Arts [ Persona ] Dancing our Hearts out for Love December 2006

by William Pryor, III
Photos by R. Byrne

In the midst of these troubled and troubling times, an Antioch dance group is richly mixing together the ingredients of love, discipline, and dance to create an artistic genre that speaks to the heart.

I’m an African-American high school student attending Antioch’s Deer Valley High School. I’ve lived in Antioch for more than two years, ever since my parents moved here from Oakland. There are a lot of stresses for any young man growing up these days as we are assaulted by temptations to turn towards the dark side. Life can be difficult and even dangerous. Kids around me are losing their way in the nighttime of drugs and sex.

Finding resources to help us resist the influence of a wrong crowd and to find the right friends really is a battle. I might have good friends who are doing wrong things. They are going to skip class, for example, and want me to skip with them. Or they are trying some pills and want me to try them too.

I live in an intense world that is so full of fear, anger, and lust that it’s difficult or impossible for people on the outside to say something to us that will make any difference in who we are or in what we do. You’ve got to do something more than just speak to our minds; you have to find some way to get the attention of our hearts before we will be able to hear what you’re saying.

Dancing for Life
Some of us have discovered a way of communicating among ourselves that is more effective than merely trying to talk our way into a higher level of living. We’re learning how to dance our way into life. We’ve formed ourselves into a dance troupe of almost two-dozen young African-American men, and we’re lifting ourselves up to the light.

The dancing provides us with a creative outlet that builds up our character, and develops us in our relationship with the Lord whom we are trying to serve. Our dancing becomes a form of praise as we lift our hearts to God.

We call this “mime dancing” because the various movements provide an interpretation of the words of whatever song we’re dancing to. The dance becomes a form of expression — an alternative way of embracing the Word of God. Our bodies become caught up in the communication event.

It’s difficult to find the right words to describe this. The message flows into our minds through the words, the music flows into our spirits through our ears, and then our movements bring the two things together. Words, music, and dance suddenly begin to create a beautiful place of healing and praise in which we can remain for a time and be renewed. It’s like recharging a battery. We find energy for life.

Our dancing would be useless if it weren’t accompanied by a life lived in a positive manner. After I’ve been dancing on the mountaintop, I have to come back down and simply walk the pathways of life in a healthy and positive manner. There would be no point in all this healing and praise, for example, if I then went out and smoked a joint or had an inappropriate relationship with some hot girl.

For the members of our mime dance troupe, therefore, dancing is the most visible component of a life of discipline and order. Membership in the group requires that we read the Bible and pray on a regular basis. Young black men have a rep in our culture that we are resisting. Each member of our group is required to maintain a GPA of at least 2.5. The disciplined life we are leading is effective because we set these standards for ourselves.

We check up on each other. Each of us has an accountability partner. If one of us would try to smoke a cigarette or hit on some cute girl, another member would remind him of how he ought to walk in the world by saying something like, “That’s not how we represent ourselves.”

For me to do drugs would be like defacing a temple. Membership in the W.E. M.I.M.E. Troupe helps me avoid this disaster. If I decided to smoke a joint with my friends perhaps one of the dancers would see me out there. How is that going to look? Especially when I’m supposed to be a leader?

Moving Up and Reaching Out
The dance troupe is a place where we can feel that we are loved. It provides a venue where we can practice leadership and learn how to influence each other to walk on the right path. Now I’m strong enough to tell the guys at school, “Don’t curse in front of me,” and they stop using bad language. Or I tell them not to play gangsta rap in front of me and they turn it off.

My experience with the W.E. M.I.M.E. dance troupe has helped me mature and has given me a sense of responsibility. Now I feel that I had better get my homework done, not just because my parents are looking over my shoulder but also because I need to get it done right for myself. I don’t want to let myself down.

We’re learning more than simply how to dance; we’re learning how to dance through life. We’re developing ourselves as human beings. We’re setting attitudes and establishing patterns of behavior that we’ll carry into college with us and then into our marriages.

Being in the dance group has been a dynamic experience for all of us because the more we learn about living life on this level, the greater becomes our desire to live it more fully. Our dance dynamic is a cycle moving in a positive direction.

Our dancing is much more than an inwardly focused activity that simply helps us to live happier and more productive lives. We don’t want to just dance through life by ourselves, we want other people to dance up to heaven with us. Dancing becomes more than a form of communication from God to us and back again. We intend that other people will watch us dancing and will receive the message that is being communicated through us.

Dance becomes a way in which other people can see and understand the life of the Spirit that we are living. My mom, Lisa, tells us, “If I was deaf I should be able to see the Spirit of God in your movement and body language.”

Our Story
My mom is the leader of our dance group. She has a gift for working with youth and doing praise dance. Mom first experienced dancing in church 20 years ago at Oakland’s Union Baptist Church. She studied praise dance through some workshops learning things like dance methods and dress. Mom danced before the Lord and before the rocking-out congregations at a couple of Oakland churches.

For all of us dancing became a form of healing and worship. We crank up the music and begin expressing through movement the miracle of the relationship we have with each other and with Christ Jesus. I know that when my grandfather was sick my mom would dance in praise to the Lord, and her spirit would soar. By dancing in worship services, mom was sharing with the church the joy and the healing that she was receiving herself.

We’ve got a great church in Antioch that encourages our dance ministry. Mom thinks we were brought to the church by a small miracle. When we moved here from Oakland she had been praying about finding a place to worship. One day I brought home a flyer about the church, our pastor appeared on my mom’s TV set, and mom’s phone book fell open to the page that had an ad for the church. This all happened in one day.

Our church is a wonderful place — especially since mom brought dance into the services. After the first time my mom had my brother and me dance on Sunday morning the pastor said, “We’ve got to encourage this!” We’ve been dancing at that church ever since.

We began the W.E. M.I.M.E. dance ministry a year ago this month. When we first danced there were only three of us including me, my brother Avery, and a friend. Now we have more than 20 regular dancers. Our ages range from eight to 17.

The Dance of Life
My life has fallen into positive channels. I like music and sports. I’m on the church CCCAL (Contra Costa Christian Athletic League) basketball team. I’m a social animal. I like to hang out with friends. I like to make people laugh before they leave my presence.

I have a strong bond with my fellow dancers and spend time with them, of course, but I also hang out with a bunch of diverse people including Asians, Filipinos, Mexicans, and Arabs. I find that life becomes more interesting when I associate with people from other cultures.

Those people expand my horizons; they teach me things. For one thing, I have learned that people from other ethnic backgrounds encounter the same struggles that I have to face. I’ve learned that we’re all the same inside. The color of our skin is different but who cares about that? After a while you wonder why anybody ever cared about that.

I should say something about my dad. He is a hard worker and one of the strongest men I know. My dad is someone whom I can talk with about my dance ministry. He’s been in a leadership role himself and knows what advice to give me about things I can do to improve my service to the mime dance team.

Our mime dancing has taken us into venues that we never would have gotten into otherwise. We’ve danced in protestant churches ranging from a Seventh Day Adventist church to a Church of God in Christ. We’ve danced for worship in Catholic Churches, and in October we danced at the Oakland Mormon Temple.

We can fight and argue about words but it seems that dance speaks in a language that people from all backgrounds can hear, understand, and agree with.

The Bible says someplace, “You will take up your tambourines and go out to dance with the joyful.”

Right! I’m going to keep dancing my heart out for the love of dancing and for the love of God. And I’m going to keep encouraging others to dance with me. I invite you to do so. °

To get more information send an email to lpryor@gbfofantioch.org, or visit www.gbfofantioch.org.