Lip Sync 2025: Pitch Perfect Performances Compete for Housing

On March 26, students filed into the pews of Johnson Chapel in preparation for the performance event of the semester: Lip Sync 2025, hosted by the Office of Community Living. The prize for the winner? First pick of housing for any group applying to Herd Housing for the 2025-2026 academic year.

The judges of the event were President Michael Elliott, Chief Student Affairs Officer and Dean of Students Angie Tissi-Gassoway, and Association of Amherst Students (AAS) President Gent Malushaga ’25. Fellow AAS member Rizwan Ayub ’27 emceed the event, breaking into a lipsync of his own at one point.

Five groups entered the competition, each with a pod name, theme, and costumes. The “Val Gals” — Katerina Callimanopulos ’28, Madeline Gold ’28, Alyssa Friedman ’28, and Ellis Benitez ’28 — performed a Justin Bieber Eras Tour, with each member dressed up to represent a different “era” of the Belieber fandom. The “Purple Divas” — Miles Antaya ’28, Guanhua Chen ’28, Carter Raunch ’28, and Gregory Baldinucci ’28 — shimmied to Toxic by Britney Spears, decked out in dresses, skirts, and glamorous makeup.

Of the five groups, the top three were announced following a period of deliberation by the judges. Third place went to “The Suite Life Of: Ale, Ayla, Bea, Carlisle, Clare, Emily, Maeve, Maleigh, Nat, and Sami,” who tried out for a 10-person suite. The group was composed entirely of Amherst women’s hockey members, who, at the time of the competition, were en route to Wisconsin to compete in the NCAA DIII Frozen Four tournament. In an innovative solution to this problem, the members of “The Suite Life” filmed an intricately choreographed dance to be projected for the crowd at Johnson Chapel. The performance featured songs like “Since You Been Gone” by Kelly Clarkson, “Wannabe” by the Spice Girls, and “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun” by Cyndi Lauper. The girls donned customized sparkly purple cowgirl hats, featured the Mammoth mascot in their video, and even had aides at the live event throw handmade T-shirts printed with a collaged photo of their faces on it into the crowd.

The second-place winners of the competition performed a well-rehearsed and impressively choreographed rendition of Michael Jackson’s “Thriller.” The group, “Fourbidden,” featured George Daniel Dixon ’27, Sidney Essandoh ’27, Modi Aderinokun ’27, and Maingan Lafontant ’27, each adorned in an all black outfit and matching sunglasses. Members moon-walked and cycled around the stage to cheers from the audience before traveling up and down the aisles, high-fiving adoring fans in the chapel pews.

After a suspenseful and fun-filled hour, the winner of the 2025 Lip Sync battle was finally announced: “Pitch Perfect” would get first pick of suites for the next academic year. The group consisted of four first-year students: Pablo Moreira ’28, Zeynep Atabek ’28, Harman Aujla ’28, and Annie Dai ’28. After walking onto the stage in red satin robes to perform “Crazy in Love” by Beyoncé, the four dancers removed their gowns to reveal outfits that seemed to be out of “Magic Mike”: white tank tops, jeans, and backwards hats. The outfit changes didn’t stop there, as the members then threw on faux fire helmets to perform Pitbull’s “Fireball.” In a final showstopper, the group jumped into choreography for “California Gurls” by Katy Perry, during which Moreira’s tearaway pants were ripped off to reveal bright pink swim trunks. The lip sync performance ended with the crowd cheering as the group set off their props: a bubble gun and confetti cannon.

After the event, the interview with the winners was delayed as the group picked up every single piece of confetti from the Johnson Chapel floor. “We wanted to do the lip sync battle the second we heard about it. We came up with the choreo maybe a month ago,” said Dai. The preparation really ramped up after spring break.“These past three days, I’ve not done any actual homework,” Moreira said, “I’ve only been practicing all day long.”

Moreira displayed his commitment to the performance while describing the process for hand-making his tearaway pants, “It took a couple hours to get all of that manually [sewn]. I bought pants out of the clearance section at Target. Then, I manually put all the buttons on both sides of the pants so they could come off. It took about five hours to get them done, but the result was definitely worth it.”

“Pitch Perfect” was happy to report that while the process was strenuous at times, they believed that it was a great way to build chemistry and a test for what it would be like to live together (which they passed with flying colors). Although they’re obviously not disappointed with their prize, Moreira said, “The main point was to just have a lot of fun and get closer as a group.”

After Aujla joked that the key to the group’s success was “Pablo’s beautiful face,” the group agreed that not being afraid to put themselves out there and try something new was what made them work. “Go big or go home” was echoed multiple times as the motto of their group. As a prize for their efforts, Atabek shared that they will be selecting a Greenways suite with four singles to live in next year.