‘Bring It On Back’ Dance Event Aims To Reignite Talent Showcasing On St. Croix

ST. CROIX — With participation from various groups — 8 in total with roughly 82 individuals — the St. Croix Educational Complex High School auditorium came alive Saturday night for the first ever “Bring It On Back” dance showcase, which featured students fron local schools.

According to organizers, the goal is to reignite the days when talent showcasing events were a constant on St. Croix.

“Basically, back in the day we used to have a lot of talent shows in and out of schools. Sometimes Sunny Isle would host it, Island Center would host it, but eventually, as the years went by, it became obsolete. We have a lot of students who showcase their talent within their schools but unfortunately there’s no outlet to showcase it out of school. So the whole concept behind of this is to get all of the schools involved so that they can showcase their talent for their audience — the community — so that they could see what the students have been working on in school, and that it’s not just during the pageant season of the year they perform,” said event coordinator Essi Gaston Edwards, who’s also the executive director of the Miss Virgin Islands Education Foundation.

Mrs. Gatson Edwards said Bring It On Back organizers partnered with the St. Croix Educational Complex Band Program, which Mrs. Gaston Edwards is also a director of, to make the event a reality. Future efforts will see the incorporation of other talents, she said.

The event also served as a fundraiser for participating schools. Each group was given a certain amount of tickets to sell. They were also told to keep the funds collected through tickets sales. “That money goes towards each school’s music program to use it however they wish,” she said. “As a matter of fact, Sports, Parks and Recreation are traveling to St. Thomas in a week or two, and they’re using the funds that they raised from selling tickets for this show to help provide some kind of funding for the girls when they go to St. Thomas,” Mrs. Gatson Edwards added, referring to a cheerleaders group organized by the government department.

The dancers performed to a variety of music genres — soca, gospel, hip-hop and others — with a friendly audience cheering them on. The event, which started at 6:00 p.m., was over just after 8:00 p.m., and had a respectable turnout.