Dance as Third Space: Interreligious, Intercultural, and Interdisciplinary Debates on Dance and Religion(s) [1 ed.] 9783666568541, 9783525568545

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Heike Walz (ed.)

The Editor

Dr. Heike Walz is Professor of Intercultural Theology, Mission Studies and Religious Studies at the Augustana University, Theological Seminary of the Evangelical-Lutheran Church in Bavaria, Neuendettelsau, Germany.

VOLUME 32

This volume breaks new ground by examining how dance as postcolonial “Third Space” transforms studies of religion. International experts examine dance controversies and discourses from the early church to World Christianity, as well as in Hasidic Judaism, Greek mysteries, Islamic Sufism, West African Togolese religions, and Afro-Brazilian Umbanda. Christian dance theologies are unfolded and the boundary-crossing potential of dance in interreligious and intercultural encounters is explored. Contributors are Shahzad Bashir, Amélé Adamavi-Aho Ekué, Dominika Hadrysiewicz, Riyako Cecilia Hikota, Philip Knäble, Kimerer L. LaMothe, Camille Lepeigneux, Martin Leutzsch, Ángel Francisco Méndez Montoya, Raphael Sartorius, Inga Scharf da Silva, Karin Schlapbach, Tatjana K. Schnütgen, Stephanie Schroedter, Nkosinathi Sithole, Iris Steil, Jasmine Suhner, Susanne Talabardon and Heike Walz.

ISBN 978-3-525-56854-5

9 783525 568545

Walz (ed.)  Dance as Third Space

RESEARCH IN CONTEMPORARY RELIGION

RCR 32

Dance as Third Space Interreligious, Intercultural, and Interdisciplinary Debates on Dance and Religion(s)

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Research in Contemporary Religion

Edited by Carla Danani, Judith Gruber, Hans-Günter Heimbrock, Stefanie Knauss, Daria Pezzoli-Olgiati, Else Marie Wiberg Pedersen, Hans-Joachim Sander, Trygve Wyller In co-operation with Hanan Alexander (Haifa), Wanda Deifelt (Decorah), Siebren Miedema (Amsterdam), Bonnie J. Miller-McLemore (Nashville), Garbi Schmidt (Roskilde), Claire Wolfteich (Boston) Volume 32

Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht

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Heike Walz (ed.)

Dance as Third Space Interreligious, Intercultural, and Interdisciplinary Debates on Dance and Religion(s)

Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht

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Gedruckt mit freundlicher Unterstützung der Evangelisch-Lutherischen Kirche in Bayern.

Bibliographic information published by the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie; detailed bibliographic data available online: https://dnb.de.  2022 by Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Theaterstraße 13, 37073 Göttingen, Germany, an imprint of the Brill-Group (Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands; Brill USA Inc., Boston MA, USA; Brill Asia Pte Ltd, Singapore; Brill Deutschland GmbH, Paderborn, Germany; Brill Österreich GmbH, Vienna, Austria) Koninklijke Brill NV incorporates the imprints Brill, Brill Nijhoff, Brill Hotei, Brill Schöningh, Brill Fink, Brill mentis, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Böhlau, Verlag Antike and V&R unipress. All rights reserved. No part of this work may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without prior written permission from the publisher.

Cover image: Inga Scharf da Silva, “Auflösung” (2021, Öl auf Leinwand) Typesetting: le-tex publishing services, Leipzig Cover design: SchwabScantechnik, Göttingen Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht Verlage j www.vandenhoeck-ruprecht-verlage.com ISSN 2197-1145 ISBN 978-3-666-56854-1

Contents

Acknowledgements ................................................................................

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Heike Walz Introduction ......................................................................................... 11

Part I Dance in Interdisciplinary Approaches Heike Walz Dance as Third Space. Interreligious, Intercultural and Interdisciplinary Debates on Dance and Religion(s) in the Perspective of Religious Studies and Intercultural Theology......................... 27 Stephanie Schroedter Intertwinements of Music/Sound and Dance/Movement as a “Third Space” ........................................................................................ 69 Kimerer L. LaMothe Does Your God Dance? The Role of Rhythmic Bodily Movement in Friedrich Nietzsche’s Revaluation of Values ............................................... 81

Part II Dance in the History of Christianity: From the Early Church to World Christianity Camille Lepeigneux The Indictment of Dance by Christian Authors in Late Antiquity. The Example of the Dance of Herodias’ Daughter (Mt 14; Mk 6) .................. 97 Martin Leutzsch The Dances of the Virgin Mary. Second to Twenty-First Century ................. 113 Philip Knäble Canons & Choreographies. The Myth of the Medieval Church adverse to Dancing ................................................................................ 139

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Contents

Tatjana K. Schnütgen Dance and Gender in Churches in Germany since the 20th Century. Insights and Conclusions for Church Dance Today .................................... 155 Nkosinathi Sithole The Sacred Dance as a Miraculous Practice in Ibandla lamaNazaretha .......... 175

Part III Dance in Different Religious Traditions: Historic and Contemporary Perspectives Susanne Talabardon Dance in Hasidic Judaism ....................................................................... 195 Karin Schlapbach Dancing with Gods. Dance and Initiation in Ancient Greek Religious Practices ................................................................................. 213 Shahzad Bashir Dancing the Islamic Way. Two Famous Sufi Masters ................................... 237 Amélé Adamavi-Aho Ekué Moving with the Sound of the Story. Dance and Religion in West Africa with Special Consideration of the Epe-Ekpe Dances in Togo............... 251 Inga Scharf da Silva Beyond the Gaps of Archives. Transfer and Transformation of Knowledge in Ritual Dance in Afro-Brazilian Religions .............................. 269

Part IV Dance in Christian Theologies Ángel F. Méndez Montoya Flesh, Body, and Embodiment: Surplus of Corporeal Becoming. Theology and Dancing Bodies ................................................................. 291 Riyako Cecilia Hikota Dancing to the Rhythm of Analogia Entis. Exploration of Dance as a Christian Theological Category ............................................................. 305

Contents

Jasmine Suhner Dancing From Doing Theology to Dancing Theology. Dance-theological Sketches Based on Tango Argentino ............................... 319

Part V Inter-Dance: Interreligious and Intercultural Dances in the Third Space Dominika Hadrysiewicz In-Between Śiva and Jesus. Indian Classical Dance as a ‘Third Space’ ............ 337 Iris B. Steil Dancing in Between Religion(s). Homi Bhabha’s Concept of Third Space and its Possibilities for Interreligious Encounters .............................. 351 Raphael Sartorius The Alchemists’ Dream. Dance as a Laboratory for Intercultural Theology?... 363 Index of Names ..................................................................................... 375 Index of Places ...................................................................................... 381 Index of Subjects ................................................................................... 385 Notes on Contributors............................................................................ 419

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Acknowledgements

This volume is the result of a dream that came true. The idea of the international and interdisciplinary Conference Dance with God or the Devil? Interreligious and Intercultural Debates on Dance and Religion(s) matured for a long time in both my mind and body. It would finally be realized from 1st to 7th of March 2020 at the Augustana-Hochschule in Neuendettelsau, the Theological Divinity School of the Evangelical-Lutheran Church of Bavaria in Germany. First of all, I would like to thank all the contributors to this volume, especially for their diligence in preparing the manuscripts and for their enthusiasm to share their expertise and learn from each other, and last – but not least – to dance together. It was fortunate that the Dance Conference could take place shortly before the shutdown due to the COVID-19 pandemic closed down the universities in Germany and other countries. Therefore, I am grateful that the contributions and essays could still be completed under corona conditions despite the temporary closure of university libraries and the difficult research conditions during the year 2020. I would like to extend special thanks to the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Bavaria for financing the conference and this volume, especially to Chief Church Administrator Stefan Reimers, permanent representative of the Regional Bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Bavaria, for his support to realize the Dance Conference during my turn as President of the Augustana-Hochschule in Neuendettelsau from 2018 to 2020. I wholeheartedly thank PD Dr. Markus Mülke from the International Office at the Augustana, who not only managed the travel and accommodation organization for the guests, but also supported the special theme of this conference with great commitment from its first moments. This volume would not have been possible without Andrea Töcker, who proofread the manuscript in an excellent manner; nor without Sarah Friedrich-Bernhardt, who passionately edited the manuscript in the first phase before her maternal leave. We owe special thanks to Raphael Sartorius, teaching assistant at my Chair for Intercultural Theology and Religious Studies, for his cooperation in unifying the manuscript, with Annika Knapmeyer, student of Protestant Theology, at our side. Andrea Töcker and Raphael Sartorius have thankfully spared no effort in creating the indexes. In particular I would like to thank Dr. Brandon Sundh for his excellent proofreading of the English language, considering that almost all authors are non-native English speakers.

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Acknowledgements

Finally, I would like to convey my thanks to the editorial board of the Research in Contemporary Religion (RCR) series or their great interest, support and positive feedback, with which they included this volume in their series. In a special way, I am grateful to the lovely cooperation with my colleague, Prof. Dr. Daria Pezzoli-Olgiati, Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich, and for sharing the vision to deepen the field of Religious Studies with research on dance. And our gratitude goes to the publishing team of Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht and Brill/Böhlau, especially to Dr. Johanna Körner and PD Dr. Izaak de Hulster, for the very good cooperation. It is our great pleasure that the artist Dr. Inga Scharf da Silva, one of our authors, created the oil painting “Resolution” especially for the cover of our volume. She deserves our heartfelt thanks. Hopefully this volume will reach interest both of readers and dancers. Heike Walz, Neuendettelsau, March 2021

Heike Walz

Introduction

The international ‘Dance Conference’1 from which this volume emerged, was entitled: Dance with God or the Devil? Interreligious and Intercultural Debates on Dance and Religion(s).2 The motto ‘Dance with God or the Devil?’ alludes to the warnings against dance in the history of Christianity, and to a tension between divine and through the course of history so called ‘diabolic’ dances, which is quite common in Christianity. It also refers to theological controversies and disputes about dance throughout the history. Does this observation also apply to other religions? Dance plays an important role in most religious traditions, for example in rites of passage, processions, shrines and sacred spaces, healing, hunting and fertility rituals, festivals for divinities, martial arts, ceremonies, or ancestor worship. Evidence is found in indigenous religions, forms of Shamanism, African religions, Egyptian and Greek Antique religions, Judaism, Asian religions (for instance Indian Hindu, and some Buddhist, Daoist, Confucianist, and Shinto traditions), Afro-Brazilian Religions, and Islamic Sufism (cf. Beaman: 2018; Gaston/Gaston: 2014, 182–192). In many countries such dances were changed, suppressed and even forbidden through (mostly European) colonial domination and missionary activities (cf. Beaman: 2018, xix; LaMothe: 2018, 31–33). Though dance is “A Way to be Religious” (Gaston/Gaston: 2014), the “attitude of formal religions towards dance is more ambiguous than toward almost any art” (2014, 183). Hence, is it correct that “positions of religions on dance and its potentialities are adversarial in the extreme”, as the Brill Dictionary of Religion says as well (Neitzke: 2006, 477)?

