Movement and Dance
Gamma Gamaliel
Shipmate
in Purgatory
Here is a Purgatorial take on an issue that has come up in Hell.
Hugal , clearly a skilled exponent of the terpsichorian muse, advocates a 'block' format of worship songs and hymns as it better facilitates dance.
Is this the case? Ethiopian Orthodox appear to incorporate forms of corporate dance into their worship without adopting a contemporary format. Orthodox Jews do a lot of bobbing and moving and no-one can accuse them of being 'contemporary' in their worship expression.
We are not disembodied spirits. Physical actions feature in all religious traditions. Catholics cross themselves and genuflect. Orthodox cross themselves, make prostrations, light candles and kiss icons.
Charismatics and Pentecostals clap and dance. Some fall over.
Calvinists stand or sit upright.
Anglicans sit at the back row of the pews ...
Dervishes whirl.
What role can and should dance play in worship? So-called 'liturgical dance' seems less common these days, as Baptist Trainfan observes in Hell.
What forms can it take? Is it done for the benefit of the dancer themselves or for the congregation?
I'd be interested in examples from Hugal and others who have a handle on these things.
Hugal , clearly a skilled exponent of the terpsichorian muse, advocates a 'block' format of worship songs and hymns as it better facilitates dance.
Is this the case? Ethiopian Orthodox appear to incorporate forms of corporate dance into their worship without adopting a contemporary format. Orthodox Jews do a lot of bobbing and moving and no-one can accuse them of being 'contemporary' in their worship expression.
We are not disembodied spirits. Physical actions feature in all religious traditions. Catholics cross themselves and genuflect. Orthodox cross themselves, make prostrations, light candles and kiss icons.
Charismatics and Pentecostals clap and dance. Some fall over.
Calvinists stand or sit upright.
Anglicans sit at the back row of the pews ...
Dervishes whirl.
What role can and should dance play in worship? So-called 'liturgical dance' seems less common these days, as Baptist Trainfan observes in Hell.
What forms can it take? Is it done for the benefit of the dancer themselves or for the congregation?
I'd be interested in examples from Hugal and others who have a handle on these things.
Comments
So I'm amused by people on the one hand opposing Latin anthems because the congregation doesn't understand them, but on the other hand promoting liturgical dance, which is frankly incomprehensible. I know what the liturgy is doing, and I still have no idea what the liturgical dancers are trying to say.
People swaying, clapping, and raising their hands in praise is understandable. You know what they're doing. Genuflections and prostrations are understandable.
I'm entirely certain that individual dancers can pray in dance - 'cause it doesn't really matter how badly you communicate to me, because you're not praying to me. God knows what you mean - however badly you express it. But I am deeply skeptical that it is of general use.
Perhaps (slightly mischievously) you could say that it was like speaking in tongues... edifying for the dancer, but not for the observer... and so perhaps, as St. Paul says, inappropriate for public worship unless "an interpretation is provided"?
And then there you'll be, struggling to keep a straight face, while they inform you that the pelvic thrust series has to do with the unimaginable fertility of God.
Indeed so; but it's also a contextualised and learned set of actions. For instance, where does this raising of one hand in worship, often with closed eyes, come from?
I once knew some people who formed a Christian mime troupe which used to perform in church and sometimes at secular events - to good reviews and reception it has to be said.
It didn't do an awful lot for me but I admired their skill and commitment and could understand what they were trying to do.
Ballet has it's own 'language' that we have to tune into - but then so do many other art forms.
There is a way to 'read' a Japanese flower arrangement for instance, in a kind of Zen way.
Context is everything.
I 'got' the work of some of the US abstract expressionist painters when I saw them in New York's Museum of Modern Art rather more than I had done seeing them in reproductions. With the Manhattan skyline visible through the windows it seemed to make more sense.
