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ONALASKA, Wis. -- Matt Roberts is not your typical show choir member.
The 17-year-old Onalaska High School senior is a hip hop artist who happens to love show choir and is a member of the Onalaska Hilltoppers.
Roberts took hip hop lessons at Misty’s Dance Unlimited in Onalaska during his sophomore year and then soon started teaching the street style of hip hop dancing. After high school graduation in May, he plans to join the Extended Dance Company, a Christian hip hop group in Houston, Texas.’
“I was naturally good at hip hop and always liked it,” Roberts said. “Hip hop is part of the Onalaska show choir style, so I’m in the right show choir.”
Roberts and the Hilltoppers premiered their 2008 show in exhibition Friday and Saturday at the Onalaska Classic.
“This is one of the best Hilltopper shows, and the favorite show I’ve danced,” Roberts said.
Roberts moved to Onalaska from Texas in fifth grade and has participated in show choir since sixth grade.
“My friends were doing it, and I always have loved to sing and dance,” Roberts said. “Every year I said I wouldn’t stay in show choir, but I’m glad I stuck to it.
“I like singing and dancing at the same time, and performing,” he said. “It’s awesome to be so honest on stage. Show choir is all about the moment. That performance will never happen again.”
He said performance, like hip hop, is not about perfection, but originality. In show choir, he said he pulls back because he doesn’t want to stick out. “I have to give myself up for the group, and that’s the way it should be,” he said.
In hip hop, there are so many talented dancers, so the focus has to be an originality, Roberts said. “There’s a freedom of expression and honesty as well as a form and technique to it,” he said.
He said hip hop has many sub-categories, adding that hip hop on TV is commercialized pop, not real hip hop. He helps his fellow show choir members with hip hop technique.
Roberts has worked with hip hop artist and teacher Kato Celeste when he came to Misty’s Dance Unlimited the past two summers. Roberts won a major hip hop competition, Drop the Beat, at the Embassy Club in Houston as well as underground contests.
He wants to perform, choreograph and teach hip hop, but he said his career goal is to provide ministry through dance like Dance Revolution, a Christian-based dance experience.
“Dance without meaning is just movement,” Roberts said. “I want to combine my faith with dancing. If I became a plumber, I’d be a very religious plumber.”
He now is studying ballet and tap because he said he wants to broaden his dance experience.
“I’m trying to be one of the best,” he said.
Terry Rindfleisch can be reached at trindfleisch@lacrossetribune.com, or (608) 791-8227
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