By Ziva DeMattia and Aedan Grover-Scher
Lip sync is a school-defining event at LREI. Every February, during spirit week, all four grades and the faculty battle it out to become lip-sync champions. The anticipation and preparation start months before, with songs being picked, dancing being created, and groups formed. Each grade prepares a five-minute-long performance with full choreography and enthusiasm. Finally, everyone watches and cheers for the final performance composed of each grade’s complex routine. The lip sync at LREI aims to unite grades through friendly competition.
During lip sync, the faculty members come together in the same way as each grade. Michelle Blackwell, a faculty who works in admissions, and an LREI lip sync enthusiast, says, “Some people don’t always participate in theme days or typically in activities of spirit week, but lip sync allows everyone in the grade to participate and do something fun together.” Lip sync is an essential bonding experience at LREI that brings different groups of people together within each grade. Lip sync tends to change up a bit every year, and according to Michelle Blackwell, “It’s getting more competitive, the earliest lip syncs I can recall were not so elaborate with multiple songs and dancing, but with the talent and enthusiasm in our school, it gets better and better each year.” The song choices of each lip sync usually switch up every year, but a few staple songs and artists are always incorporated into the performance.
Lip sync at LREI has been a vital part of LREI for many years. Michelle Blackwell recalls that lip sync, “Came out of student government and was an opportunity to have a grade-wide activity that everyone could participate in.” Lip sync has been a longstanding tradition at LREI and some of the faculty members today still have fond memories of the very first lip sync competitions that were held in the PAC.
Lip sync tends to include many current popular songs from today’s hit artists, but also can include some classic older songs. Bee, one of the 10th grade class reps says, “I feel like people like 2010’s nostalgic music whether that’s Taylor Swift, Nicki Minaj, or Katy Perry.” In the faculty lip sync last year, one of the most memorable performances was when Daniel, a science teacher and faculty leader of the Knightly News, and Shafieq, a math teacher, both dressed up as Ken from Barbie to sing “I’m Just Ken.” This performance included everything that a successful lip sync should have, a relevant song with a comedic twist.
Most of the planning for lip sync is up to the members of each grade, especially the grade reps and other student government members. Billie, the Senior Director of Programming, explained that the Executive Board does not do a ton to organize lip sync and the grade reps take the lead “We just have to reiterate that it can only be five minutes max, and we tell reps to organize their grade.”
The lip sync performance gets better and better every year as more people begin to participate and spread their enthusiasm. Billie explained, “As you get older more and more kids participate.” The fun of lip sync is that no matter what, you’re in it with your whole grade. According to Billie, “Even if you’re embarrassed, you’re embarrassed together.” This year many of the grades and the faculty are claiming that their performances will be better than years past, so we’ll all be watching for who is crowned the 2025 lip sync champion.