02/28/2023
Dear Friends, after 15 beautiful seasons, EPIK Dance Company has come to a close.
We would like to thank our audiences, friends, students, board members, presenters, and funders (especially Mesa Arts Center) who have supported EPIK’s work since 2007. Most importantly we would like to acknowledge our remarkable artists, to whom we will forever be indebted. Over the last 15 years, EPIK has been made up of the most creative, talented, and generous artists. They are the essence of who EPIK is, was, and will always be remembered as. If you have been impacted in any way by EPIK’s performances, classes, community events, online presence, or as a company member, we would love to hear from you! Drop a memory or moment in the comments below! We will continue to use our social media platforms as an archive to share our past work, so be sure to keep your eyes out for some never-before-seen content in the future.
EPIK Dance Company (501c3 non-profit) was founded in 2007 by Sarah “Saza” Kent and Luis “Weezy” Egurrola, bringing together their passion for multiple genres of dance, music and performance art. EPIK is a group of artists who combine street and concert dance styles with elements of hip hop theatre, spoken word, media, and song to tell stories & spread a message. The company creates in a very collaborative way, with each other as well as many guest artists, to craft work that is not only exciting and eye-catching but also powerfully meaningful and expressive. The goal is to convey an emotion, story, concept, or theory using movement, song, and text that best depicts the idea without regard to the boundaries and rules typically associated with any given style or form. The company frequently addresses pertinent social topics, using their art to promote positive social change, tolerance, and acceptance. “We tell stories, and through these stories, we hope to shed light on the many facets and contradictions of the human condition.”
Within our first year of existence, EPIK was winning battles and performing for large audiences, including MTV’s America’s Best Dance Crew Tour. Soon after, we decided to turn our focus to creating evening-length theatre works. In our first 11 years, the company presented 8 original stage shows. All of them were met by sold out crowds and critical acclaim. EPIK received grant awards from The Arizona Commission on the Arts, Tempe Center for the Arts and Act One Foundation, among others. EPIK was awarded the Phoenix Mayor’s Arts Award in 2013 and was nominated for the Governor’s Arts Awards for Arts in Education for an Organization three times.
As we continued to focus on dance for the stage, EPIK became a key player in the community, offering performances and residencies for countless schools, community, and charitable organizations. In 2011, we formed a partnership with The Be Kind People Project, a youth development organization, and created the Be Kind Crew, a dance crew that tours the country teaching youth about kindness. As the Be Kind Crew, EPIK toured the nation, performing in schools from Los Angeles to NYC and everything in between. EPIK managed the Be Kind Crew for 5 years, eventually opening auditions to more dancers, building the crew to 50 members. In 2013, EPIK premiered their anti-bullying show, Every Move Matters, at Tempe Center for the Arts to over 1000 middle school students. The show was paired with pre/ post-workshops with the students to provide them with an outlet to express themselves and tools to deal with the bullying at their schools. EPIK was an educational partner at Mesa Arts Center, calling it our home for 6 years, where we held weekly classes for students of all ages and abilities.
2020 and the events that followed completely changed the way the arts were being created, consumed, and funded since the opportunity for live performances, classes, and workshops were eliminated for a time. Many organizations had to make the difficult decision to shut down permanently due to lack of funding and support. Through those challenging times, EPIK was committed to continuing to create, moving our projects, and “performances” to the digital realm and producing thought-provoking, emotional, and highly technical content online for our fans, family, and friends worldwide, including our highly acclaimed video, “We Be,” in collaboration with spoken word artist, Lady Caress.
But in 2022, we realized that it was time to shut our doors permanently; a decision we did not take lightly. We are forever grateful to everyone who has been a part of our journey over the last 15 years. We hope that our work will continue to be an inspiration. We believe that now, more than ever, the creation of art is ESSENTIAL, and we hope that our work has inspired others to take the torch even further. The arts help us expand our understanding, bring us together in healing, and help us express our pain and our joy. It is up to us, as artists of all kinds, to embrace the change going on around us and lead the way for others to a better tomorrow.
"Those of us who have art in our souls and have used art as a therapeutic healing tool throughout our lives understand its value at the deepest level." - Creative Arts and Consciousness - arts in Healing
