Black history month continues with gospel, dance celebration

On Thursday night as part of MSU’s Black History month activities, the Multicultural Services held a “Gospel Music and Dance Extravaganza” in Clark Student Center’s the Comanche Suite.

Spectators were treated to first the history of gospel music via power point presentation by Shontesa Jones, coordinator of the multicultural services department.

The PowerPoint presentation explained where gospel music began and how it has evolved over years.

Students also had the pleasure of listening to the various sounds of gospel music from artistes like Paul Robinson and Andrew Dorsey, the father of black gospel.

As the PowerPoint presentation went on, the importance of praise dance was relayed.  Praise dance became significant to the Negro culture “to articulate the word and spirit of God through the body” Jones said.

It was used as a form of expression to communicate emotional feelings through body movements alone.

Once the PowerPoint presentation concluded the audience was treated to soothing and uplifting instrumental gospel music, played by Greg and Dustin of Ice Band.

The two young men played “Total Praise,” “Thank you Lord,” and several other gospel melodies.

Soon after the group concluded, Jones introduced the final act for the evening, Caribbean Student Organization Dynamic Dancers.

The group elegantly danced to gospel music and the audience was more than thrilled with the group’s performance.

Juilian Oke, senior in nursing, was pleased overall with the event.

“I am excited to be here,” said Oke. “I did not know gospel music had a derivative. I did not know it came from something.  It came from the old Negro spiritual and the men took it and turned it into gospel music.  Overall I am very pleased with the event. It was nice. I wish it were longer.  Next year it could be longer, maybe some live singers can be added and the music and praise dancers could be longer.”

Shontesa Jones, coordinator for multicultural services, said she was pleased that students learned a lot from the event.

It was important to her that students are informed on how important gospel music and dance is to black history.

“A lot of people did not know they sang songs to pass time away or that some songs were used for fertility purposes to attract the opposite sex,” said Jones. “I wanted them to appreciate the gospel and where it came from. I wanted them to actually enjoy seeing something that came from the plantation and grow to where it is today.  And that there are different forms of it, it is not just limited to just singing.  It has definitely grown and the dance expression shows how it has grown to different forms.”

Jones said she was pleased at the turned out and plans on going bigger next year.

“I thought the turnout was good compared to other events that I have had an opportunity to attend,” said Jones. “I thoroughly enjoyed seeing that many people excited. I hope next year more people come out and more people partner with me to get the word out about gospel music. Next year I want to get more choirs, I want it to be bigger, and at a different location.  That way more people can come from the community, and won’t feel like it is only a student event.”