Pas de deux, a step of two, is a bit of what Lost in the Music gave the students of Stony Brook University, but SB’s own  Chinese Association of Stony Brook (CASB) dance team (CDT) took it home.

In a night made for television, raw and sensational talent exuded from the stage when dance crews, DéJa Vu, CASB Dance Team and Lost in the Music went head-to-head to win a check for their charity as they competed for the title, Stony Brook’s Best Dance Crew.

Many students anticipated a great show. “May the best dance crew win,” senior business major Eric Cheang said. “I was kind of expecting more dance crews. I saw them, and I was like, wow!”

The Beta Chapters Distinguished Dons of Phi Iota Fraternity Incorporated and the Lovely Latin Ladies of Hermandad de Sigma Iota Alpha Incorporated presented America’s Best Dance Crew 3: Stony Brook Edition, assembled by Diana Peña, Ruben Mendez and Michelle Jaramillo.

For the last two years they have raised over $4,000 for Haiti’s Direct Relief, The Red Cross, UNICEF and Camp One Heartland’s Charities as well as the first and second annual winners, PUSO Modern’s philanthropy: Philippine Red Cross and UNICEF. They were not in the competition this year. Instead, CDT’s philanthropy, To Write Love on Her Arms, won the donation.

“I heard about [this event] from my friend Chris,” senior chemistry major Vanessa Franco said. “I’ve never been to an event before so I’m pretty excited.”

It was an enormously entertaining and fierce battle as CDT swept their competition off the floor, taking home the trophy for their first victory. “We worked really hard, we had really long practices,” said junior biology major Suzanne Park, CDT dance member. CDT demonstrated a fight scene based on the movie “Tron” in the movie challenge. They combined individual dance styles to the melodic sounds of Usher and other artists. She designed the “Tron”-inspired outfits for the movie round of the challenge. She was out of breath, face glistening with sweat from dancing, as she explained how she put together the glow in the dark flying disks used as props which left onlookers amazed. “I used cardboard and painted them with gaffer’s tape.”  Park said it took her six hours to make the outfits, which were made the day of the show; the disks were made in a little over a week.

Hosts Crystal Mendez and Oscar Martinez incited the crowd into laughter with their humor and chemistry on stage in this movie theater themed event.

DéJa Vu danced in the “Toy Story-” themed act across the dance floor, and tickled the ears of the crowd to diverse sounds of hip hop and R&B.  “This was a really sexy ‘Toy Story.’ I don’t think that’s what they meant by to infinity and beyond!” said Martinez. Their animated moves to Britney Spears’ “Gimme More” turned the crowd on but it was not enough to persuade judges Alanna Eileen, Kimberly Stokely and John Gonzales to advance them to the third round. DéJa Vu left the show before they could give a comment on their experience.

“They’re really ‘lost in the music.’ They have iPods in their ears while they’re dancing,” joked Martinez as he introduced Lost in the Music. The audience responded with “oohs” and “aahs,” as Lost in the Music gave audience members a taste of a few elements of dancing, including ballet, b-boying, breaking and popping. They played the roles of drunken pirates in “Pirates of the Caribbean.” “They made me want to go on that stage right now,” Gonzales said.

“I really liked the group from N.J. I liked the “Pirates of the Caribbean” theme that they had,” freshman economics major Raihan Ahmed said. “In my opinion they should have won.”

However, CDT respectfully appreciated their win. “When we went through this it wasn’t about me, me, me, it was about us as a dance community,” senior health science major Ricky Chan said.