available here, courtesy of Dave and Swingcolumbus.

But I thought I'd post the top 3 videos from the team comps, because they're pretty kickass.

First, the Jitterbucks, 2012 collegiate champs and 3rd overall:




Next, the Lexington, KY Rhythm Cats and their badassery with 14-person-team-aerials and all sorts of craziness. Lexington always brings interesting ideas/themes into their routines. (Their one from last year is very worth watching as well, a really good theme/costume/story carry-through with -the crazy!- unisex costumes.)





And- Team SwingColumbus, my team. To preemptively answer the question- yep, the extra follow is intentional and was planned for all along. Choreo by Mark Calkins and Shannon Varner. Special extra thanks and love to them, and so much love for all my teammates as well. Y'all are pretty much the shit. Teammates, from left to right in the piano line (see 2:10 to 2:20): Shannon and Mark, Christina Austin (me), Erik Hernandez, Gail Clendenin, Dan Hoy, Ali Lodico, Danny Beyrer, and Binaebi Akah.