1 Cf. my reports on the Conference (Walz: 2020a; Walz: 2020b). 2 It took place from 1st to 7th of March 2020 at my Chair of Intercultural Theology, Mission Studies and Religious Studies at the “Augustana-Hochschule” in Neuendettelsau in Germany. The “AugustanaHochschule, Theological Seminary of the Evangelical-Lutheran Church of Bavaria” offers undergraduate and graduate programs for the studies of Protestant Theology on par with the theological faculties at the state universities and the right to award doctoral degrees and habilitations (cf. www.augustana.de). The park-like campus, surrounded by forest and green floodplains, is one of the few real campus universities in Germany.

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This volume addresses such controversies around ‘dance’ and ‘religion(s)’3 as they have not yet been studied much from ‘interreligious’, ‘intercultural’4 , and interdisciplinary perspectives. Rather the meaning and role of dance was examined from a religious-comparative perspective. These considerations led to my invitation to the international ‘Dance Conference’. Experts on dance and religion from various disciplines, countries and culturalreligious backgrounds came together to share their knowledge with each other and to discuss it with young researchers and students of theology and religious studies. My aim was to explore the controversies surrounding dance and religion(s) as well as the potential and limits of dance in different religions and spiritualities; furthermore the significance of dance for interreligious and intercultural encounters. Results of this ‘invitation to dance together’ – in the double sense of ‘dance as thinking’ together – are available in this volume, which is entitled Dance as Third Space. Interreligious, Intercultural, and Interdisciplinary Debates on Dance and Religion(s). This volume now bears that title, because, in my opening keynote at the Conference, I challenged the experts and participants to reflect about dance as “Third Space”, using a metaphor of the postcolonial thinker Homi Bhabha (Rutherford: 1990), in order to overcome dichotomic discourses on dance and religion. In my chapter on “Dance as Third Space. Interreligious, Intercultural, and Interdisciplinary Debates on Dance and Religion(s) in the Perspective of Religious Studies and Intercultural Theology” in this volume, I will provide an overview to research questions on dance and religion(s), explain the theoretical approach of this volume and the choice of the metaphor of the Third Space. A specific ‘Third Space thinking’ shaped the design of the Conference as well, called the ‘Inter-Dance’ approach.

3 I propose to work with a discursive approach to the definition of ‘dance’, which includes a minimal working definition that understands dance as ‘rhythmic body movement, mostly to music’; and I suggest to work with a discursive approach to ‘religion’ as well, using a ‘working definition’ of ‘religion’: it places basic human experiences in a broader horizon of interpretation of reality that transcends them. With respect to the difference between ‘religious’ and ‘spiritual’, cf. in more detail my chapter on “Dance as Third Space. Interreligious, Intercultural, and Interdisciplinary Debates on Dance and Religion(s) in the Perspective of Religious Studies and Intercultural Theology” in this volume. 4 In my chapter on “Dance as Third Space” in this volume, I will unfold in more detail, in which way the terms ‘interreligious’ and ‘intercultural’ (and sometimes ‘cross-cultural’) are used here.

Introduction

1.

‘Inter-Dance’ Approach: Third Space Thinking through Dance

My “inter-dance”5 approach is connected to the idea that dance creates knowledge and is a form of thinking through the body. The Dance Conference’s aim was to open up a Third Space between between experts and students, between researchers of different ages and genders, countries and disciplines, and between different culturalreligious backgrounds. The same applies to this collection: the attribute ‘inter’ or ‘inbetween’ fits in several ways, as the approach is international, interdisciplinary, but also inter-generational, as it includes articles and essays from younger researchers and excellent students that emerged from the discussions during the Conference.6 This volume explores intercultural and interreligious aspects of dance and religion(s), something that has rarely been done before. My aim is to foster the connection between theory and practice. For this purpose, I combined theoretical reflection in lectures and discussions with experiences in dance workshops during the conference. In addition, almost all authors have dance expertise themselves, some are even professional dancers and choreographers. In addition, as part of the program during the conference as well as in Nuremberg, we learned about interreligious dance projects. Ángel F. Méndez Montoya’s dance & body workshop motivated everyone to dance, and Kimerer L. LaMothe let us feel the expressive dance in her modern dance workshop. Jesuit Pater Saju George SJ gave a wonderful performance lecture about the Bhāratanāt.yam dance style. In India, he offers a Third Space in his education center Kalahrdaya for young people (most of them come from poor Dalit families) in Kolkata. They are introduced to the high art and hard training of classical Indian dance. It is an inter-dance space that crosses the rugged divide between slums and the highest Brahmanic caste in India and is open to young people of different religious backgrounds.7 We were impressed by the inter-religious women’s project in Nuremberg, organized by Gülsan Çiçek and Thomas Amberg from the Center for Christian-Islamic Encounters (Brücke-Köprü)8 of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Bavaria. Here women from Turkish, Afghan and German families with Islamic and Christian backgrounds dance belly dance with their teacher Feride Akgül. In our conversation they interpreted the belly dance both as an expression of joy about God’s creation and as a balance to the stressful everyday life.

5 I owe the term ‘inter-dance’ to Franka Plößner, one of my Protestant theology students, who created it while preparing for the Dance Conference. 6 Cf. the contributions of Riyako C. Hikota, Jasmine Suhrer, Dominika Hardrysiewicz, Iris B. Steil, and Raphael Sartorius. 7 Cf. https://www.jesuitenmission.at/kalahrdaya.html [14/1/2021]. 8 Cf. https://www.bruecke-nuernberg.de [14/1/2021].

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Moreover the Mevlana Order e.V. in Nuremberg9 invited us to their center, where dervishes from all over Germany are trained. Under the guidance of Sheikh Süleyman Bahn (cf. 2018), who introduced the Sema Ritual, we felt the radiating power of Sufi mysticism in Islam to unite with the love of God in dance; women as well as men were dancing. Several times a year this Sema ritual in Nuremberg attracts people of all religious or secular backgrounds. Tatjana Schnütgen and myself offered an Argentinian tango & spirituality workshop. Due to its transcultural origins in the migration milieu in the slums of the Río de la Plata, Argentinian tango offers a spiritual body language that has found acceptance in tango services in Germany as a medium for existential and spiritual themes. Tango is a danced embrace, which may be experienced as the touch of Transcendence by dancers. Finally, we experienced an African Dance Workshop with Elliot Mohlamme, and Samuel Odai Mensah playing the drum.10 We learned to dance a choreography that also contained elements of a rain dance. The Conference was conceived as research-based teaching and learning, as students challenged the keynote speakers with their questions and insights during the final panel session. The students were invited to present their reflections as dance-creative inputs at the end of the Conference. The results really surprised me positively. In addition, student Franka Plößner shot two videos, a trailer and a documentary film about the conference, both are available on YouTube.11 Now I turn to the ‘Choreography’ of the contributors in this volume. The keynote speakers and the papers collected here in this volume12 took up this impulse of the ‘Third Space’ in different ways.

2.

The Choreography of the Contributors in this Volume

The volume is organized into five main sections. Part I: “Dance in Interdisciplinary Approaches” concentrates on theoretical questions in Religious Studies and Intercultural Theology, in Dance Studies and Philosophy of Religion.

9 10 11 12

Cf. http://www.mevlana-ev.de/cbcms/ [14/1/2021]. Cf. https://www.movingpoint.de/elliot-mohlamme [15/10/2020]. Cf. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nnvdTCy05_M [15/10/2020]. Karin Schlapbach (Switzerland), Shahzad Bashir (Pakistan/USA) und Nkosinathi Sithole (South Africa) unfortunately could not attend the Dance Conference and deliver their keynotes, but kindly provided their contributions for this volume. During the Dance Conference I invited younger researchers such as Riyako C. Hikota (Japan/Germany), Jasmine Suhner (Switzerland), Dominika Hadrysiewicz, Iris B. Steil and Raphael Sartorius (all from Germany) to submit essays.

Introduction

Heike Walz, a scholar of religious studies and intercultural theology, provides an overview of discourses on ‘dance and religion(s)’ in religious studies and intercultural theology. Her chapter “Dance as Third Space. Interreligious, Intercultural, and Interdisciplinary Debates on Dance and Religion(s)” can also be read as extended theoretical introduction to the volume. Under the motto “Dance with God or the devil” she outlines dance controversies in Christianity. For the use of the terms ‘dance’ and ‘religion(s)’ in culturally-religiously plural contexts, she proposes a discursive approach. Her mapping of discourses on dance in religious studies and intercultural theology leads to a typology that reveals a dichotomous Eurocentric and Christian view of dance and religion. Dance is thus a ‘burning glass’ for the need of a decolonizing epistemology. Walz proposes to renegotiate and rethink dance, religion(s) and spirituality in different contexts within the horizon of the Third Space. And the aim is to explore the capacity of dance as an artistic medium for interreligious and intercultural encounters. Finally, she invites to an interdisciplinary dialogue about dance, because dance creates body knowledge and inspires new forms of Christian theological thinking. Stephanie Schroedter, a music and dance scholar from Austria (and Germany13 ) responds to one of the central questions of this volume, “What is ‘dance’?” In her chapter “Intertwinements of Music/Sound and Dance/Movement as a ‘Third Space’”, she describes the profound changes that dance studies has undergone in relation to this question. Boundaries are blurring, for example between dance theory and dance practice, as embodied knowledge comes into play. Through postmodern aesthetics, the audible and the visual become interwoven. Schroedter reads these ‘intermediate spaces’ as Third Spaces: musicians and dancers are connected through a ‘kinesthetic hearing’ that perceives music as movement. As a music and dance scholar, she also finds herself in the Third Space between the two disciplines. Following Nietzsche, the US-American philosopher of religion, dancer and choreographer Kimerer L. LaMothe asks “Does Your God Dance?”. From the perspective of Philosophy of Religion, she explores “The Role of Rhythmic Body Movement in Friedrich Nietzsche’s Revaluation of Values”. Nietzsche found Christian values to be hostile to life, because the sensory entanglements of the physical self were seen as the source of evil, LaMothe explains. On the other hand, he pleaded for dance as a paradigm for sensory education, because it helps to resist ‘ressentiment’; i.e. feelings of despair over one’s own powerlessness, which can lead to violence and

13 In the following, I refer to hybrid identities as follows: First, the country in which the author works at the moment and, if applicable; in brackets (family) connections to other countries; and sometimes it applies the other way round.

