Focusing on more than the rhythmic pounding of feet on the stage floor, BeyOnDa Beat will feature current and former students in Fade to Black’s spring semester show.
Fade to Black, an on-campus hip-hop dance crew, was founded in 1991 by a group of women searching for a more diverse dance experience. Today its 60-plus members still have a primary focus on hip-hop, but they also include jazz, tap, lyrical, tango and contemporary dances at their performances.
BeyOnDa Beat, the spring semester show, emphasizes the love and passion hidden behind the steps and the beat of the music, said Brittany Willet, Fade to Black president and senior sports management major.
“All of our dances mean something more to us than just beats,” Willet said. “We hope you see beyond just the beat and that you can see how much work we put into this organization.”
BeyOnDa Beat will feature an alumni dance for the first time that will include Aggies from classes as far back as 2002. Willet said this was a way to honor the strong relationship current members have with graduates.
“The love of dance never really goes away after you graduate and a lot of the alumni do still dance,” Willet said.
A large number of the past members now live in Dallas and Houston, Willet said, and are attending practices to learn a routine choreographed by a past president.
“We are incorporating all the elements of old and new and quite a few of the alumni are coming back for this,” Willet said.
Evan Bretos, sophomore telecommunication media studies major, has been a member for two years and is one of the choreographers for the show.
“This will be the best show Fade to Black has had yet and will have for a couple years because the seniors this year are like legacies,” Bretos said. “And since they are leaving they are pulling out their best stuff.”
Mary Devillez, freshman business administration major, became a member last fall and said the members have been devoting the entire week to rehearsals, including an impromptu step-up style practice in the Student Recreation Center parking lot after the center closed at midnight.
“At 11:55 someone said, ‘Why don’t we just carry it outside?’ And everyone kind of jumped on the idea so we packed up our things and moved outside and started performing,” Devillez said.
BeyOnDa Beat will be at 3 p.m. Sunday in Rudder Auditorium. Admission is $10.