Hula hooping, beat boxing and Indian classical dance were only a few of the acts performed Saturday in the Hogg Auditorium at the Texas Revue, the University’s annual talent show that was attended by more than 1,000 students.
This year Nach Baliye, a coed fusion dance team that performs Bollywood dancing, took home the “Best Overall” award of $1,500. Thomas Gu, mathematics senior who practices the art of Chinese yoyoing, or “diabolo,” won the technical excellence award of $750 for the second year in a row.
Gu said he was not expecting to win, especially since he messed up during his performance when one of his yoyos rolled off stage.
“Even when I mess up, the crowd is still super into it,” Gu said. “At this point, that’s the whole reason why I keep [performing]. I love the crowd.”
Kelly Hogg, chair of Texas Traditions, the committee that plans Texas Revue, said it is common to see similar acts perform and even win year after year, but their domination does not last forever.
“[Gu winning] just proves to me that he has that true level of talent that other acts haven’t quite reached yet,” said Hogg, marketing and business honors senior. “And he is a graduating senior, so that definitely opens the floor up next year for someone.”
Hogg said, even though the audience may not have noticed any changes, the planning stage for this year’s Texas Revue was completely different from previous years. According to Hogg, this is the first year Texas Traditions has planned the talent show.
“Last year, there was one committee where all they did was plan this event all year long,” Hogg said. “This year we had one committee, [Texas Traditions], planning three events including 40 Acres Fest. It was 15 of us planning these two giant events, while still trying to make our way as a committee and figuring out how we were going to operate.”
Neha Srivastava, finance and business honors senior and event coordinator for Texas Revue, said some ideas the committee came up with while planning the show involved making it more of a red carpet event. Texas Traditions passed out bow ties and pearls at the entrance to the auditorium and had GigglePants improv troupe members emcee the show to create more audience interaction.
“[We tried] to take it from a different approach: from it simply being a talent show to trying to engage the audience and bring them in,” Srivastava said. “[We wanted to] make them be part of the entire show as well.”