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hatred towards other people, ethnic groups and religions. According to LaMothe, Nietzsche drew on the Attic tragedy, which developed from orgiastic feasts in honor of the ecstatic god of wine and fertility Dionysius. The dance provokes a magical transformation, as Nietzsche believes, because dancers and spectators come into contact with their own kinetic creativity during the spectacle. Part II: “Dance in the History of Christianity: From the Early Church to World Christianity” provides contributions to the controversies about dance in the churches, especially in the early church and late antiquity, in the Middle Ages in Europe, protestant churches in Germany since the 20th century, and in the independent South African church Ibandla lamaNazaretha. In early Christianity, the critical voices of the Church Fathers prevailed, as the classical philologist and bible scholar Camille Lepeigneux from France demonstrates in “The Indictment of the Dance of Christian Authors in Late Antiquity: The Example of the Dance of the Daughter of Herodias (Mt 14; Mk 6)”. Drawing on sources from the Church Fathers Origenes, Athanasius, Ambrose of Milan and Chrysostom, Lepeigneux identifies a dichotomy of two types of dance: sacred biblical dances as true devotion to God, and bad dances, associated with theatrical performances or private festive events. The latter was ascribed silly behavior, pleasure, immorality, shamelessness, drunkenness, fornication, female seduction and devil’s work. Chrysostom, using the biblical story of the dance of the daughter of Herodias, warns of the spiritual dangers of dance as such leading to sin. However, already in Roman society, dance and theaters were considered as indecent. The condemnation of dance served moral purposes and as ‘Christian’ identity marker against Greek and Roman religions and Judaism. In contrast, the New Testament exegete Martin Leutzsch from Germany offers a kind of counter-narrative by revealing the hidden treasure of the sources that describe “Dances of the Virgin Mary, Second to Twenty-first Century”, found in the Apocrypha, and also in church songs, dramas or sculptures. The dancing Mary is part of monastic theology, as Leutzsch reveals, in which Mary is dancing in heaven or on earth, solo or in duet with Christ, God the Father and other humans. She also appears as leader of a choir dance with virgins, chaste women, children and angels, etc. However, the idea of the dancing Mary is not generally known compared to the motif of the dancing Christ. Mary dances, so to speak, in the Third Space between heaven and earth. The historian Philip Knäble from Germany also deconstructs the myth of a ‘nondancing’ church in “Canons & Choreographies: The Myth of the Dance-Hostile Medieval Church”. He argues that medieval councils did not prohibit dance, but im-

Introduction

posed selected regulations to clerics, especially to nuns, in order to prevent sin and a profanation of churches. For Bernhard of Clairveaux dance even served as symbol for monastic life. Examining French medieval ecclesiastic scriptures, Knäble shows that the clerics danced during mystery plays, the initiation of clerics or processions. The Pelotte of Auxerre was even part of a broader religious dance culture in France. This dance was combined with a ball game on the cathedral’s labyrinth in the Easter liturgy. Symbolically the defeat of the devil and the resurrection of Jesus Christ was celebrated and described as a successful inculturation of a pagan ritual into Christianity. The French orchésography of Thoinot Arbeau, a dance manual from the 16th century, blamed the Protestant Reformation, especially the Calvinists, for the decline of dance. However, Knäble gives examples, how dancing was connected with hymns in Protestantism of the 16th and 17th century. While Catholic male clergy danced in the Middle Ages, a sort of ‘church dance’ women’s movement appeared in Protestant churches in Germany in the 20th century, as Tatjana Schnütgen, a Protestant practical theologian from Germany shows. In “Dance and Gender in Churches in Germany since the 20th Century: Insights and Conclusions for Church Dance Today,” she asks: Has ‘church dance’ become a women’s issue? Karl Barth (1886–1968), for instance, asked what to make of ‘serious men’ who consider introducing church dance? Schnütgen describes how women have been experimenting with meditative and sacred dance (including under the influence of US American modern dancers) in feminist liturgies since the 1970s. She argues for open spaces for all genders that allow for individual experience and expression. The last chapter in this section is an example for ‘dance revivals’ in World Christianity. Literary scholar and writer Nkosinathi Sithole from South Africa, in “The Sacred Dance as a Miraculous Practice in Ibandla lamaNazaretha”, shows the controversies about ‘acceptable’ and ‘unacceptable’ ways of the umgidi (sacred dance) in one of the largest independent South African churches in KwaZulu-Natal. The founder Isaiah Shembe (1867–1935) fused African and Christian forms in an innovative way, as the dance is accompanied by cowhide drums and hymns composed by him. This sacred dance was devalued by the European mission churches as ‘uncivilized’ and ‘anti-Christian’. Sithole refutes the position that the sacred dance served as a mere reaction of resistance to challenge colonialism, apartheid and oppression. By examining oral narratives of dreams and miracles, he found that umgidi is a miraculous practice, because both watching and dancing is said to have healing powers. Moreover, the Nazarite members manage their daily life by dancing for God, Shembe and for the ancestors in the service, but also by dancing for entertainment. Umgidi serves as a medium between heaven and earth.

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Part III: “Dance in Different Religious Traditions: Historic and Contemporary Perspectives” delves deeper in the specific role of dance in various religious traditions such as Hasidic Judaism, Ancient Greek Mysteries, Islamic Sufism, African Religions in Togo as well as in Afro-Brazilian Religions. Jewish scholar Susanne Talabardon from Germany unfolds the connection between dance and mystics. In Hasidic Judaism, an originally Eastern European reform movement since the 18th century, dance is deeply rooted in mystical kabbalistic theology. Israel b. Eliezer Ba’al Shem Tov (1699–1760), the founder of the Hasidim, uses the panentheistic argument that the divine presence fills the whole universe, so that the dance, like any human action, can become a service. The kabbalistic “tree of life” (Etz Chajim) reflects that everything is connected: God, the cosmos, and human beings. Body movements, such as dance, can be a prayer lost in the happiness of God. Nahman of Bratzlav (1772–1810) emphasizes the potential of singing, clapping hands and dance as uplifting the spirit. In Hasidic tradition, the dance, music, and melodies of the Rebbes belong to Shabbat and festivals, as Talabardon explains. Many types of dance are common, but not all branches of Hasidism value dance in the same way, some prefer movements that are more moderate. Karin Schlapbach, a scholar of Classical Philology, shows in her chapter “Dance, Experience and Cognition in Greek Mysteries” that ancient writers in the later Graeco-Roman world, considered dancing as an essential part of mystery rites. Initiation, in fact, meant choral dancing. Dance was ascribed a strong emotional impact on the psyche of the initiates. Moreover, in the eyes of antique authors, experience and cognition cannot be severed. Some even consider initiation as an alternative to philosophy. Thus, dance was understood as a specific mode of expression, though having similarities with texts, images and music. Furthermore, Schlapbach illuminates the dancing Christ with his disciples in Acts of John as deeply influenced by the ancient tradition of mystery rites. In “Dancing the Sufi Way: Two Famous Masters of Dervish Dance” Shahzad Bashir, a scholar of Islamic studies from USA (and Pakistan), translates excerpts from Persian hagiographies: one from the Sufi Master Jalāloddīn Rūmī (died 1274) from what is now Turkey and the other from Sheikh Safī from Ardabil (died 1334) from what is now Azerbaijan, Iran. The dance ritual samā means both dance and audition, because the body, according to Bashir, is activated by auditioning the Quranic recitation or music. However, not all Sufis allow samā‘ as a dance, some only accept the remembrance of God through music. For Rūmī whirling means serving God as during ritual prayer, affirming God’s oneness and indicating that his soul has won the victory over evil. In the stories on Safī, dance serves as a link

Introduction

between the members of the community, but access is also limited, for example, to women. Both masters reject dance as a carnival pleasure, but it must be undertaken as a divine calling. Amélé Adamavi-Aho Ekué, a Protestant theologian and ethicist from Switzerland (Germany and Togo), presents a micro-study in “Moving with the Sound of the Story: Dance and Religion in West Africa with Special Consideration of the EpeEkpe Dances in Togo”. She emphasizes the importance of semiotic, materialistic and ethnographic methods in religious studies. Ekué argues that creative potential is inherent in West African religions, focusing on both the past and the future. EpeEkpes’ dance performances (for example of the New Year) serve as a collectively embodied memory of the painful and often silenced colonial history of enslavement and deportation from Elmina (today’s Ghana) in the 17th century. Through the dances, the community receives the ancestors’ New Year’s message about the future, and the dancers connect with the kinship, the ancestors, the divinities, and the land. Dancing was part of a sharp conflict with the missionaries in the 19th century, who associated it with the devil. In contemporary Protestant worship, a slow dance during the offering has become common. Inga Scharf da Silva, ethnologist from Germany, in “Beyond the Gaps of Archives. Transfer and Transformation of Knowledge in Ritual Dance in Afro-Brazilian Religions” illuminates a similar controversy about Umbanda, having its origins in Bantu and Yorúbá religions, indigenous Shamanism, and European Kardecism. Umbanda has been stigmatized as ‘devilish’, e.g. by the Christian majority in Brazil, since the colonial era, but in Scharf da Silva’s view ritual trance dance is an embodied postcolonial memory practice. The dancing body serves as a mediator between the material and immaterial worlds and Umbandistic states of trance, are a living archive of experienced emotional knowledge, also in Umbanda communities in German-speaking Europe. The ‘gaps’ refer to the unspeakable memory of violence through the history of Atlantic slavery, but also to the lost memory, since many documents of the slave trade were destroyed. Part IV: “Dance in Christian Theologies” provides three attempts to do constructive theology of dance, both from Roman-Catholic and Protestant perspectives. In “Flesh, Body, and Embodiment: Surplus of Corporeal Becoming. Theology and Dancing Bodies” Ángel F. Méndez Montoya, a Roman Catholic theologian and philosopher of religion, dancer and choreographer from Mexico, criticizes the conditioning of the body by colonial history and sexual violence. He develops a ‘poetic body theology of dance’, as a form of resilience and resistance. For Montoya, dance is movement that becomes flesh, based on the New Testament idea of incarnation:

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The Word of God became flesh. The flesh of Christ becomes bread and food, and the death of Christ transforms death into eternal life. Against the feminization and rejection of the ‘dancing flesh’ as sin, Montoya therefore calls on theology to learn the body discourses from the dance sciences and from the phenomenology of the body, which say that we as human beings are bodies, and finally from sociology, which says that the body reflects the beliefs of society. Montoya poses the fundamental question: What can theology learn from the dancing body? Since dancing means to fiction the body, dance can be seen as a queer intra-trinitarian movement within God, and human beings become co-creators of the divine act of creation. Riyako C. Hikota, a Roman Catholic theologian from Japan (and Germany), approaches dance in a very different way. In “Dancing to the Rhythm of Analogia Entis: Exploration of Dance as a Christian Theological Category” she confronts the fear in Christian theology that believers might be tempted to feel like God through the experience of the divine in dance. Hikota takes up the famous reproach of the Reformed theologian Karl Barth that the principle of the Analogia Entis (i.e. the analogous relationship between God the Creator and the creature) of the Jesuit Erich Przywara is a ‘natural theology’, which emphasizes the similarity, rather than the dissimilarity between God and creature. Hikota argues that the delicate dynamic tension between divine transcendence and immanence can be maintained if the abstract scholastic-theological term Analogia Entis is understood as rhythm. If inner-divine, divine-human, and inter-creature relationships are seen as rhythmic movements, dancers could experience their creatureliness as a dance with God. Jasmine Suhner, a Practical Protestant theologian from Switzerland, takes up Nietzsche’s idea of the body as ‘great reason’ and contemporary bodily paths of knowledge in embodiment theories (like Ingo Peyker’s idea of ‘foot truth’) in her essay “From Doing Theology to Dancing Theology. Dance-theological Sketches Based on Tango Argentino”. Starting with her experience as an Argentinian tango dancer and teacher, she underlines the specific tango ‘philosophy’ as walking together in an unlimited improvisation and creating a Third Space (beyond the space of each dancer of the couple), which can be understood as ‘the unknown’, theologically as something divine. As a result, in the sense of ‘doing theology’, Suhner advocates for a theology that understands itself as a dancing one. She makes a plea for an embodiment-oriented interreligious education based on improvisation or creative dance. In this way Suhner’s essay is closely linked to the next part. Part V: “Inter-Dance: Interreligious and Intercultural Dances in the Third Space” contains three essays of the young generation reflecting creatively on the Third Space of interreligious and intercultural dance projects offered during the Conference.

