Members of a Christian dance group are teaching other teens to save sex for marriage through an usual format: hip-hop routines and plays.
Break Down — a strongly Christian performing group that promotes abstinence and Christian relationships — first began in 2001 in Tucson before expanding across the country and starting a group in Phoenix. The group in the Valley currently has ten members, two of whom are ASU students.
Broadcast journalism and mass communications freshman Phoenicia Falcon has been with the group for two years. She says when she saw them perform at her church, it was something she knew she wanted to do. "I saw it and knew it was me," she says. "I love to dance. I've been dancing since I was a kid, and this was cool. It was hip-hop."
Break Down uses music, dance and plays to spread their ideas. "We show couples interacting," Falcon says. "We show Christian relationships [and] unhealthy relationships and their consequences: things like sex, pregnancy and the emotional trauma that comes with it." The group also dances to hip-hop Christian music as a way to get the crowds energized before performances.
A typical performance usually includes characters being portrayed in questionable situations. Whether it's a bad relationship, a pregnancy or an STD scare, the group shows what it believes is the right and wrong way to act. "Some characters will be going through the effects of premarital promiscuity and sex. Like STDs and STD testing, flack from their friends about being whipped, pregnant girls and those who choose to abstain from physical intimacy before marriage," Falcon says.
Break Down performs at high schools, anti-abortion rallies and other public venues. Falcon says the reactions that the group is getting from the crowds have been great. "They seem excited," she says. "They really get into it and interact with what we are doing onstage."
Though Falcon is now a strong follower of her Christian faith, things weren't always that way. She admits it wasn't until 2005 that she started to change her lifestyle. "I used to seek guys as a means of receiving love, but only felt the negative effects of that," she says.
She says she had a turning point and realized she needed to change her beliefs and become Christian. "I wasn't completely pure before I found God, and I knew I needed it," she says. Today, Falcon says she's happy, especially now that she's found a group like Break Down she can relate to.
As the group grows, its main goal is to promote abstinence and healthy relationships Falcon says. "People can and should choose purity for the benefit of the people you are having relationships with now and in the future," she says
Break Down is currently looking for more members to add to their team. Falcon encourages people to come and check them out. "Join the revolution," she says. "We want you, if it looks like something you're into."
