“Several years ago, we created the Hip-Hop Theater Explosion because we wanted to bring the beauty of the culture of hip-hop, but remove the misogyny [and] the violence and take it out of a club and put it into a theater,” says interdisciplinary theater artist Zell Miller III. “It's a big variety show where anything can happen. You can see a monologue, you can see tap dancing, you can see B-boying, you can have DJs, rappers, poets, singers… [it’s] just about just the beauty of the culture and people expressing themselves through the culture.”
For this year’s version of Hip-Hop Theater Explosion, Miller is partnering with Ballet East. “Ballet East Dance Company — which is a Latinx dance company — they reached out to ZM3 Live Productions and said, ‘you know what, why can't we do something that shows unity?’” Miller says. “So in the spirit of unity, they're producing the show and [we’re] showing the communities coming together, because we're doing this on the eve and cusp of the biggest election of our lifetime. And possibly we won't be able to have things like this if things go a certain way.”
Miller says the main message of the show is simply to display a positive image of unity and artistic expression, but there will likely be some more overt political messaging as well. “Well, I'm hosting the show,” he says with a laugh. “And when I host an event, I generally am moved by what's in the headlines that day. So I'm pretty sure that it will be political. But also… the cast is crazy and we have DJ Notion – he's an Austin legend. He's going to be on the ones and twos. And I'll host, bring people up. It's like a big variety show. The cool thing is at the end of act two, we bring all the performers back on stage. DJ Notion throws on beats and we basically do like a freestyle session, keeping in mind that we're not using any language that's derogatory towards women, gender, or race. We may bring up folks from the audience, you know, but the dancers will start dancing and the people will be passing the microphone. And that… for me goes back to Native American culture. It also goes back to African culture… when you are looking at somebody across a circle, we're all on equal planes. There's no hierarchy. So that's the way we want to end the evening.”
Ballet East artistic director JP Flores says the co-production is a natural fit. “Ballet East Dance Company’s mission and vision is to bring the arts to the community and the community to the arts,” he says. “So we want to make sure that we come together as a group because we are stronger if we are together. And so we want to make sure that people see the beauty of the arts [and] that they are important for us to have. We complement each other and we believe in [Miller’s] vision as well. So just partnering with him, it's been a great collaboration, great artistry.”
“That idea of unity, that… we don't need to wait for what happens in Washington to move ourselves in a direction that we need to move into,” Miller says. “That as a people, as JP said, together we are stronger. And we don't have to wait for our government. We can be good to each other. We don't have to wait. So that's what I hope comes out of it.”
'The Hip-Hop Theater Explosion' has two shows left, November 1 and 2 at Hyde Park Theatre.