Introduction

Dominika Hadrysiewicz, a doctoral student for religious studies from Germany, analyzes the performance lecture “Indian Hindu Dance” given by Father Dr. Saju George SJ during the Conference. In her essay “In-between Śiva and Jesus: Indian Dance as Interreligious Encounter – and a Third Space?” she works with the method of participant observation and draws on additional material, among others the videos of the Conference. George’s presentation of the classical Indian dance Bhāratanāt.yam is interpreted by her through the lens of the Third Space concept. In her view, the ambivalence of the categories of ‘religion’ and ‘culture’ are negotiated with respect to the ‘sacrality’ of this dance, in relation to the category of ‘Hindu’, and finally in the interpretation of Bhāratanāt.yam as a universal human ‘language’, which serves George as a medium for Christian prayer and symbolism. Iris B. Steil, student of Protestant theology from Germany, applies Homi Bhabha’s concept of the Third Space to interreligious encounters. In her essay “Dancing in Between Religion(s). Homi Bhabha’s concept of the Third Space and its possibilities of interreligious encounters” she reads Bhabha’s concept of ‘cultural difference’ as ‘religious difference’, taking in account his critique of unjust power structures and inequalities. Since language is often a problem in international interfaith encounters, she imagines the hybrid and liminal Third Space as an ‘interreligious dance floor’ – with dance as an alternative form of communication. Based on the philosophy of embodiment, she proposes an embodied dance spirituality that could also open up a Third Space between body and spirit in Christianity. In his essay “The Alchemists’ Dream: Dance as a Laboratory for Intercultural Theology” Raphael Sartorius, research assistant for Intercultural Theology from Germany, understands dance as fusion of cultures, and compares it with the alchemists who intended to create gold with different alloy. Dance can have a laboratory function, Sartorius argues, and dance has the potential to decolonize ‘extractivist epistemologies’ of the global North, because it bases on oral knowledge and enables ‘corazonar’, i.e. ‘reasoning with the heart’, as Boaventura de Sousa Santos says.

3.

First Findings

Let me stand still after musing over these thoughts on dance and religion(s) to mention a few insights that can be gained in this volume. The motto ‘Dance with God or the devil’ fits to quite many dance traditions, because they have been considered as ‘devilish’ in the respective colonial European-Christian framework. Several contributions show that various religious traditions dispose criteria for ‘acceptable’ and ‘unacceptable’ dances. Dancing, in some case-studies, should be done only in reverence of the Divine, such as in the history of the early Church, the medieval

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Church, the South African independent church Ibandla lamaNazaretha, and in Islamic Sufi hagiographies. A ‘profanization’ of dances is rejected here. However, the medieval Church transforms the motto ‘Dance with the Devil or God’ into dance as victory over the devil and symbol for the resurrection of Jesus Christ. The strongest pair of opposites is probably the position of Chrysostom and Nietzsche: While, in the eyes of the Church Father, dance and theater are indecent and sinful, Nietzsche emphasizes the positive and life-giving character of any dance, and its ability to resist ‘ressentiment’. Discourses on the very notion of ‘dance’ move in the interstice of music and sound, dance and listening, dance and musical instruments, and between theater and play. The attributions that qualify dance as ‘sacred’, ‘religious’ or ‘entertainment’ tend to be rather fluid, but are also triggers of dance conflicts. Dance remains equally suspended between culture and religion, as for example in classical Indian dance. The leitmotif ‘Dance as Third Space’ is interpreted in creative ways that deconstruct binary dichotomic thinking. Epistemologically it shifts boundaries, between music and dance as well as between sound and movement. The dance of the Sufi dervishes also moves in the space between dance and audition. In the ancient Greek initiatory mystery cults, dance oscillates between experience and cognition, becoming the Third Space between spiritual experience and rational thought. Dance can hover between body and mind, not only in theories of embodiment, but also in spiritualities and body theology. Dance as Third Space can serve as a spiritual mediator, moving up and down between heaven and earth, like the dance of the Virgin Mary or the sacred dance Umgidi in the South African Shembe tradition. Dancing bodies in the Afro-Brazilian religion Umbanda serve as medium between the material and immaterial worlds. Dance can reflect and reinforce gender boundaries, but sometimes it transcends gender binaries. Argentinian tango creates a Third Space between the tango dancers, the music, and ‘the unknown’, which can be the transcendent. Dance can also become mysticism, as in Jewish Hasidic Kabbalistic mysticism and Islamic Sufism. Dance can contribute to postcolonial embodied memory work, both in Epe-Ekpe dances in Togo and in the Afro-Brazilian religion Umbanda. Dance can help to decolonize thinking, and especially religious studies. It is a ‘laboratory’ for intercultural theology and, as body language, can open up an ‘interreligious dance floor’ where language barriers are overcome. The Choreography of the Contributors offers many more insights than these preliminary findings, and certainly, it raises new questions.

Introduction

Bibliography Bahn, S. (2018), Sema – Tanz der Derwische. Kreisen in Gott, Augustiner 10 (März), 16–19. Beaman, P.L. (2018), World Dance Cultures. From Ritual to Spectacle, London/New York: Routledge/Taylor & Francis. Gaston, A.-M./Gaston, T. (2014), Dance as a Way of Being Religious, in B.F. Brown (ed.), Oxford Handbook of Religion and Arts, Oxford et al.: Oxford University Press, 182–202. LaMothe, K.L. (2018), A History of Theory and Method in the Study of Religion and Dance, Leiden/Boston: Brill. Neitzke, D. (2006), Dance, K. von Stuckrad (ed.), The Brill Dictionary of Religion, Leuven: Brill, 477–481. Rutherford, J. (1990), The Third Space. Interview with Homi Bhabha, in J. Rutherford (ed.), Identity: Community, Culture, Difference, London: Lawrence and Wishart, 207–221. Walz, H. (2020a), Dance with God or the Devil? Interreligious and Intercultural Debates on Dance and Religion(s). Internationale Forschungskonferenz 1.–7. März 2020 an der Augustana-Hochschule Neuendettelsau, Interkulturelle Theologie. Zeitschrift für Missionswissenschaft 20 (2), 420–426. Walz, H. (2020b), Dance with God or the Devil? Interreligious and intercultural Debates on Dance and Religion(s) – Internationale Forschungskonferenz”, Augustana-Journal 2020/ 21, 30–34, https://augustana.de/fileadmin/user_upload/dokumente/ertraege/augustanajournal/Journal_2020_Innen_Internet.pdf [12/14/2020].

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Part I Dance in Interdisciplinary Approaches

Heike Walz

Dance as Third Space Interreligious, Intercultural and Interdisciplinary Debates on Dance and Religion(s) in the Perspective of Religious Studies and Intercultural Theology

Without any cheating, without any ease, I can say that when I think, I dance.1

To think is to dance2 , and to dance is to think, the French philosopher Jean-Luc Nancy says: “[…] I say that dance is a thought.”3 Dance, in this sense, is not just a metaphor for thinking, but bodily thought in itself (cf. Fischer-Geboers: 2017, 222f). “Dancing is Thinking” (Traub: 2012), some choreographers say as well. Dance as ephemeral, performative and bodily phenomenon is a challenge. It is a reflection in the “in-between”4 (Alarcón: 2006, 7) of theory and practice, body and mind. It transforms academic reflection on dance and religion(s).5 We reflect upon dance as a highly controversial subject in the history and present of religious communities. The purpose of this chapter6 is to provide an overview of research questions on ‘dance and religion(s)’ in religious studies and intercultural theology and to explain why I have chosen the metaphor of the ‘Third Space’ for ‘interreligious’, ‘intercultural’7 , and interdisciplinary perspectives on dance. My contribution can also be read as an extended introduction to the present volume, as it also explains its specific theoretical framework.

1 “Sans aucune tricherie, sans aucune facilité, je peux dire que quand je pense, je danse” (Nancy: 2005a, 101; translation by the author). 2 I propose to work with a discursive approach to the definition of ‘dance’, which includes a minimal working definition that understands dance as ‘rhythmic body movement, mostly to music’, cf. below in section 2. 3 “[…] je dis que la danse est une pensée […]” (Nancy: 2005b, 111; translation by the author). 4 Translation by the author. 5 I propose to work with a discursive approach to ‘religion’ as well, using a ‘working definition’ of ‘religion’: it places basic human experiences in a broader horizon of interpretation of reality that transcends them. With respect to the difference between ‘religious’ and ‘spiritual’ cf. below in section 2. 6 My special thanks are given to Christine Lienemann-Perrin, Professor Emerita for Missiology, Ecumenics and Contemporary Intercultural Issues from Switzerland, for her most valuable comments on this paper. 7 In section 3 I will unfold in more detail, in which way the terms ‘interreligious’ and ‘intercultural’ (and sometimes ‘cross-cultural’) are used here.

