Cebu dance troupe bags 3rd spot in Smart’s biggest nationwideDance Off

CEBU, Philippines - After a nationwide hunt, a rigorous screening process, tough regional qualifiers and a grand final battle held at the Smart Araneta Coliseum, a challenger dance crew from a college in San Mateo, Rizal, and an aggressive all-girl troupe from a high school in Quezon City emerged as the first ever champions of the Smart Prepaid Jump In Dance Off dubbed as the country’s biggest inter-school dance competition.

FMD Extreme of St. John Bosco Institute of Arts & Sciences – San Mateo bested seasoned streetdance teams from seven other schools to win the top prize in the college category. Miriam College High School’s Sayawatha Dance Troupe meanwhile swept the high school category with the grand champion and texter’s choice wins, beating its seven competitors.

The two champions brought home P300,000 each for the championship titles – half of which will be awarded to their respective schools. Sayawatha got an extra P20,000 for garnering the most text votes. Finishing in second and third places in the high school division are Indayog ng Atenistang  Kabataan from Ateneo de Manila High School and Claret Hataw from Claret School of Quezon City, each winning P150,000 and P100,000 respectively.

For the college division, the De La Salle University Dance Company-Street won second place while the University of Cebu Main Dance Troupe finished third, taking home P150,000 and P100,000 respectively. The Street Jazz Company from UP Los Baños took home P20,000 for winning the texters’ choice award.

The Smart Prepaid Jump In Dance Off, is a project of mobile leader Smart Communications, Inc. to help amplify its Jump In campaign aimed at “empowering the youth and encouraging them to pursue their passions, jump in to their dreams so they can live more.”

The heart-stopping performances during the finals night were judged by some of the country’s top performers. The panel included Lema Diaz, one of the founders of the two-time World Hip-hop dance champions, Philippine Allstars; Jon Supan from the all-time favorite local dance crew, Manoeuvres; and renowned choreographer to the stars, Georcelle Dapat-Sy of popular dance group, G-Force.

As part of the program, Smart came out with the Smart Prepaid Jump In SIM, which is exclusive for students.  It comes with “special barkada offers” like the JUMPTXT 15 with 2 days unlimited texts to all networks and JUMP ALL OUT 15 with unlimited texts to all networks + 30 minutes of calls to Smart/TNT and FREE 10 MB of data – both for just P15. The Jump In SIM also gives students access to mobile Internet offers like the Opera Unlisurf 15 and the online music portal Smart Music.

To view videos and photos from the Smart Jump In Dance Off and to know more about the Smart Jump In offers and programs, visit www.smartjumpin.com. (FREEMAN)