“I think what's being built here is something very special for the community,” says producer and choreographer Daniel Bloxton of the annual show Say That Again. “And more people are just getting their eyes on it and I think as it goes on, it will just get bigger and bigger. I think it's a wonderful feeling.”
This is the third iteration of Say That Again, a dance/hip hop/spoken word show that has been produced by Early Era Collective for the past few years. Early Era artistic director Stephanie Patrick says that unity has always been a defining goal for the show. “We wanted to start with unifying the dance community,” she says. “Early Era is a multi-form company, so since the beginning, we've had dancers from all different styles. But their training is, you know, in different places in the city – they're often not overlapping, doing completely different jobs if they are getting paid work. So that was the first impetus for the show. And then we also brought in live hip hop music and spoken word, to flesh out the Black experience a little bit more.”
“We focus on bringing two different styles in the dance community together,” Bloxton explains. “We're bringing street style movement and we're bringing contemporary movement. And we get two choreographers to come together and build a piece around a cast of dancers, and then we kind of use that to celebrate Black History Month and showcase to the community. And it's a great way for the two styles – who seem to be very separate within the community – to come together at a time… when unity is really needed.”
As the show has evolved, more people have joined the creative team and this year’s version includes nearly three dozen dancers and choreographers. “I would say that it seems like more people, as we do the show every year, want to be more involved,” Bloxton says. “I had a lot of people [ask] me last year what they could do to be a part of it. They were looking forward to any auditions, asking how do I get involved with the choreography process?”
Bloxton and Patrick both say they hope that feeling of unity and community will extend not just to the cast and crew but to the audience as well. “It will hopefully allow people to walk away and just remember the contributions of this incredible community in our nation, and our local community as well,” Patrick says, “and then we always end the show with an all styles freestyle where our entire cast comes on stage and then we invite eight or so people from the audience to come on stage as well and freestyle with us. And I think that that breaks the fourth wall, that brings the audience together with the performers. And then we all kind of end up just like talking and just breaking down those formality barriers that you find in a lot of arts performances. So, my hope is to bring people together and also just teach a little bit about how great the contributions of the Black community are to the arts world.”
Bloxton adds, “I want to make sure that anyone who's watching it can leave feeling full and inspired to keep adding to what we've already been building.”
'Say That Again' runs February 19 - 28 at the Dougherty Arts Center
