The Acrofest final program on November 11 proved that gymnastics is more than an Adventist excuse to listen to EDM. As night crept over the campus, spectators and acrobatics teams trickled onto the carpet-covered Wellness Center basketball courts. After the vespers service, the final program began. Team after team after team ran onto the spotlighted mats in the center of the gym to perform the routines they’d honed. The ground shook; people screamed. The tense atmosphere was heightened by loud, bass-heavy, quick-tempoed dance music.
It would have been difficult to miss the hordes of gymnasts present on campus last week. Arriving on Wednesday, twenty-eight Adventist college and academy acrobatics teams from across the continental United States and Puerto Rico joined Andrews University’s Gymnics for Acrofest. At night, teams slept on Johnson and Andreasen gym floors, and during the day they took part in clinics, practiced their various routines, and bonded with other schools.
While the visiting teams participated in clinics, members of the host team, Gymnics, made sure everything ran smoothly. “Hosting is a very big responsibility, but a big honor,” said Emily Howell (freshman, animal science, AU Gymnics member). “We were taking care of a lot of the meals, we had to set up all our gyms with all the necessary equipment for the clinicians and the stations, so it was important that once the teams got out of the gyms for breakfast that we were moving all those mats back. We were ambassadors, so some of our team members accompanied the teams as they went to their rotations, some of our members were at the rotations demonstrating or doing crowd control.”
However, all was not fun and games for the visiting teams. A common complaint was that the food was skimpy and far insufficient for the almost-constant exercising the teams did. According to multiple people, the teams were fed only one danish and a green banana for breakfast on the first day, and the food the rest of the week was comparable. “I believe,” Howell said, “that the Andrews University Dining Services did the best they could with the resources they had.”
Aside from the food shortages, though, people thoroughly enjoyed Acrofest. Megan Case (senior, music education, AU Gymnics member) said that her favorite part of the week was “getting to see lots of people enjoying Acrofest, and getting to teach the small group that I did last year, and performing Tribute, our Bible story routine.” Lucca Oliveira (high school senior, Kingsway College) said, “It’s really fun, seeing all the performances of the people, and the workouts and other stuff is really cool.” Nora Bennie (fourth grade, Spring Valley Academy), when asked if she was excited to return home, replied, “I don’t want to leave Andrews. I want to stay doing gymnastics.” This year’s Acrofest will have a lasting impact on many people.
There was a lot of anticipation for the final program on campus, but I think Fiorella Oudri’s (freshman, speech pathology) attitude best encapsulated that spirit. “I’m flippin’ excited for it," she said. Saturday night proved that the hard work of twenty-nine gymnastics teams was definitely something to be “flippin’ excited” about.
The Student Movement is the official student newspaper of Andrews University. Opinions expressed in the Student Movement are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the editors, Andrews University or the Seventh-day Adventist church.