Students Display Their Talents at Hip Hop Showcase

An assortment of modern dance performances, from catchy Beyoncé songs to breakdancing and student-written raps, filled the assembly hall with cheers and laughs during the annual Hip Hop Showcase last Saturday night. The event lasted for an hour and featured routines from five different dance clubs: Beat of Asia, ITXC, Imani, In Motion and the debuting Ojiya. Several non-club affiliated performances also took place.

Like years past, the purpose behind the event remained the same. According to upper Kevin Zhen, the organizer of the event, the goal was to simply publicize the various dance and music groups on campus that have been training hard throughout the year. It also serves as a chance every year to educate the community about the power and relevance of hip hop, even at a place like Exeter.

Indeed, the influence of hip hop was evident during the night. After finishing a second round of Saturday classes in a row, students were eager to relax and enjoy themselves for a night. According to lower Charis Edwards, this event provided the perfect opportunity since the various dance performances kept the crowd constantly excited and entertained.

“It was a really great atmosphere,” Edwards said. “Our group was really enthusiastic, and we’re a close group of people, so it’s always a joy to perform together. There was also a lot of support while we were onstage, which kept us even more upbeat.”

Edwards went on to explain that the event was more exciting to perform for than the typical dance assemblies because of the completely voluntary audience, which adds a more “genuine feel.”

Prep William O’Handley agreed with Edwards. Growing up in Brooklyn, rap and hip hop served as a big influence on O’Handley’s childhood. When the opportunity for him to rap at the showcase came up, he embraced it immediately, using it as an outlet to both follow a passion of his and perform in front of his peers.

However, O’Handley said that because it was his first time ever performing in front of such a large crowd, he was initially nervous and kept making mistakes with his lines. It was the “supportive and energetic” attitude of both the fellow performancers and the audience that gave him the courage to follow through enthusiastically with his performance.

“Even though the showcase was super stressful, everyone around supported me, and I had a ton of fun performing in front of everyone who came out to see the dancing and singing,” O’Handley said. “I was really impressed by how everyone else performed as well. Watching all the talented hip hop dance groups was just as exciting as being part of the night.”

While the event turned out well, several problems popped up during its development which provided tough challenges to overcome. According to Zhen, the first occurred a month beforehand when he was informed he would be organizing it. Receiving the news late, he and his fellow dance groups were left with a very limited amount of time to prepare for the show.

Unfortunately, due to this inconvenience, a few of the dance groups Zhen originally reached out to for the event were forced to turn the opportunity down. While this initially worried Zhen, he was impressed by the commitment of the groups that said yes. Not a single one fell short on its promises, with some clubs practicing up to five hours a week to prepare for the show.

Lower Sergio Escobar thought the dance groups did a great job balancing the work as most of the practices took place on Wednesdays and the weekends for short periods which added up to become quite a large time commitment.

However, unlike Escobar, lower Ore Marie described the few weeks leading up to the show as “hectic.” The showcase came up much faster than she expected, but ultimately, when the time came for the event, she believed all the work definitely paid off.

“I wasn’t expecting the crowd to have so much energy or to see such a big turn out because of all of the other events planned that night,” she said. “But the turn out was great, and the event was really exciting.”

After a successful night, many of the participants are eager to perform again next year as well as in the other dance events scheduled before then.

“As a whole, we did a great job. Everyone did well and the audience had fun,” Escobar said. “Since this was my first year dancing, I am really looking forward to what lies ahead next year. If they are anything like this event, waiting for them will be completely worth it.”