For many people in the Harding community, Spring Sing is in their blood. Blake Hunter, the head choreographer for this year’s show, is no exception. After growing up watching the show every year, and five years of involvement as a student, Hunter is now filling a new role on the other side of the Spring Sing team.
“My freshman and sophomore year I was involved in club stuff, so I did large part freshman year, then I directed (TNT and Zeta Rho) my sophomore year,” Hunter said. “I also did ensemble from freshman year to senior year and was a host last year. This year I’ve just been doing all the choreography for the hosts and hostesses and ensemble, so it’s a little different, but it’s been good being on that side of it and sort of just being able to put everything together.”
Hunter’s focus this year has been on choreographing the six major dance numbers for the show as well as ensemble pieces alongside Dottie Frye, who has long been a part of the Spring Sing development team. After being on stage for so many years, Hunter said the transition was not difficult until recently.
“(The transition) has been alright until right now where we’re getting to the point that it’s almost show time and I’m used to being on the stage,” Hunter said. “So I’m sort of jealous of all of them, but it’s also cool because I get to watch everything I’ve created play out on stage.”
As far as the progress of the show itself is going, Hunter said that these last few weeks are always difficult because he wants to keep the material new and fresh, but that he feels like they have done a good job of mixing things up for this year’s show.
“The beginning usually goes pretty well because we’re on a roll and we’re ready to go, but towards the end it gets hard because you’re still having to come up with new stuff and you want everything to look different,” Hunter said. “It becomes a little more tedious but we’ve done a lot of different stuff this year which I’m excited about.”
Even though he won’t be on stage for the first time in five years, Hunter said he is excited to sit back and watch his work play out with the rest of the audience, because at the end of the day, Spring Sing, like Harding itself, is all about community.
“Even if people aren’t necessarily big Spring Sing fans, for the most part, everyone still does it because they know that when you’re involved with it you get to meet a lot of people you never would have met otherwise,” Hunter said. “It’s really about camaraderie and everyone coming together.”
