The MWAH! Performing Arts Troupe evolved from a uniquely choreographed, championship caliber break dance team created as a healthy alternative to street gangs. That group, the Explosonic Rockers Street Jazz Theatrical Troupe, was founded in December 1983 by Ray Moffitt, then a police social worker in Maywood, Illinois, a near-west suburb of Chicago.

Through a special project supported by the Jane Addams School of Social Work of the University of Illinois, Ray was chosen by a U. of I. professor, Harvey Treger, to help develop and implement a police social work prototype which became a national model for urban youth crime intervention and prevention. After nine years of using a variety of innovative strategies, Ray discovered that the performing arts was an effective tool in changing the lives of hard-core street gang members in Maywood as well as West Side neighborhoods of Chicago.

Breakers began battling rival breakers on makeshift cardboard and linoleum floors, and loud battery-powered boom boxes replaced guns and knives as the weapons of choice.

Ray started the Explosonic Rockers as an outgrowth of an earlier program he had created – Explorer Post #75 of the Boy Scouts of America. To become a Rocker, anyone who was an active Gangster Disciple, Vice-lord, or Latin King was required to disavow his gang affiliation. He had to throw down his crown and switch to more positive and redeeming behaviors.

One of the first Rockers to discard his Maywood and Chicago gang ties was Steve Brewster, who became the Explorer Post president and later the troupe’s first choreographer.  Steve currently is Director of the MWAH! base in Wichita, Kansas, using neighborhood community service projects, together with the performing arts with a goal of changing and saving lives in the greater Wichita area.

Jemell Moore, who became a MWAH! troupe member when he was 14 while living on Chicago’s South Side, currently is Director of the troupe’s Los Angeles base while creating music, providing vocal training, and serving as an inspirational mentor to others, who, like him, have struggled in their efforts to determine their own destinies.  

Among other alumni are professional actors and song writers; country music recording artists; the founder of a mega landscaping business in Phoenix, Arizona; a cornerback for several NFL professional football teams; the CEO and founder of a corporate leadership and motivational training program based in New York City; a rap artist and entrepreneur in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area; a music producer who worked in Minneapolis with the artist Prince and has launched a ‘Purple Movement’ outreach mission; the creative director of a film-videography company based in Chicago; the founder and director of an elite, award-winning hip hop dance company based in Naperville, Illinois; the founder and chief instructor of a kickboxing, fitness, and training program in North Aurora, Illinois; a singer-songwriter and classic rock band founder/director from Shorewood, Illinois; a digital media manager in Austin, Texas; the Superintendent of Parks in Forest Park, Illinois; and countless others who have excelled in a variety of other noteworthy professions and careers.

The Explosonic Rockers morphed into the MWAH! Performing Arts Troupe in 1993.  From 2001 to about 2015 the MWAH! troupe was an affiliate of the Chicago Area Project, a grass-roots service and advocacy agency based in downtown Chicago and part of a statewide community services network targeting at-risk youth and their families.  Over the years the troupe has collaborated with numerous other service and prevention-oriented organizations as well as hundreds of middle schools and high schools throughout Illinois and surrounding states and has participated in youth-focused conferences in such cities as Atlanta, Houston, Chicago, Minneapolis, Nashville, and – at the invitation of the Hawaii Department of Criminal Justice – appearances at schools and conferences on five of the Hawaiian islands, including Oahu.  The MWAH! troupe was a keynoter in Washington, D.C. for the 100th anniversary of the Boys and Girls Clubs of America.

Thirty-eight years…hundreds of talented and committed artists…a wide range of ever current and relevant issues affecting youth and their families…and a variety of venues near and far.

From boom box with tape cassettes to wireless microphones and headsets…from live shows to videos…the beat goes on.

And some things never change with the MWAH! troupe.

For example, the exclamation point, denoting energy, continues to be the most important part of its name.

And its messages remain hopeful!