Ten choreographers. Ten vocalists. Seventy dancers. Two shows only.
These are the elements that make up The Remix, an innovative new hip hop-meets-musical theatre dance showcase taking place at Prairie Theatre Exchange’s Cherry Karpyshin Theatre at the end of the month, presented by Rise Musical Theatre Company.
Since 2021, Rise has been PTE’s education company-in-residence, offering free, two-week musical theatre intensives for BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, people of colour) youth annually at PTE’s downtown campus. The company has expanded that mandate to include anyone struggling to access opportunities in musical theatre.
Ruth Bonneville / Free Press
From left: Choreographer Sharlyne Chua leads dancers Ephifany Tiongco and Gwyneth De Guzman through their steps during rehearsal for The Remix, a hip hop dance show featuring 70 dancers and multiple choreographers.
A couple of years ago, Rise added hip hop dance classes to its suite of intensive offerings. And according to Joseph Sevillo, Rise’s founder and company director, those classes quickly became the most popular.
Hip hop, he realized, could be an on-ramp to further exploration in the world of musical theatre. Maybe people would want to learn to sing, to dance, to direct. And there’s not such a wide gulf between those two spheres, thanks in large part to Lin-Manuel Miranda’s 2015 groundbreaking, genre-blending musical Hamilton.
Part of Sevillo’s vision for Rise is to create live performance opportunities for choreographers and dancers that put them in front of a wider audience beyond the dance competition circuit.
That’s how The Remix was born, co-created by Sevillo and Rise artistic associate Dutchess Cayetano.
It’s a new idea, and a starting point, he says.
“If it flies, if it sells out, if producers or other leaders witness the show and they say there’s potential here for this to be annual, then we start creating our own industry in Winnipeg,” says Sevillo, who was also the brains behind the all-Filipino musical Ma-Buhay!, which had its première at Rainbow Stage last year.
“We need opportunities such as this, for artists to keep on going, to keep training, to be inspired, otherwise they’ll end up quitting and going into another profession.”
The Remix is something new for PTE, too. When Sevillo met with PTE’s new artistic director, Ann Hodges, “we both got excited about the idea of creating a show to feature the excellence of a community that’s not necessarily featured on this platform.”
Each choreographer has been paired with a vocalist and a crew of seven dancers to create a work. The music is a true mixtape, featuring everything from hip hop to pop to musical numbers from Broadway stalwarts such as Chicago and, yes, Hamilton.
“I wanted them to just pick any song that resonates with them, that tells a new audience who they are as artists and as choreographers,” Sevillo says.
Lee Banaga is a hip hop instructor for Rise and one of the 10 choreographers who have been working on a piece for The Remix. His is focused on burnout and creative perfectionism, set to John Legend’s Ordinary People.
Ruth Bonneville / Free Press ENT – PTE / The Remix
Playwright/choreographer Joseph Sevillo is founder and company director of Rise.
“I wanted to really portray that, because I feel like burning out and being overworked is such a thing nowadays — especially in this economy, it’s crazy,” he says.
As a choreographer, Banaga is thrilled to have the chance to put his work on stage.
“My full respect to PTE and everyone that’s behind the scenes, because this (opportunity) is something that’s not given to us every day,” Banaga says.
When Sevillo founded Rise four years ago, it was during a time when arts organizations all over North America were reflecting on whose talents, stories, perspectives were missing in studios and on stages, following the 2020 murder of George Floyd, an unarmed Black man, by a police officer in Minneapolis.
Sevillo wanted to create opportunities for underrepresented communities, but he also wanted to carve out those spaces in institutions. Rise is continuing that work through its ongoing education residency and shows such as The Remix, and he’s noticed a shift.
“I think over the four years, I’ve noticed the change in the safety of these kinds of theatre spaces, where they start getting recognized by underserved communities as a hub where they can go and train and be seen,” Sevillo says.
jen.zoratti@freepress.mb.ca
Jen Zoratti
Columnist
Jen Zoratti is a columnist and feature writer working in the Arts & Life department, as well as the author of the weekly newsletter NEXT. A National Newspaper Award finalist for arts and entertainment writing, Jen is a graduate of the Creative Communications program at RRC Polytech and was a music writer before joining the Free Press in 2013. Read more about Jen.
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