Hip-hop and dancing; Miami University's True Worship Dance Ministry is striving to unify the two in a wholesome and spiritual way.
The religious club and its president, senior Maurica Peoples, are beginning to incorporate gospel rap dances into performances.
According to Peoples, the club was founded in 2005 and, prior to this year, the club's method of doing so was purely through traditional praise dance, a more conservative dancing style performed to praise and worship music.
Senior Des'Za'Rae King explained the club's classic method.
"Most of our dances in the past have been more flow-y and worship dance," King said.
Peoples added that this traditional style is slower and more lyrical.
"The songs that we dance to and the movements are really graceful," Peoples said.
While this is the traditional style of praise dance, it is not one that will necessarily appeal to a wide range of college students, according to a study conducted in 2011. This study, conducted by iStrategy Labs, a creative agency that often works with social media, tabulated the number of Facebook "likes" music genres received by college students. Data indicated that the hip-hop genre garnered nearly 315,000 "likes," the most of any genre. Gospel, Christian or praise music was not in the top six.
This data means that if True Worship wants to reach out and spread God's message, they would need to tailor their performances to different audiences. This is something that Peoples and other True Worship members said they are beginning to realize.
"We try to switch it up to different crowds because we are in college so there are a lot of young people," first-year Lakia Kidd said.
Peoples said implementing a unique style was their intention.
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"You never really hear about a Christian rap dance," Peoples said. "That was the whole goal, to bring something new and fresh."
After much consideration of nhether or not to include it, Peoples said she decided to have True Worship perform a hip-hop dance to Kirk Franklin and Mali Music's "Give Me."
"I was actually going to not do it but then the Holy Spirit was just like 'Don't worry about what people think,'" Peoples sad. "People were excited. They loved it."
According to Peoples and the other group members, True Worship's aim is to interpret God's word, through dance, to Miami students and everyone who attends the ministry events. Kidd reminded, True Worship is not only for ministering to the audience.
"When we perform, it is for other people, to minister to other people, but also it's for ministering to ourselves and to let stuff out," Kidd said.
Peoples agreed, saying this sentiment is consistent throughout the club.
"Most of the girls always say that when they dance is when they feel closest to God, it helps them to feel closer to God and they really do worship through dancing," Peoples said.
As president, Peoples said she is adamant about directing focus towards the worship aspect of the dance ministry. At a meeting, she talked about where she gets the motivation to lead the group, frequently saying "God willing" and "By God's grace." She also led prayer at the end of the meeting and assigned a Bible verse each week that the group would discuss at the next meeting.
"The most important aspect would be knowing why you dance," King said. "Praise dance is more like you are dancing for God and dancing to minister to someone through dance."
According to Peoples, True Worship's hardest task, and one of the motivations for beginning to do Christian-rap dances, is to make itself known around campus.
"It kind of seems like we were in the background of other organizations or churches or things like that but I really want to change it to where we do stand out as our own," Peoples said.
According to Peoples, True Worship performs at various churches, whenever they are invited, but the club does not perform anywhere on a regular basis. Recently, the group performed at Miami's NAACP Banquet in December, Fruit of Zion Church in Cincinnati and the Women of Worship and Men of Honor Conference March 23 at Miami. True Worship is not one of the most well-known religious groups on campus, but Peoples said she is hoping that she and the other members will be able to change that.
"It kind of seemed like we were in the background of other organizations or churches or things like that but I really want to change it to where we do stand out as our own," Peoples said.
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