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First, the controversies about dance in religious or spiritual contexts, especially in Christianity, will be sketched out under the motto ‘Dance with God or the Devil’ (1). Since there are no universally valid notions of ‘dance’ and ‘religion’ in all cultural, religious and linguistic contexts, I propose a discursive approach to the use of the terms (2). Subsequently, the ‘interreligious, intercultural and interdisciplinary’ approach to dance and religion(s), which has hardly been undertaken in research so far, is explained (3). The following two sections draw a map of discourses in research on dance, first in European mission history and intercultural theology, and then in religious studies. ‘Dance revivals’ show the need for decolonizing intercultural theology (4). I propose a typology of research on dance in religious studies, with a focus on those works that are interculturally and religiously comparative. Since religious studies is based on a ‘modern Western’ dichotomous and European-Christian perception of dance and religion, one can see in dance, as in a ‘burning glass’, that a decolonizing epistemology is needed in religious studies as well. (5). In consequence, I propose to open a ‘Third Space’ – using a metaphor of the postcolonial thinker Homi Bhabha (Rutherford: 1990) – to challenge such dichotomies (6). My interest in multidimensional perspectives that combine theoretical considerations with specific case studies of religions and constructive theological thought in this volume, stems from my comparative research on dance in different cultural and religious contexts (cf. Walz: 2019a).8 Explorative dance projects with my students in Wuppertal, Berlin and Neuendettelsau have been mutually inspiring.9 Dancing Argentinian tango for many years moved me to reflect about dance as a spiritual experience. As Professor of Systematic Theology in Buenos Aires in Argentina, I delved deeper into the specific ‘tango culture’: the history, cultural(-religious) significance and poetry of tango in the region of the Río de la Plata. My interpretation

8 Theo Sundermeier, famous German religious and mission studies scholar, who had just turned eighty in 2016, asked me about my current research, I answered: “It’s about dance and religion.” He replied: “You are picking up, where I left off.” Sundermeier’s Farewell Lecture at the University of Heidelberg was entitled: “It is a Dance in Heaven. Christ is the Master of the Dancers. An Intercultural Meditation” (Translation of the author, Sundermeier: 2008). 9 Cf. e.g. the seminar about dance, theology and gender that I taught in Wuppertal in 2012 and at Berlin Humboldt University in 2012/13. The classes and workshops of Ángel F. Méndez Montoya around the cross, incarnation and resurrection that I could accompany in Wuppertal in 2014–2015 are unforgettable. In the years 2015–2016, I experimented with the students dancing the Beatitudes in the Wuppertal “Unterbarmer Hauptkirche”, accompanied by the Director of Church Music Jens-Peter Enk at the organ or piano. In 2016 we celebrated together a ‘Tango Service’ at the Church Divinity School Wuppertal-Bethel in Germany. Ángel F. Méndez Montoya has launched an intercultural exploratory ‘micro-danza’ project in contact with nature that took place in the hybrid digital-local space between Mexico and my students here at Augustana in 2021.

Dance as Third Space

of the Tango Argentino as a “transcultural”10 language of migration, gender parody and spirituality (cf. Walz: 2012) also shaped my theoretical framework to relate dance and religion(s). It is no coincidence that some contributions in this anthology refer to the Argentinian tango.11

1.

“Dance with God or the Devil?”

Coming back to the motto of the International Dance Conference, Katrien Pype’s article “Dancing for God or the Devil” (2006) about the Pentecostal “Holy Mountain Church” in Kinshasa, Congo was inspiring. She recounts: Pasteur Gervais raises his voice when he begins to denounce the songs and dances of these musicians, because they are mosala ya Satani, achievements of the devil. Only sacred dances, i.e. dances performed during rituals that glorify God or seek God’s assistance, are spiritually safe (Pype: 2006, 307.310).12

Pastor Gervais, who founded this church in 1999, argues: “Africans cannot adore Jesus without singing and dancing” (ibid., 303). His church belongs to the “hot churches” (ibid., 304), where dance is an important medium to get in contact with the invisible world, either divine or occult. They experience the world as a spiritual battle between God and the devil. Through singing and dancing the believers fall into a trance and lose control over their bodies. Dancers are filled with the Holy Spirit, but there is a problem: evil spirits can also enter the souls of believers. The pastor argues that the believers have to distinguish between “‘worldly’ and ‘Christian’ dances” (Pype: 2006, 298). The dances borrow from traditional ritual dances, popular urban dance and biblical tales (cf. Pype: 2006, 296.304). To be Christian, they have to glorify God and Jesus Christ in the lyrics: Everything depends on the lyrics, worship should be directed to the divine to entertain God and not the Christians (Pype: 2006, 310). It is important that neither the music nor the body positions sacralize the dances, but that the lyrics sung while performing certain body movements make the dance divine (Pype: 2006, 311).

10 “Transculturation” refers to the complex processes of merging and mutating cultural influences. It was developed by the Cuban thinker Fernando Ortíz (1940, 86–90) – long before German-speaking philosophers used the term. 11 Cf. the chapters of Tatjana Schnütgen, Jasmine Suhner, and Raphael Sartorius. 12 Italics in Original.

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This example rises the interesting question: What types of dance are most pleasing to God? It also exemplifies that traditional ritual dances can be incorporated in Christian service. The spirit of the global Pentecostal movement, however, is divided on the subject of dance. In some churches and communities dancing is completely forbidden. Others consider dance as part of their “peumatological aesthetiques of renewal” (Félix-Jäger: 2017, 40; cf. 39–66). Dance and trance can be an element of charismatic-pentecostal enthusiastic, emotional, and embodied experience of religiosity (cf. Walz: 2016, 514). This example is not an exception in World Christianity.13 Dance is sometimes considered a sin. The “Gospel Broadcasting Network” in the USA, as part of the Church of Christ, for instance, advises: “The truth about modern dancing is that it can create lust and lead to temptation, is often the very definition of the sinful behavior called ‘Lasciviousness.’”14 Elsewhere dance means liberation from oppression. Carl P. Opsahl, musician and street pastor in Oslo, describes hip hop dance as shaped by urban contexts of struggle and oppression drawing from black Christian and Islamic sources (cf. Opsahl: 2016, 13.14). Latin American eco-feminist theologians connect dance with the liberation of the body and the whole cosmos (e.g. Ress: 2006, 145). To sum up: Whereas dance is sometimes associated with evil spirits, loss of control, ecstasy, lust, eroticism, temptation, seductive femininity or transgression of the heteronormative order, elsewhere it is considered a medium to experience the healing and saving presence of God, Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit. In European mainline churches the dispute about dancing is rather not about God or the devil. The majority of the faithful just prefer silent devotion and ‘orderly’ services (as dance is perceived as messy, chaotic or embarrassing in their eyes), while others have the feeling that Sunday services without body, emotional and ecstatic movements or performances can no longer satisfy the needs of contemporary religious people in the 21st century (cf. Gundlach: 2004, 139).15 It seems to be a question of taste, habits and talent for dancing. Furthermore, dance in (post)secular societies is primarily viewed as sport or art.

13 ‘World Christianity’ is an interdisciplinary field of research mainly based in anglophone institutes for mission and theology studies in the global North that explores “contemporary manifestations of Christianity/ies worldwide, exemplifying translocal connectivities, multiple centers, and integrative forces” (Frederiks/Nagy: 2021, 1). The number of publications about ‘Word Christianity’ “seems to multiply on a daily basis” (ibid.). 14 https://gbntv.org/the-truth-about-dancing/ [15.10.2020]. 15 Lovers of Biodanza (“Dance of life”, i.e. a therapeutical Latin American dance that increases wellbeing) or other dances borrowed from non-European contexts long for such spiritual experience in German churches. Feminist women, followers of modern and meditative dances, or young people who dance techno likewise.

Dance as Third Space

Regarding the history of the Christian tradition, “[…] Christianity adopt[s] contradictory attitudes toward dance” (Gaston/Gaston 2014, 188). Dance was an element of worship, and there were groups (e.g. the Gnostics) and Coptic churches dancing in early times (cf. 2014, 189), but Church Fathers are famous for their polemics against dance. However, dance has not (always) been rejected ‘per se’, and it has not always been “criminalized” (Rohmann: 2013, 18016 ), but there is also a hidden story of the dancing churches (cf. Dickason: 2021).17 Despite his fear of the devil, Martin Luther (1483–1546), for instance, was rather moderate and pragmatic towards dance. He did not want to condemn dance, as long as it was danced modestly and with moderation (cf. Mourey: 2016, 98ff). However, church music (not church dance) is the heritage of Protestant Reformation. These few examples may suffice for now to show that in Christianity one seems to be “confronted with a massive history of repression and defense” (Fermor: 2001, 648). Dance as performance was either sacralized or demonized.18 A variety of reasons have been given for these conflicting valuations of dance since the early Christian church, e.g. the philosophical dualism between body and mind, between emotions and rationality, the appreciation of asceticism combined with chastity, likewise the rejection of eroticism, the patriarchal gender hierarchy connecting women with nature and body, the ‘uncontrollability’ of ecstasy, the hermeneutics of domination and subjugation of the Imperial Church, the prohibition for Christians to work as actors or dancers during the first centuries, and the rejection of ‘pagan’ cultic dances on the way to the formation of a ‘Christian’ identity (cf. e.g. Sequeira-Prabhu: 1978, 231–241; Gaston/Gaston: 2014, 188f). In contrast, ‘dance revivals’ have been taken place since the 20th century, mainly in independent churches but also in former missionary churches in Africa, Asia, the Americas and the Pacific. Dancing in the spirit has occurred spontaneously in many Pentecostal and Charismatic movements.19 However, a comprehensive history of these reasons, the role and significance of dance both in the history of ‘Christianity in Western Europe’20 and in global Christianity is still missing. The

16 Translation by the author. 17 Cf. the contributions of Camille Lepeigneux, Martin Leutzsch and Philipp Knäble in this volume. 18 Dance, like other art forms, has also been instrumentalized politically in a quasi-religious manner for propaganda by National Socialism in Germany (cf. Karina/Kant: 1999). 19 Cf. section 4. 20 With regard to Christianity in different continents, I use the geographical terms used in studies of world Christianity: Christianity in Africa, Europe, Asia, the Americas, and the Pacific. Here a distinction is made again between ‘Christianity in Western Europe’ and ‘Christianity in Eastern Europe’ (cf. Farhadian: 2012, v–vi; cf. also Sanneh/McClymond: 2016a). The notion of ‘Western’ forms of Christianity, in studies of World Christianity, is used for the “link between Christianity and Western culture” (Sanneh/McClymond: 2016b, 3). It points to the hegemonic cultural imprint on Christianity before the present “post-Western phase” (ibid.) of World Christianity that has become a

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topic of dance does not figure prominently in the Studies of World Christianity either. The comprehensive 700-page volume “The Wiley Blackwell Companion to World Christianity” (Sanneh/McClymond: 2016a), for example, lacks a contribution on ‘Dance in World Christianity’.21 This volume intents to stimulate debate on contemporary and historic relationships between dance and religion(s) in various cultural-religious traditions and academic disciplines. The question then arises of how to deal with the different and disparate meanings of ‘dance’ and ‘religion’ in culturally-religiously plural contexts and interdisciplinary debates.

2.

‘Dance’ and ‘Religion’? “A universally applicable definition of dance is also difficult to produce because of the different understandings and concepts of dance in various cultures” (Gundlach: 2004, 139).

The “Great Dance Dictionary. Dance Cultures, Epochs, Persons, Works”22 (Hartmann/Woitas: 2 2017) with more than six hundred entries, from ballet to the dance forms of the Beijing Opera, accordingly invites to a dance journey through the whole world (cf. 2 2017, vii), but there is no reflection on the problem of how ‘dance’ can be defined in a cross-cultural perspective. This is problematic, as Gundlach points out above. Furthermore, it is about dance in different religious traditions and disciplines in this volume. How is it possible to reflect about ‘dance’ in such different settings? In accordance with Michel Foucault’s discourse theory in Religious studies (cf. Kippenberg/Stuckrad: 2003; Bergunder: 2012; Feldtkeller: 2014, 119–153; Walz: 2016, 122f), I suggested to the participants of our international Dance Conference to be guided by the following discourse-analytical question: How is ‘dance’ understood in their disciplines and their specific examples of dancing? What about the terms used for ‘dance’ in the respective languages as this volume is a multi-lingual study

global religion. Moreover, it must be kept in mind that theological and historical literature speaks of ‘Western Christianity’ in the sense of the Latin Western Church as opposed to the Eastern Church. 21 Some of the chapters in this volume will contribute to fill this gap, cf. the contributions of Kimerer L. LaMothe, Camille Lepeigneux, Martin Leutzsch, Philip Knäble, Tatjana Schnütgen, and Nkosinathi Sithole. 22 Translation by the author.

