“God speaks to me very visually in images as well as with movement,” said the curly-haired Palfenier, a sophomore at Belhaven University in Jackson, Miss., who is majoring in dance. “Hopefully God uses that to change lives and influence people and reveal his glory through our art.”

Dance student Matthew Palfenier has devoted much of his life to mastering the cabriole, pirouette and other dance moves.

So it might surprise some to learn the Grand Rapids resident takes a step back from letting the applause he receives from an appreciative audience go to his head.

“If people aren’t being transformed, it’s just dance. There’s nothing special about it,” said the lithe 23-year-old who’s been a student of the Christian dance academy Hearts In Step of Grand Rapids the past three years.

“Hopefully, God uses dance to change lives and influence people and reveal his glory throughout our art.”

Glendening and Beth Huegli take notes at the dress rehearsal of the Hearts in Step “dansical” called “Revival at the Hive.”

Beth Huegli and Leslie Glendening founded HIS nine years ago when a summer Bible program they started in their East Grand Rapids neighborhood left the girls who attended wanting more.

Since then, HIS has leapt to an average yearly enrollment of around 350 students and added two satellite campuses that rely on a cadre of 11 dance instructors who entwine the intricacies of ballet, tap, jazz, hip-hop, lyrical and contemporary dance with a higher purpose.

This is accomplished to a degree by stage managing dancers’ egos.

“We want them to realize who they are dancing for,” Glendening said. “We want them to understand it’s not about me; it’s about him (God).”

Dance curriculum
All students learn ballet because it’s the foundation for other dance styles, Huegli said.
Classes, which are divided by age and skill level, include group prayer, devotion time and a Bible curriculum that’s culminated with a ballet story performed in the spring, which Huegli and Glendening call “dansicals.”

Its most recent “Revival at the Hive” at Grand Rapids Christian High School featured 120 young dancers who pranced as honeybees, lions, giraffes, skunks, bluebirds and zebras to convey the sweetness of God’s word.

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