The same applies to various forms of worship, I think. Back in the day I always felt that some of the songs emanating from the UK's restorationist movement made more sense at their own Bible Weeks and fellowships than they did when sung in a Baptist or Anglican setting.
That's an aside.
I can't say I've ever 'got' liturgical dance. I do like the story of the charismatic Catholic priest who nervously sat alongside his Bishop as a troupe of lithe dancers in swirly frocks danced the Bible up to the podium for a Gospel reading.
The Bishop hissed in his ear, 'The next time they'll be carrying your head - on a platter!'
It does pretty much sum up exactly how much meaning I get out of watching dance. None whatsoever. It's people moving. I mean, expressions can count for a lot, but that's hardly unique to dance. It's a bit like opera is to me - the means of expression actually gets in the way of the communication.
I suppose that's just me.
Raising one hand developed before the use of screens. The other hand was holding the book of words.
Once was enough.
And yes, I've seen that end of it. Though equally, as has been said upthread, a lot of art forms have their own vocabulary and modes of expression. Why would we assume that liturgical dance is any different in that sense.
To play devil's advocate here; most people in this thread would be up in arms if it was suggested that we should rank the arts in value based on their wide appeal (or conversely rank the value of instruments based on the ratio of people who played them badly to those who played them well).
It's therefore not really suited for worship: the relationship between audience and artist is too detached.
I have to say though, that on a practical level it can muffle the sound of the priest's prayers at some points in the service. Some I know compensate for that by bellowing them out. There is a happy medium.
One of my fondest memories of those all too rare occasions when I've visited a cathedral service is of the female choir - an unusual occurrence - of sweet and cherubic school girl choristers - processing out towards the rear of the cathedral (sorry, I've forgotten the technical term) with the recessional anthem fading gradually into the distance. Lovely.
As an aside, I think there's room for all these things - small group study and worship, great cathedral choirs, wheezy old organs in village churches and chapels ...
Coming back to the medium of darnce, yes, I can see where KarlLB is coming from and there is a logic to it - as there is indeed with his musical taste and much else besides. I may not share it entirely but can completely understand where he is at with all this.
I've only seen two live ballet performances and I did find them impressive, even though I probably lacked the 'vocubulary' to make sense of all the movements and gestures.
I'm not a huge opera fan either but have enjoyed it when I've seen it done live.
On gesture and movement in general, I was very struck on a visit to Germany by seeing a performance by a troupe of Russian clowns in which nothing was said and all was conveyed by visual cues and playing with expectations. It was hard to describe, it was like slapstick elevated to a Fine Art.
The buzz and astonishment it created in the crowd of quite staid German burghers was something to experience. As people walked home through the streets they were all animatedly discussing what they'd just seen. Terrific.
I've always been quite arty but found sculpture difficult to engage with until I - well, until I engaged with it. I imagine the same would apply to opera and dance.
I can't see myself ever putting 'darnce' up there alongside literature, music and the visual arts in my personal canon, but can certainly see that it's 'got' something.
I can see it having a role in worship too, but at the moment, other than the kind of bopping around you get in charismatic services and the more sedate and co-ordinated stepping back and forth that you get among the Ethiopians, I'm nto sure what that role is.
I've seen the floaty chiffon look, or the waistcoat and bowler hat look. More successfully, arguably, were times when one person would make various kinds of representational gestures in an artistic way timed with worship music or scripture reading. But gestures may not be understood by everyone in the same way. Or they may not have a consistency of message, such as you might get in music. Maybe as worshippers we tend not to appreciate ambivalence when something 'unusual' or novel is happening at the front of church.
One of the things apparently that people like about watching professional dancers is the uniformity, the coherence of the performance. In the ballet all the dancers are more or less the same body-shape, eg, nothing to take one's eye away from the dance itself, as a whole. Maybe we're automatically less comfortable when less accomplished amateurs with less classically structured physiques do things with their bodies that we ourselves would find uncomfortable. Our eye is drawn to imperfections which distract from the performance; and perhaps in worship this seems particularly inappropriate. Rather like, bum notes from the choir might jar on the ear, however sincere the intention behind them.