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of dance and religion(s) with sources written in Hebrew, Ancient Greek, Latin, French, German, Persian, Togolese Ge, Zulu and Brazilian Portuguese.23 However, I suggested to the contributors a ‘minimal working definition’ – not too broad, so that boundaries would be blurred, but also not too narrow – that should be proofed and modified in the course of their studies and contexts. Following encyclopedias, dance could be ‘rhythmic body movement, mostly to music’.24 At the same time, I suggested a discursive approach to religion for this volume. From a postcolonial and historic perspective, I assume that the modern concept of ‘religion’ is the result of interreligious encounters in the course of which the respective faith communities gradually adopted and changed the ‘Western’ concept of ‘religion’ (cf. Beyer: 2013, especially 156ff). Therefore, with regard to ‘dance’, I proposed to ask the following questions: What is understood by ‘religious’ or ‘spiritual’ dance or by ‘profane’ or ‘secular’ dance in the respective contexts? As is well known, there are numerous controversially discussed theories of religious studies on the concept of ‘religion’, which in turn participate in the discursive construction of what is understood by religion. This debate on the concept of religion is ultimately not conclusive (cf. Stausberg: 2012b, 35 and 38). As a result, a discursive concept of religion is taken as a basis here (analogous to the notion of ‘dance’), since in the study of religions it is less a matter of “normalizing definitions” than of “describing the effects of these definitions in a field of discourse” (Kippenberg/Stuckrad: 2003, 14). This discursive approach prevents dance from being understood a priori as secular, as is often the case in European contexts. Conversely, dance does not have to be religious a priori, even in non-European contexts. Instead of a dichotomous understanding between religiosity and secularity I assume a dynamic relationship. Dance can be originally religiously connoted and secularized in the course of history, and vice versa. Dance can oscillate between secular and religious connotations. The question is, why a dance is interpreted as secular or as religious or spiritual, or as both (cf. Walz: 2016, 23f; Feldtkeller: 2014, 50). Patricia L. Beaman provides a variety of examples of how dance has changed “from Ritual to Spectacle” (2018), as the subtitle of her books reads. Thus, I assume that dance can be “art, ritual or entertainment” (Charles/Tijime Justin: 214, 251) and that any dance can be open to an explicit ‘religious’ or ‘spiritual’ interpretation (cf. Fermor: 2001, 648). ‘Spiritual’ indicates the more personal and individual form of religiosity (cf. Walz: 2006, 172f), while ‘religious’ refers to a

23 In some languages different concepts of dance are reflected in certain terms, like in Spanish danza for ritual dance and baile for secular dance (cf. Gundlach: 2004, 142). 24 This short definition is close to the Brockhaus encyclopedia (2006, 46). It implies that it might not be reasonable to equate dance with pure movement, because otherwise the borders to other movement phenomena become blurred.

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specific tradition within a community. As a minimal working definition, I assume that ‘religion’ places basic human experiences in a broader horizon of interpretation of reality that transcends them (cf. Feldtkeller 2010, 44). Dance as an aesthetic performative art may open new paths for interreligious and intercultural encounters, dynamic research on religion, and for interdisciplinary debates, as I will unfold now.

3.

Interreligious, Intercultural, and Interdisciplinary Debates on Dance and Religion(s) “The difference of art – its beautiful, potent, and sometimes transgressive, otherness – has the ability to awaken uncharted pathways for understanding the increasingly multiple event called ‘inter-religious dialogue’” (Anderson: 2013, 102).

The capacity of art as visual, sensory, emotional and performed instance can transform approaches to the study of religions, and the academic field of interreligious and intercultural dialogues. Nevertheless the term ‘arts’ in the European sense might even not exist in Asia and Africa (cf. Küster: 2016, 370). Dance might even not be considered ‘art’ everywhere. Dance touches the aesthetic dimension of religion, and vice versa the religious side of art. Dance as ephemeral art can move beyond discursive reason and even disturb rational approaches, because it is non-verbal body language that involves all kind of senses. Thus, dance may change the perception of the self, the other, and the world. If ‘dance is thought’, in the sense of Jean-Luc Nancy, as mentioned in the beginning, it may change the understanding of ‘religions’, ‘spirituality’, and concepts of ‘interreligious’ and ‘intercultural’ encounters as well. On the practical level, contemporary interreligious and intercultural projects around the globe do use dance as a medium for interreligious peace work. The ritual dance Tari Sesaji Tri Yoni Saraswati, for instance, was enacted by women “from several Indonesian provinces and countries and religions such as Bali Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam, Christianity, Judaism, Confucianism, and ethnic faith groups” (Butler: 2019, 21). It embodies the Indonesian principle “unity in diversity” (Butler: 2019, 11) and was performed at 2004 Parliament for World’s Religions. Dance was also part of Christian-Jewish memory work and reconciliation after the Shoa

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(cf. Krondorfer: 1988).25 The international Dance Company “Dance Battery” in Manhattan, founded by Jonathan Hollander, initiated an intercultural program for unaccompanied minors and teenage refugees in Germany, called the “Dance Winning.”26 Dance can “break barriers and build trust between young German students and their newly arrived classmates from war-torn countries.”27 Therefore, dance has often been ascribed the function of a universal language, in the sense of “the mother art” (Sachs: 1963 [1937], 3). In Religious Studies, the “aesthetic turn” (Wilke: 2020, 107; cf. Koch/Wilkens: 2020) has given rise to study how various forms of art, especially music, offer opportunities for such interreligious and intercultural encounters (cf. Bernhardt/Grüter: 2019; Grüter: 2017). However, the role of dance has not much taken in account so far. It is my aim to awake such ‘uncharted pathways’. For this purpose, the key terms ‘interreligious’ and ‘intercultural’ have to be specified in more detail. ‘Interreligious’ is used here as an umbrella term for verbal or nonverbal encounters, relationships and forms of communication between people of different religious traditions and spiritualities (cf. Bernhardt: 2019, 76).28 Therefore, the notion ‘interreligious’ comprises a comparative view on dance in different religions. Moreover, it includes “transreligious” people, who combine several religious traditions in their own person in the sense of “religious hybridity”29 (Bernhardt: 2019, 131; cf. 131–146); it encompasses the “Intrareligious-Dialogue” in the sense of Raimon Panikkar (1999) that deals with the whole person and moves beyond rational and emotional discourses, like Panikkar himself, who combines Catholic-Christian and Hindu tradition in his person.30 The term ‘intercultural’ is applied in a similar vein as ‘interreligious’ to express relationships and communication processes in culturally pluralist and hybrid contexts (cf. Bernhardt: 2019, 23–29).

25 Cf. some more examples: https://static.leipzig.de/fileadmin/mediendatenbank/leipzig-de/Stadt/Religionsgemeinschaften_und_Interreligioeser_Dialog/GoodPractices_E.pdf; https://www.crs.org/sites/ default/files/tools-research/interreligious_action_for_peace_march_2017.pdf; https://www.saltoyouth.net/tools/otlas-partner-finding/project/inter-religious-dialogue-through-art.9911/; https:// www.crs.org/sites/default/files/tools-research/interreligious_action_for_peace_march_2017.pdf [1/ 19/2021]. 26 https://batterydance.org/refugee-integration/ [1/19/2021]. 27 Ibid. 28 Nowadays even the term ‘interreligious dialogue’ is used in a broad sense “to refer to any form or degree of constructive engagement between religious traditions” (Cornille: 2013, xii). 29 Translations of the terms by the author. 30 Against that Panikkar distinguishes ‘interreligious dialogue’ from ‘intrareligious dialogue’, because in his view only the latter will “contribute to the freeing of a full humanness of humanity” (Panikkar: 1999, 109).

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The intersectionality of interreligious and intercultural encounters is assumed here, since ‘culture’ and ‘religion’ are not clearly distinguishable. ‘Intersectionality’ even goes far beyond, it comprises a postcolonial perspective on the intersection of such dimensions as ethnicity, sexuality, gender, social status and age as well (cf. Walz: 2017). Dance forms are marked by cultural contexts, but dance also shapes culture (cf. Nürnberger: 2015, 9), it can also bridge cultures and connect different worlds. The field of intercultural issues is also addressed by Christian ‘Intercultural Theology’ to which I will come later. Interreligious, intercultural, and interdisciplinary debates on dance and religion(s) will be addressed in four ways in this volume, as ‘comparative perspectives on dance in religions’, ‘dance conflicts in interreligious and intercultural contact zones’, ‘Christian theologies of dance’, and finally as ‘interdisciplinary approach to dance and religion(s)’. 3.1

Comparative Perspectives on Dance in Religions

The comparative view of dance in different religions first takes a close look at Christianity, afterwards experts of Judaism, ancient Greek religion, Islamic Sufism, Afro-Brazilian religion Umbanda, Togolese religions provide insights on dance.31 This selection is of course not comprehensive.32 We are aware that postmodern and postcolonial theories have raised considerable methodological and epistemological doubts in Religious studies about the possibility of comparing religions (cf. Schmid-Leukel/Nehring: 2016). Postcolonial critique is taken in account insofar that comparison always starts from one’s own religious horizon and requires self-reflection about one’s own standpoint and the process of comparison, as it is implemented in this introduction. In addition to that, ‘religions’ are not viewed as homogenous entities but as dynamic and processual phenomena that are shaped by their “entangled histories”33 (Conrad/Randeria: 2002), as postcolonial debates in the field of Global History have underlined. Religious studies equally emphasize the “local and translocal entanglements”34 (Bretfeld: 2012) between religions. Religions are “the result of

31 Cf. the chapters of Susanne Talabardon, Karin Schlapbach, Shahzad Bashir, Amélé Adamavi Ekué and Inga Scharf da Silva; Dominika Hardrysiewicz reflects about the performance lecture on Classical Indian Hindu Dance delivered by Dr. Saju George SJ. Due to his restless engagement for the communities affected by the COVID 19 pandemia and the cyclone Amphan in in Kalahrdaya in India we have to renounce a contribution by himself. 32 It would have been interesting to include more examples of globally widespread religions such as Buddhism, e.g. Tibetan Cham dance (cf. Pearlman: 2002). 33 “Geteilte Geschichten” (Translation by the author) is part of the title of their paper. 34 Translation by the author.

