Title: Prayer Partners
General Information about Item:
- Genre and Sub Genre: Customary Folklore: rituals, traditions
- Language: English
- Country where Item is from: United States
Informant Data:
- Trevor Davis is an ’18 that joined X.ado his freshman year and sang in his high school choir for three years. He is 21 years old. He was born in Wheaton, Illinois. He grew up and still lives in Raleigh, North Carolina. He is majoring in computer science, and minoring in math and anthropology.
Contextual Data:
- Social Context:
All members of X.ado are given a prayer partner. There is no specific time or place that prayer partners meet, but they are encouraged to interact and get to know one another. The informant does not remember when this ritual began but believes it is not as old as many of the other rituals. This ritual began as a result of X.ado wanting to create stronger bonds amongst team members.
- Cultural Context:
X.ado has a culture in which the group members are very close, and religious communities in general, especially with Christian sects in the United States, tend to be very close-knit communities. This ritual helps the team create a stronger bond between members. Prior to this ritual, rehearsals were the the time when most members interacted, but rehearsals are attended by all members and it is easier to form close relationships with partners as opposed to when a large group is present.
Item:
X.ado does more activities as a group than it used to. In order to accommodate the increased sociability of the group, they pair people off with “prayer partners”, where two members of the group are matched together so they can bond more.
Associated file (a video, audio, or image file):
Transcript of Associated File:
A couple of things that got introduced in the group that changed since we got founded one is that we do more activities as a group. We have prayer partners where you match with someone individual in the group, that helps us bond more and know people on an individual basis since rehearsal’s everyone all together, and also as we become more established and groups like ours spread, we have more interactions with those groups. For example, there’s this conference we do every year called “Break it down Boston” which is a gathering of all the different Christian acapella groups so it’s a very different dynamic than you have with other musical conferences and that’s a cool way to see how our group along with other groups has evolved over time as we become more of a national thing.
Informant’s Comments:
- Comments are verbatim from the video, check transcript
Collector’s Comments:
This is a very similar practice to many other student groups on campus. Many groups facilitate mentor/mentee relationships, and this feels very similar to that. Groups tend to do this to provide guidance for younger members, as well as make the group stronger and ensure that members form relationships/friendships with each other.
Collector’s Name: Marcus Reid
Compiled/Analyzed by: Afnan Enayet/Sruthi Pasupuleti
Tags/Keywords:
- Acapella
- Singing
- Socialization
- Mentoring
- Parners