Maybe letting the local liturgical dance group do their stuff is a challenge to some of us because we're not really sure what our role as fellow worshippers is. Is it to be moved or inspired - in which case, are we allowed to be annoyed or at least apathetic, if we're not? Is it to 'offer it up' regardless in a kind of 'bless them, they're trying' kind of way? After all we should be encouraging one another etc. Is God okay with that (and why not, you might ask)? People get annoyed at things that embarrass them, or present them with the problem of not knowing how to respond. How far should the aesthetic affect our appreciation of worship dance? Some church dance groups incorporate people with learning and physical disabilities, precisely because there are freedoms in movement they do have, which in other aspects of formal worship they can't share.
Yes, that is an issue. I tend to prefer 'contemporary' dance - there's a lot which is a bit naff but some choreographers have an amazing gift for communication.
Good opera can be amazing!
However, those who appreciate this sort of thing will find this the sort of thing they appreciate.
That's not to say I don't like dance - Mrs BF and I used to shake a mean shoe at local folk clubs and ceilidhs, and were sometimes chosen by the caller to demonstrate. O! Our *Stripping The Willow* was something wondrous to behold...
Oi!
TIACW!
Meanwhile - yes, cat fights can take place between cathedral choristers just as chapel deacons can behave like mini-Mussolinis or Baptist 'church meetings' descend into inconsequentiality and farce - as well as wafting heavenwards in the closest thing Baptists have to a sacrament.
All these things have the capacity to be transcendent or catastrophic.
Another Orthodox saying: 'You can find both Heaven and Hell on Mount Athos.'
On a serious note, after 18 years in a restorationist setting the much maligned Baptist 'church meeting' came as a godsend.
I would still regard it as part of a much needed and very welcome 'healing process' at that time.
'Look, these people have a say ... they have a voice...'
When people are truly attuned to humbly seeking the mind of Christ together - well, that's a different thing.
BTW one couple from a rather Vicar-dominated Anglican church came to my last place, and were amazed and pleased that a proposal I made (it was only on a minor matter) could be soundly turned down.
However, the site was one with value for development, and the sense of the meeting was to sell it and buy somewhere else and build a new meeting house (with no windows, as was traditional), so that is what they did. The lad was very put out, so much so that he felt he needed to spill it out to me, and I wonder if he is still in the fold.
I would say music, however distant or invisible the performers, is immersive in that it is part of the environment: you can't get away from it without covering your ears (or turning off hearing aids). It feels like it's happening in one's head, so if one's actively listening it feels as if one's accompanying and taking part.
Dance and theatre are different. Even when one can feel that the entire audience is focused on what's happening on the stage, one's still focused on what the performers are doing as distinct from oneself.
It may be to do with the difference between eye and ear.
Is God employing you to design Hell?
No - the fees are coming from another source entirely.....*twirls moustache and sighs "if only"*
You did that on purpose, didn't you?
I have led workshops on dance and movement as prayer. That is something completely different to liturgical dance. The movement is there in the service of prayer. It’s a tool and not the end product. A gesture might express something that words can’t. A short and repeated set of steps , with or without gesture, might be a pathway into stillness. The important thing is that you do it and reflect on the doing. It is really hard to video this sort of dance and mostly I don’t try as it is people participating in prayer and not performing.
It can be done. I’m spending a sabbatical next year thinking about how dance in prayer and worship might be described and shared more widely.
Poppy; priest, spiritual director and dancer.
Thanks, Poppy.
I suppose I'm thinking of dance-as-prayer as something a bit like labyrinth walking: something that could work for the individual, but not as a congregational effort. So I'm interested to hear the conclusions you reach.
LOL! Do Jews shekhinah-ing it all about say that?