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encounter, blending, distinction, transformation” (Ruparell: 2013, 130). They have emerged through mutual exchange processes with other religious traditions, they even define themselves in the midst of such reciprocal influences. Hence religions are not independent but marked by their entangled histories with other religions (cf. Adams: 2013, 121–125; Walz: 2019b, 29–31). Early Islam, for example, viewed from a religious studies’ perspective, developed as distinct religion in pre-Islamic Arabia in contact with Christianity, Judaism, polytheism and Zoroastrianism (cf. Lindstedt: 2018; Donner: 2018). The important significance of Islamic Sufism on the emergence of bhakti devotional Hinduism (cf. Burchett: 2019) is another example. Religions are thus constantly in motion. This is even more true for individuals who often do construct their own religiosity as a patchwork. This dynamic understanding of religions is fueled by the notion of ‘dance’ as ‘dance thinking’, mentioned at the beginning. When we look at dance in different religions in this volume, it does not mean to consider them as static and essentialist entities. At first glance, it seems that sacred dance, for instance, plays an important role in almost all religions compared to Christianity in Western Europe, as part of rites of passage, as a medium of communication with the invisible world and as an element of cultural-religious daily life. A closer look reveals that dancers may struggle with conflicts within their religious traditions as well. Sufi Dervish dances in Islam, for instance, have experienced controversy over their orthodoxy since their emergence in the 13th century, even linked to the accusation that Dervish music and dance would be pagan or Christian (cf. Schweizer: 1980, 192). The sacred dance of Bhāratanāt.yam in India is marked by the evolution from a religious Hindu temple dance to an artistic dance performed in theatres. The conflicts about the temple dancers (Devadāsis) is part of this history, especially in the late 19th century during British colonialism, when the dancers were accused of prostitution during a campaign to abolish the dance (cf. Gaston: 2005, 26ff; 80ff). ‘All religions dance, with the exception of Christianity’. However, this statement seems too simple. It tends to overlook the hidden history of Christian ‘dance churches’, the ‘dance revivals’ in many churches, and the conflicts about dancing in other religious traditions. Various contributions in this volume address the crucial question, what criteria are applied in the respective traditions for an accepted religious dance practice.35

35 Cf. Part II and III in this volume.

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3.2

Dance Conflicts in Interreligious and Intercultural Contact Zones

On a second level, the present volume addresses internal conflicts on dance in religious communities, which are the result of interreligious and intercultural “contact zones” (cf. Pratt: 2 2008 [1992], 8).36 Such conflicts can arise from the unresolved question of how to deal with the influences of other religious and cultural traditions mentioned above. Taking the example of Christianity, according to church historian Carl Andresen (1961), the early Church banned sacred dances as a defense against dances associated with Greek ‘pagan’ cults, Gnostic movements or sectarian, and also in contrast to Jewish sacred dances.37 Folk dances, the funeral feast and funeral dances were inextricably linked with ‘pagan’ ideas, as were victory dances at the grave of the martyrs, which seemed to church fathers to be a ‘paganization’ of Christian customs, as Ronald Sequeira-Prabhu explains (cf. 1979, 235). The banishment of dance reflects a failed or missing inculturation of foreign cultural and religious influences, mostly due to fear of ‘syncretism’.38 In the background there was apparently a more or less exclusivist position towards other religions, if we follow the familiar threefold scheme of exclusivist, inclusivist and pluralist positions in Christianity in relation to other religious claims to truth (cf. Bernhardt: 2019, 326–339).39 Christianity’s claim to absoluteness vis-à-vis other cultures and religions40 made it difficult to establish an official sacred dance tradition in Christianity. Notwithstanding existing Christian dance practices have been overlooked and understudied. Recent scholarship reveals a more complex and

36 Pratt originally coined the term “contact zone” for imperial encounters: “It invokes the space and time where subjects previously separated by geography and history are co-present, the point at which their trajectories now intersect” and “it emphazises how subjects get constituted in and by their relations to each other” (Pratt: 2 2008 [1992], 8). In this sense contact zones can also refer to interreligious and intercultural encounters. 37 Cf. the critique of Klinghardt (2004/2005), who questions the separation of Christianity from Judaism and pagan Hellenism during the first centuries of Christianity (2004/2005, 10f). He assumes the celebration of a “sympotic service” (2004/2005, 12; translation by the author), celebrated as a Greek ‘symposium’ including a liturgy, prayer, music, dance, wine and a eucharist meal (cf. 2004/2005, 12ff). Dance was interpreted as gift of the Holy Spirit (cf. 2004/2005, 21ff). 38 ‘Syncretism’ is an “ambiguous term” (schillernder[n] Begriff, Bernhardt: 2008, 267, translation by the author) that can be used in a descriptive and normative sense as well as in a positive and negative sense. In the context mentioned above, it would express a normative pejorative sense (cf. Bernhardt: 2008, 267–268). 39 Cf. also the attempts to expand the scheme and to critically question or reject it (cf. Bernhardt: 2019, 326–339. Martin Rötting mentions “dance as part of Paul Knitter’s ‘acceptance model’ in interreligious dialogue” (cf. Rötting: 2009, 11). 40 According to Marie-Thérèse Mourey, an exclusivist paradigm also applies to the Protestant Reformation in the 16th century as it distinguished itself from Greek-Dionysian, Jewish sacred and Catholic Jesuit dance traditions (cf. Mourey: 2016, 103ff).

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ambiguous history of sacred dance in Christianity in Western Europe (cf. Dickason: 2021). As body language and performance, however, dance also has the potential to cross cultural and religious boundaries. For dancers, especially in international dance companies, dance can bring the unspeakable to speech as the choreographer Pina Bausch (1940–2009) said: “In dance I could express all the feelings I could not express with words” (Schulze-Reuber 2 2008, 52). On the one hand this transgressive aspect of dance can cause conflicts about identity and truth claims, on the other hand it can have the capacity to serve as a medium for interreligious and intercultural encounters.41 I will now turn to Christian theologies of dance. 3.3

Christian Theologies of Dance Dance, then, wherever you may be, I am the Lord of the Dance, said he, And I’ll lead you all, where ever you may be, And I’ll lead you all in the Dance, said he.42

In Christian theologies, dance has so far been a more or less marginal topic. However, the motif of Christ as a dancer is fairly common in the history of theology and art (cf. Leutzsch: 2017). Sydney B. Carter’s (1915–2004) hymn “Lord of the Dance”, composed in 1963, is probably the most popular contemporary example for the connection of music, dance and Christian worship. The melody is a tune from the Shakers, who practiced dancing during their rituals (cf. Kusmierz: 2009, 3). The lyrics portray Jesus’ incarnation, life and mission as dance, though the Lord of the Dance is never named as Jesus. Carter seemed to be inspired by the Hindu deity Shiva, god of the dance, as well.43 Christological and Trinitarian theological ideas have certainly been associated with dance. However, the notion of a ‘dancing God’ in Christian theology of Western Europe was probably hindered by philosophical notions of the “unmoved mover”44 (Wüthrich: 2019, 5). Notwithstanding, theology surrounding the ecumenical movement of the 20th century rediscovered the notion of perichoresis (interpenetration) from the Eastern Orthodox Christian tradition of the early centuries. The three di-

41 Cf. the chapters of Dominika Hadrysiewicz, Iris B. Steil and Raphael Sartorius in this volume. 42 Cf. the lyrics of the “Lord of the Dance” in https://www.godtube.com/popular-hymns/lord-of-thedance/ [1/19/2021]. 43 https://www.umcdiscipleship.org/resources/history-of-hymns-lord-of-the-dance [19.1.2021]. 44 Translation by the author.

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vine persons within the Trinity were creatively visualized by feminist and Protestant theologians as a ‘dancing unity’ (cf. Wüthrich: 2019, 6). Helga Kuhlmann (2008) criticizes a sort of Protestant hostility to dance and asks, using the words of Jesus in the New Testament (Mt 11:17; ESV): “We played the flute for you, and you did not dance”? However, interest in theologies of dance has grown in recent years, not only in the context of education in schools and Christian communities (cf. Pfaff: 2006). Protestant ‘theologies of dance’ often refer to Paul Tillich’s (1886–1965) theology of culture interpreting dance as “an expression of the ultimate concern” (cf. Schwan: 2019, 77). In “Dance: What it Means To Me”, inspired by the expressive dance of Mary Wigman (1886–1973), Tillich asked “how the lost unity could be regained between cult and dance on the hard and unreceptive soil of Protestantism” (1957, 20). Ángel F. Méndez Montoya (2014) lets himself be challenged by Pina Bausch’s dance theatre and picks up her question: “What moves dancers?” (2014, 6). Therefore, he, as ‘dance theologian’ asks: “And what moves the theologian?” (2014, 7). Human daily life and the body become Méndez Montoya’s starting points for theological reflection about dance (2014, 7ff). Consequently, this volume seeks to contribute some ‘mosaic stones’ to Christian constructive theologies of dance.45 Perhaps in the future an interreligious kaleidoscope of theologies of dance from various religious backgrounds might emerge. 3.4

Interdisciplinary Approaches to Dance and Religion(s)

Dance(s) and religion(s) require an interdisciplinary perspective, for dance moves at the intersection of art, sport, culture, ethnicity, society, history, politics, language, and religion. The conversation between religious studies, Christian theology, dance studies, musicology, philosophy, classical philology, history, Jewish studies, Islamic studies, African studies, and ethnology/anthropology has proven to be very stimulating during the international Dance Conference in preparation for this volume. Various subjects of Christian theology are involved: intercultural theology, biblical studies,46 and practical theology, also in dialogue between Protestant and Roman Catholic perspectives. In view of this broad interdisciplinary spectrum Cultural studies serve as a common reference. The various cultural turns, such as the performative and body turns (cf. Bachmann-Medick: 4 2010), have opened up new avenues for the study

45 Cf. the chapters of Ángel F. Méndez Montoya, Riyako C. Hikota and Jasmine Suhner in this volume. 46 Cf. Adams/Apostolos-Cappadona 1990 and Oesterley: 1930 in section 5. However, detailed biblical exegeses on dance in the Old and New Testaments are not covered in this volume.

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of performing arts, and thus for dance studies. The paradigm shift towards poststructuralism, discourse studies, gender and queer studies, deconstruction, and postcolonial thinking “offer something to use to dance scholars, and in turn may be reshaped by an encounter with dance as the object or social practice under investigation” (Desmond: 1997, 5). Dance is thought, as Jean-Luc Nancy says (as I mentioned in the beginning). Dance is bodily thought. Therefore epistemological questions run like a thread through this volume. “Embodiment” (Storch/Cantieni et al.: 2017) theories assume that cognition is formed through bodily processes. If one follows this approach, then the human body has a specific body knowledge (cf. Koch: 2007; Gehm/Husemann: 2007). Thus, on an epistemological level dance practice generates knowledge. This is a challenge for the studies on religion(s) and spirituality, because dance becomes a specific nonverbal source of religious knowledge.47 After these theoretical questions about the interreligious, intercultural, and interdisciplinary debates on dance and religion(s), I will now outline the controversies over dance in European colonial and missionary times and in intercultural theology, that have led me to propose a decolonizing epistemology in intercultural theology (and subsequently in religious studies).48

4.

