Chelsea Wewege moved from South Africa to London when she was sixteen. She has been dancing since she was three years old and now does it professionally. Through dance, she encounters God in a very special way.
Chelsea grew up in a Christian family in South Africa. When she was sixteen, she moved to London on her own to go to a ballet school and pursue a career in professional dance. She has been dancing professionally since then, in all kinds of projects. She also likes to create her own choreographies. “I love that, just exploring choreography and creativity to all the worship songs that are inspiring me at the moment.”
Although ballet is Chelsea’s favorite form of dance, she has done lots of different kinds of dance, from tap dance to contemporary dance to Latin ballroom dancing. “Once you get sucked into dancing you just kind of explore it all, and I love it all.”
“I was very blessed that I grew up in a Christian, church-going family,” Chelsea tells. “I don’t really remember faith not being a part of my life.” One period of her life when her faith and relationship with Jesus grew, was when she moved to London on her own. “All my family was still in South Africa, and I moved here solely to train.”
Finding Jesus in solitude
Chelsea experienced that period as if she was being thrown in the deep end. She had to discover what her faith meant to her. “I found myself really on my own because of my faith in dancing school. But then also, on the same time, with my long school hours, I couldn’t make it to a lot of the church events. So it was really establishing what my faith was for myself. That was when Jesus became alive for me.”
“If it wasn’t for my faith, I would have given up a long time ago.”
She discovered who Jesus was to her. “It was in those places of solitude where I encountered Him, and somehow was able to find the strength to push through the hard times. When we’d have assessments, or exams, or I got homesick, He was always there. I think if it wasn’t for my faith, I would have given up a long time ago.”
She experienced this even more during the lockdown, when she wasn’t able to go to church or meet with other Christians. “I found my faith grow the most, because I had to establish it for myself.” She expresses her gratefulness for the internet. During the lockdown, Chelsea watched a lot of sermons, listened to music, and read writing from other Christians. “That’s where I was able to explore my creativity a lot, with my faith.”
Using the gifts God has given you
A special way in which Chelsea encounters God, is through dance. That was not always the case, though. “I’d always pictured dance worship to be a bit of a cringe kind of thing, if I’m honest. I was always like: ‘I’m a professional dancer, but I’m a Christian.’ And then I think something just happened when I started realizing what worship is, and the space that we step into when we’re praising God.”
“There’s something that happens within me when I worship.” Chelsea compares it with football fans cheering and celebrating in the stadium when their team is winning. “They’re on their feet, they’re cheering, they’ve got their hands up. It’s like this inner bubbling that you just can’t contain and be still.”
“For me, I just realized that my dancing abilities was given to me as a gift from God. And I can’t not use it to praise Him. Whenever I’m in a space of worship, something gets unlocked in me, and I can’t stay still. I have to express it. And there’s just such a joy and a freedom that comes when I have the space and the ability to express my love for Jesus and my adoration in worship through my body and through my dancing.”
“God gave me this gift of dance, and He made all things for His glory, so I have to use this.”
Chelsea feels the presence of God when she is dancing. “It’s something I’m still learning about and still realizing, but it’s something that came to me: God gave me this gift of dance, and He made all things for His glory, so I have to use this.” That is what worship is to Chelsea: using the gifts you have been given by God for His glory. “For everyone it’s going to be so different, but it’s using whatever He’s put really deep inside you. It’s an expression of your faith, of your worship.”
Out of the overflow
Chelsea also creates her own dance choreographies. She always starts with improvisation. Then she builds on that improvisation to create a choreography. “The improvisation is the spontaneous, like, this came from within me. It came from the overflow of my heart.”
This is where the name of Chelsea’s blog comes from: Out of the Overflow. On her website, she shares her creativity and writes weekly blogs. “I strongly believe that whatever we do, it comes from what is inside of us. That is definitely a life motto.”
Whether Chelsea dances in a Christian performance or in a secular one, she always dances for God. “Always it’s come down to that thing of: ‘Whatever you do, do it in worship to God and do it for the Lord and not men,’ so whether it is an established Christian performance or if I was a fairy in Sleeping Beauty, I do it for the glory of God, whether the audience is aware of it or not. And I think there’s something very special in that, actually, because you’re blessing people without them knowing it.”
“If I get out of the way enough, imagine what God could do.”
Chelsea believes God can touch people through dance. “God works in such amazing, wonderful ways, we can never really comprehend that. But I do believe that something moves in the Spirit when people are using their gifts to glorify Him. I know that, because it’s such a physical act in worship, it’s almost like using another weapon. I just don’t see how something couldn’t be moved in other people when you embrace that space of letting God work through whatever you’re doing. It’s a really exciting thought: If I get out of the way enough, imagine what God could do.”
