Hip-Hop Showcase
Various dance groups on campus came together this Friday evening to perform in the Hip Hop Showcase. The event, emceed by uppers Billy O’Handley and George Matheos, celebrated the hard work and skills of talented dancers.
The show started with a long piece performed by Imani, which showed the evolution of hip hop over several decades, beginning in the 1990’s and ending in the 2010’s. “I’m really proud of the idea that we had for the chronology of rap—it’s the best way to celebrate the genre and how far its come but how it has retained its similar elements over time,” Senior Kesi Wilson, Imani co-head, explained. Lower Lulu Ezekwanna, an Imani member, expressed a similar sentiment, saying, “It was nice to the see the audience enjoy many of the social dances that we included for Imani’s performance. We really wanted to show multiple eras of hip hop dance and I’m glad people recognized and enjoyed them.”
The routine lasted for eleven minutes, and Imani managed to put together the entire dance with only five rehearsals. “Everyone worked really hard to pull it together,” senior Hannah MacKay said. Imani dancer and lower Alayna D’Amico loved when audience members sang and clapped along to songs they recognized, which added to the interactive atmosphere of the showcase. “Not only did we have some really great choreography, but we [also] provided a nostalgic experience,” D’Amico said.
Other highlights included the two step groups, Precision and Outkast. O’Handley appreciated the Precision/Outkast rivalry. “It’s going to be fun to see how Outkast responds in their next performance,” he said. Wilson detailed the time and effort that the girls of Precision dedicated to getting the pieces down. “A lot of the girls have just worked incredibly hard to master the craft and have progressed so much,” she explained. “I love Precision and we truly do work hard, and our performance showed that.” Lower Lulu Ezekwenna felt that the piece went well, describing the girls’ stomps and claps as “crisp and clean.”
For Ezekwenna, Wilson and MacKay’s duet was one of the best performances of the evening. “Their routine demonstrated their abilities as amazing dancers,” D’Amico gushed. The other three girls only recently started collaborating together. As co-heads of Imani, Wilson and MacKay inspired Ezekwenna to find joy in hip hop. “They’ve helped me to love dance more and to grow more in dance,” Ezekwenna said.
For Wilson, the duet with MacKay served as a final testament to their shared love for dance and hip hop. “I think the showcase was a fun way to say, ‘Look how far we’ve come’, and ‘Look how much fun dancing is,’” she said. “I’m just so proud of the both of us for how far we’ve developed over the years.” As co-heads of numerous other dance groups on campus, such as Poms, MacKay and Wilson have spent the last three years performing and choreographing together. “We’ve just been good friends and incredibly collaborative as we’ve been growing as dancers together,” Wilson elaborated. “It’s great to find someone as passionate about dance as you.”
Another duet, Lee Squared, received much praise from the audience. Uppers Alexis Lee and Mary Le danced to Bruno Mars’ “Uptown Funk” and Future’s “Commas,” which Wilson thoroughly enjoyed. Describing the dance as a “celebration of rap and hip hop,” Wilson said, “Lee Squared is a group of amazing artists who have incredible talent.”
After Beat Of Asia’s elaborate routine, prep Ervin Williams shared an original rap with the crowd. Williams viewed his performance as a counter-narrative to the typical rap song.“When you look at the rap music of today, all you hear is mostly about killing this person and doing this and that drug,” he said. “I don’t feel the pain of the African-American community should be glorified in that way, which inspired me to write and perform the rap.” After losing a close friend to violence, Williams knew he had to create a piece to express his grief. “I felt it was the right thing to do,” he said.
MacKay also performed an impressive solo to the song “River” by Bishop Briggs. “It was a heels hip hop choreo dance, which is something we don’t teach here, but a style I’ve always taken at home that I really enjoy,” she said, explaining the inspiration behind the piece. MacKay appreciated the positive reaction from the observers. “The energy from everyone watching was really amazing because it always is nice to have feedback from the audience when you are performing,” she said.
As the showcase was, for many seniors, their final opportunity to dance at Exeter, Wilson reflected upon the experience with bittersweet feelings. “I just love performing with Hannah whenever I get the chance because we’re each other’s biggest cheerleaders, and she’s always encouraging me to dance harder and better,” she said. “We can be incredibly inventive when we collaborate and we just get to such greater heights when we work together to accomplish something.” For those looking to continue the legacy of Exeter dance, there will still be plenty of platforms to display their creativity and support other dancers. D’Amico’s reflection on the showcase sums up this growing trend of collective encouragement between dance groups well: “I think as of late, a lot of the hip hop dance teams on campus have become closer, so there was also a lot of inter-team hype that made every minute of performing even more worthwhile.”