Let’s talk performance. As indicated a good performance serves the art (song, dance etc). A good performer points to the piece not themselves. I have to get back to work now.
Yeah, probably. It's a complete mystery to me.
To me, too, I'm afraid - but I was interested to read the post by @Poppy regarding movement, steps etc., as prayer. I can sort of see the point of that, even though it probably wouldn't mean much to me.
That's not important, of course, if (like liturgical dance) it's meaningful and spiritually helpful to others. As with hymns/worship songs, one size doesn't fit all!
Does that depend a bit on the tradition?
The church where I grew up occasionally had liturgical dances. AIUI they were quite symbolic, in the sense that a wave of the flag could correspond to a specific concept, e.g. the flame of the Holy Spirit. In musical terms, this would be like The Four Seasons, where the scratchy bits on the violins represent the rain, and so forth.
OTOH, I have attended an Ethiopian Orthodox service with liturgical dance. To me the Ethiopian dance seemed more formal than symbolic. Musically, it would be more something like Vaughan Williams' fourth symphony - IIRC he was asked what it was about and he replied 'It's about the key of F minor'. Which isn't to say it's random noise or random movement but it isn't necessarily noise or movement that maps directly onto concepts.
My definition is the correct one. In the same way we tend to use jealousy to mean envy, popular use of the word can differ from the true definition.
There is also free dance in which what is expressed comes from your heart. It may not make obvious sense but it is an expression. I have heard musicians improvise a melody in the same way.
I think this is an important post. As inimical as dance may seem to many people in the context of worship, I think there's definitely a place for body movement in a liturgical setting, including dance. It's just so difficult to tie down because, rather like musical expression, it's so varied and received in such varied ways. Not quite the same thing perhaps, but back in the late 80's I recall a Christian mime artist doing the rounds - and it really was a prayer and a blessing how he enacted story and gospel. I can't remember his name. He was an associate ministry of British Youth for Christ, that is freelance, but also working with BYFC at times.
What @Anselmina said, and I hope @Poppy will contribute further to this thread, and in such a thoughtful and non-dogmatic way.
BTW, @Hugal is right about musical improvisations - a great feature of the Lutheran/Reformed traditions when it comes to hymns and psalms.
The other thing that interests me is moving into stillness. Dance is repeated phrases of movement. In the same way that one might use the Jesus Prayer to bring stillness then repeated steps can do the same. In dance you are listening hard to the music, to your memory of the steps, to your neighbour as most of these dances are danced in community, to your body (opps careful of that shoulder injury) and so slipping into listening for the divine is not a huge next step.
For me gesture and dance are tools in prayer. It isn’t for everyone but it can be helpful for some.
OK let’s talk about being distracted. I agree that those up front should have some skill. But we don’t expect our singers to sing at Royal Opera level why should we expect our dancers to dance at Royal Ballet level?
I always say dance at the back then you are out of the way of people, and accidents can be avoided. In my experience people only find it distracting for a short while. After a time they turn and watch. The begin to see God in the movement.
I will admit I really dislike the way in the past the more Evo end has looked down on creative arts, God is creative for goodness sake. That has changed a lot.
I won't argue with that at all. And as I said upthread, I can understand how individual dancers can pray in dance. The thing I'm struggling to understand is how congregations can pray in dance. Because dance is so bad at communicating to humans, how can I think I'm doing the same thing as the person next to me, even if we're making the same movements?
If the Spirit helps us in our weakness with 'groans too deep for words' then why not through movement and gesture too?
It's not something I am 'against' in principle. Although coming at these things from different directions, I think there ard more parallels between some of the more choreographed sacramental traditions and charismatic evangelicals than might be supposed when it comes to the use of physical actions.
I do take on board the distinctions you make between liturgical dance, though and what you describe as 'freer' or more improvised movement.
And yes, the more evo end of things did look down on the creative arts for far too long. My brother is an accomplished artist and he had a hard time of it in evangelical settings back in the day.