Worship Without Words

Bringing Healing Through Praise

By J. Isaac Noel Benjamin II

Bringing a dance troupe to your driveway to brighten your day is a unique way to show praise. Worship Without Words (WWW) is the praise dance component of the African Masquerade Dancers (AMD). The AMD members belong to many different churches in Lansing. “We started in 1995 and have a complete cultural dance season,” said Director Heather Taylor. “We are 15 members strong with dancers from age three to seasoned. We completely rely on community donations to exist.”

Worship Without Words is a Community-Based Liturgical Praise Dance Group, created with a vision to cultivate talent of young woman of all ages, faiths and creeds. Their objective is to develop spiritual ministries of dance, that speaks to the community. WWW is a faith-based vehicle used to inspire, unite and mentor the expression of healing and hope through the words of Song. The overall goal of this ministry is to transform physical expression of dance into a spiritual experience.

The Worship Without Word dancers are currently touring the Lansing area to brighten the spirits of people recovering or suffering from COVID 19. “This is our way of giving back,” she said. “People have been devasted. Today, we have been to three houses; Bishop Aaron and First Lady Evangelist Virgie Milton, Mother Cora Duncan, age 84 and Mother Martha and Mr. Joe Miles.”

The dance troupe typically does three visits a day; Their visits consists of nursing home residents, seniors, and people in need of comfort and healing. Miles’s husband Joe had just come home from dialysis, when he was paid a visit from the WWW dancers.

Mother Heather Taylor noted since this is a privately funded effort, donations are appreciated. If you are interested in scheduling the dancers for various occasions, Taylor can be reached by phone at (517) 410-0083 or by email at htwww@gmail.com.