Campus dance team eXposure are keeping themselves on their feet. Photo contributed by eXposure (pre-COVID).
Raising awareness and showing diversity through dance is what eXposure strives to do, although they pride themself most being a group where everyone is welcome.
University of Rhode Island’s eXposure is a co-ed multicultural dance organization that works to spread knowledge and raise awareness about culture while also showing diversity through dance. The tight-knit group of 55 that encompasses eXposure, according to club president Kevin Chenard, uses “youthism dance” to achieve their goals.
“We always prioritize ourselves as being a family and doing everything together,” Chenard said.
The organization started at URI in 2009, according to Chenard. The primary dances they practice are hip hop, African, Latin and different partner dances. However, the group will try to perform dances that relate to the theme of whatever show they are performing in. Chenard said that skill level is not an issue for members as long as they bring the energy and show confidence when they are on the dance floor.
“We want everyone to feel like they are Beyoncé up on the stage,” said Chenard. “We want everyone to feel like they are in the moment, owning themselves and being confident in who they are.”
Unfortunately, the pandemic has put a damper on all of eXposure’s plans. Typically the fall semester is their biggest recruiting time as they have First Night along with their biggest performance, Rhody Rally. These two events were a huge missed opportunity to recruit new members for the next year that Chenard said has put the organization in a very hard place as to how to go forth with the organization’s programs.
“It is really frustrating trying to navigate through everything because for the first month or even leading up to when school was starting, we still didn’t know really what was going on, we didn’t know if we were going to be able to meet in person,” said Chenard.
Usually, the organization meets in person twice a week on Mondays and Wednesdays for a three-hour practice which altogether can take up six to 10 hours of any given week. The team also travels predominately to New York, Connecticut and around the state of Rhode Island to perform. A rotation schedule was an idea that the executive board had, though they decided to opt-out of that option.
“It is really just for the best interest in everyone’s safety that we don’t meet in person especially because a lot of our member’s majority of our members are from instate so a lot of people aren’t living on campus now either,” said Chenard.
eXposure also hosts one of their dance competitions, Hit the Floor, every February. They invite different teams from around the New England area and give out trophies, cash prizes and first, second and third rankings. They don’t compete in this competition due to the fact they use it as a fundraising event.
Chenard is trying to do what he can with the resources he has available to him. Instead of meeting in person, the group has had a virtual dance class where anyone and everyone is welcome and encouraged to come. The class was set up for people to learn a new cultural dance and try to allow people along with the members the opportunity to see everyone and have some sense of normalcy. Chenard also wanted to make sure everyone was able to shake potential rust off and have fun.
The organization has another one of these virtual dances classes coming up next week.
“The best part and something I miss about eXposure is that you can’t recreate the energy that we have in our practice space,” said Chenard. “It’s such a welcoming environment, and everyone is in their supporting each other and hyping each other up, and it is just like a free inclusive environment, and you just really can’t emulate that in a virtual space, so that is something that we all miss very much.”