Northeastern’s African Student Organization, or NASO, hosted their annual Battle of the ASO’s Nov. 16 in Blackman Auditorium. The Battle of the ASO’s brought together African dance student organizations from select universities across Boston and surrounding areas for a night of music, dance, and cultural expression.
Omosefe Enobakhare, a fourth-year business administration and economics combined major, and Loyd Joseph, a graduate project management major, hosted the battle and brought out high energy and entertaining commentary for the night. DJ Royal provided the music that kept the audience hyped and dancing throughout the event.
The event kicked off with Northeastern’s SOAL Step Team, and the Ethiopian and Eritrean Student Association and Yung Mula performed throughout the rest of the night. The dance competition featured five teams from area schools, each bringing their own unique and creative styles to the stage.
With professional dancers Hershey, Jay Boogie and Young Burna as judges, the event featured stellar, captivating performances that blended all areas of African dance from Afrobeats to traditional and contemporary. Each competing team — Boston University’s Afrithms, University of Massachusetts Boston’s NGOMA, Brown University’s OJA! Modern African Dance, Northeastern’s NASO, Tufts University’s Children of Cultures of Africa and Harvard University’s Omo Naija x Wahala Boys — uniquely brought out incredible choreography and passion in their performances.
The dances were vibrant and joyous, every performer celebrating Black excellence. Every performance filled the auditorium with cheers and applause, joining all the schools together to celebrate more than just the teams. The event was a powerful celebration of unity, culture and the African diaspora.
After each team presented its dance, the judges chose the final three teams to present prepared dances for a few seconds to “Bata Wahala” by DJ Oluwani. The final three teams were from Tufts, Harvard and Brown. Out of the three, the final winner was Harvard’s Omo Naija x Wahala Boys.
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