Mission History and Intercultural Theology: Dance (Revivals) as Resistance?

The European missionary movement was neither unanimous nor homogeneous with regard to dance, but it was a controversial field. Dance seems to reflect the struggles for interpretative power. On the one hand, missionaries rejected indigenous traditions as ‘pagan’ and prohibited not only indigenous dances and music in Christian worship, but also the participation in dances during native mourning and initiation rituals, e.g. in African churches in the 19th century (cf. Roser: 2005, 113). It almost looks as if the processes of demarcation in the early church are being repeated here. On the other hand, European Catholic Franciscan and Dominican missionaries in Latin America “incorporated” (Bailey: 1999, 37) indigenous traditions of song, dance, pantomime and drama as acculturation in their Christian rituals. Church dance policies were not only powerfully enforced and dancing bodies of the faithful disciplined, regulated and controlled, following the power theory of the French 47 Cf. the chapters of Stephanie Schroedter, Kimerer L. LaMothe, Karin Schlapbach, Ángel F. Méndez Montoya, Jasmine Suhner, Iris B. Steil, and Raphael Sartorius. 48 The discourses about dance in religious studies and intercultural theology sometimes overlap but are displayed here separately.

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philosopher Michel Foucault in “Discipline and Punishment” (Foucault: 1977), but also negotiated and thwarted. Indigenous dance performances, e.g. by the Qollas, during Catholic rituals for the saints in the Cuzco region of Peru became “an arena of confrontation and negotiation” (Mendoza: 2000, 26) since the 16th century. They re-created the heterodox Spanish Catholic cult of saints because of their “equivalence with certain European devotional traditions according to which dance could be considered ‘a way of glorifying God’” (Mendoza: 2000, 27). Ritual danza (i.e. dance) performances served to redefine publicly indigenous identity and “actively transform the society” (2000, 6). African diaspora religions emerged from the transatlantic enslavement and deportation of African people since the European colonial conquest in the 16th century. Haitian Vodou, Cuban Yoruba, and Candomblé, rely heavily on dance in their ceremonial practices reaching for healing, bonding and goodwill, and bringing ancestral and spiritual embodies wisdom to the communities (cf. Daniel: 2005). They were suppressed and misunderstood as superstitious beliefs, slanderous behavior and so-called syncretism in the pejorative sense by European-Christian worldview, and this story continues to this day: Black religious dances matter.49 However, ‘dance revivals’ in contemporary Christian churches in Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Pacific, especially since the 1930’s and 1950’s, have taken place. The question is, whether dance revivals can be interpreted as an element of postcolonial religious resistance to European colonial and missionary rejection of their own religious worldviews and forms of expression. Is dance part of a process of independence and liberation from the prescription that Christians ‘should not dance’? African-initiated churches are a well-known example,50 as is ‘Highlife Music’ in Ghana, a transculturation of popular Ghanaian (pop) music and Christian content (cf. Arlt: 2009). In any case, a sort of ‘dance reverse mission’ comes back to Europe, namely by charismatic and Pentecostal so-called migrant churches (cf. Azamede: 2016). However, indigenous churches are sometimes also divided, when it comes to dance, e.g. in indigenous Pentecostal churches of the Qom community in Argentina. The ecstatic round dance in services of the Church Ministerio Internacional de Jesucristo Pentecostes is based on biblical references (e.g. Ez 1.20; Jer 31.13, Prov 12.1). Sofía Fernández sees them as “a certain form of sacrifice that represents a rite of communion between the Dancers and the divinity”51 (Fernández: 2008, 14). Historic protestant churches in the global south, (e.g. in Brazil) do not dance during Sunday services (Carvalhaes: 2008, 2), but inspired by Nancy Cardoso 49 Cf. the chapter of Inga Scharf da Silva in this volume. 50 Cf. Sithole: 2016; Heuser: 2003, 224–236; 2008; cf. especially the chapters of Nkosinathi Sithole and Amélé Adamavi Ekué in this volume. 51 Translation by the author.

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Pereira, Cláudio Carvalhaes (2008, 3) advocates for a “feminist hermeneutic of the knees as a way to help us move forward” (2008, 3; cf. 11ff). Native Americans like the Lakota Sioux believed in the transforming power of ecstatic dance and song, drawing strength from the visions they received in their dreams during the “Ghost Dance Movement” (cf. Warren: 2017) in 1989–1890. The anti-colonial dance resistance was tragically crushed by colonial violence during the Wounded Knee massacre in 1890, but ghost dance pushed “the American public to greater Indian autonomy and a broader acceptance of divergent religions and cultures” (Warren: 2017, 897). Dance in Asian Christian art (e.g. paintings and batiks, cf. Küster: 2016, 372–379; Löwner: 2018) also serves to articulate Christian theology in aesthetic language. Jyoti Sahi from India and Nyoman Darsane from Bali, for instance, depict Christ in the dance posture of the Hindu deity Shiva (cf. Sundermeier/Küster: 1991; Sundermeier: 2008, 60–82), an expression of transculturation in Hindu Christianity. Such ‘dance revivals’ and ‘anti-colonial dance resistance forms’ express, in my opinion, the need for a “decolonial turn” (giro decolonial) (Castro-Gómez/ Grosfoguel: 2007; Walz: 2016, 120ff) towards colonial and missionary rules and regulations. Dance contributes to the fullness of Christ in World Christianity. In using the term “decolonial” I refer not only to postcolonial anglophone discourses, but also to Latin American theorizing. Reflection on these questions about dance in World Christianity has not been at the forefront of intercultural theology, although Ronald Sequeira-Prabhu, religious philosopher and classical Indian dancer, developed a Roman Catholic aestheticartistic dance theology already in the 1970’s. Indian dance art, like any other art, he says, can be a response to the Word of God made flesh in Jesus Christ; it can serve the praise of God and the proclamation of the Gospel (Sequeira-Prabhu: 1979, 225f). Francis P. Barboza, a Bhāratanāt.yam dancer and theologian, also shed light on “Christianity in Indian Dance Forms” (Barboza: 1990). Jesuit Saju George SJ, an expert on the “Religio-Philosophical Foundation” of Classical Indian dance (2005), practices and understands it as “An Art of Interfaith Dialogue” (George: 2014). This openness for the fusion of religious traditions as transculturation in dance art works and performed dances, however, has not remained undisputed within religious communities, from both the Christian and Hindu52 side.53 These examples underpin that it is the specific task of “Intercultural theology” to understand dance as part of the “local embodiments of faith” (Flett/Wrogemann:

52 Cf. https://www.jesuitenmission.de/news/internet-hetze-saju-auftritt-in-muenchen-abgesagt.html [15.10.2020]. 53 Cf. the chapter of Dominika Hadrysiewicz in this volume.

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2021, 175). These expressions need to be included like other art forms alongside written texts (ibid.). Intercultural theology, as part of Christian theology, mediates theologically together with colleagues from all over the world “between different forms of Christianity, cultures and religions” (Walz: 2020, 192). It addresses not only cultural dimensions in the narrower sense, but also its political-ethical implications (cf. Walz: 2016, 36–43).54 Therefore, the “decolonial turn” in intercultural theology (cf. Walz: 2016, 131–139) engages in a “critique of European reason” (Walz: 2015). Dance is a sort of aesthetic-political example for the need for decolonizing intercultural theology, and in a similar way, this applies to dance in Religious Studies.

5.

Research on Dance in Religious Studies: Dance is (not) Religion?

“We Have a Religion”: The title of Tisa Wenger’s research on “The Dance Conflict of the Pueblo Indians in the 1920s” (Wenger: 2009) exemplifies how Native Americans successfully challenged the attempts of the government and missionaries to suppress their dances associated “with sexuality and with secular entertainment” (2009, 4). They convinced the public that their dances in ceremonials belonged to ‘religion’ and fell under religious freedom. As a consequence, the Pueblo Indians “have had to represent their traditions according to prevailing concepts of what counts as religion“ (2009, 237). Wenger draws the following conclusion: The category of religion, as it continues to be understood in mainstream American culture, is a product of Euro-American (and primarily Protestant) historical development and leaves little space for the integrated, communal, and land-based qualities of indigenous traditions (Wenger: 2009, 237).

Indeed, religious studies as a new academic discipline that emerged in the 19th century, are embedded in this framework. Knowledge about ‘religion’ and ‘religions’ was gained mainly through European colonial and missionary contacts (cf. Walz: 2016, 126f; Kippenberg/Stuckrad: 2003, 59). The colonial epistemology assumed that indigenous cultures were “cultures without religions”55 (Kippenberg/Stuckrad 2003, 61). Knowledge generation in the field of religious studies was closely linked to the European colonial expansion into Africa and Asia, and the precursors of religious studies go back to the conquest of Latin America in the 15th century.

54 Cf. the chapter of Raphael Sartorius in this volume. 55 Translation by the author.

Dance as Third Space

Turning to contemporary religious studies, the crucial question is: Does dance count as religion today? Helga Barbara Gundlach, scholar on religion, dancer and choreographer, observes: “Dance is a (non-)object of Religious Studies [sic!] research.” The “exploration of dance [is] still inadequate […]. Above all, systematic studies are hardly available”56 (Gundlach: 2002, 176.177). Religious studies are shaped by a Christian understanding of religion, which “does not associate dance with religion”57 (Gundlach: 2002, 173). The review of relevant German-language manuals and introductions to religious studies is quite disillusioning: Dance is mentioned rather casually.58 Dance plays also a marginal role in English-speaking introductions and handbooks of religious studies59 (cf. Hanna: 1988, 281).60 However, some scholars consider “dance as a constitutive aspect of religious practice” (Fermor: 2001, 648) and encyclopedia articles about dance do exist (e.g. Neitzke: 2006), but handbooks on ‘Dance in Religious Studies’ or ‘Dance and Religion’ are still missing.61 As a result, I will provide an overview of research on dance in religious studies from an intercultural and interreligious comparative perspective. Of course, this can be done not comprehensively here, but only rough lines can be sketched.62 Obviously, the study of dance reflects in some way general developments and problems in religious studies discourses. Religious studies “make a distinction between sacred or cultic dance (dance connected to cult or worship, with a clearly ritual character) and religious dance63 (dance accompanying religious practices and festivals; [f]easts and celebrations)” (Neitzke: 2006, 477). As far as I can see, this distinction is not always so clear cut. In the following I present a typology of such discourses. Five main aspects will be taken in consideration: The typology brings to light the respective discourses

56 57 58 59

60 61 62

63

Additions by the author. All translations by the author. Cf. e.g. Figl: 2003; Stausberg: 2012a; Hock: 2014. Cf. e.g. Segal: 2006; Chryssides/Geaves: 2007; Rodrigues/Harding: 2008; Ross: 2012; Stausberg/ Engler: 2014; Martin: 2 2017. An entry as a keyword in the index is usually not available. Espín/ Nickoloff deal with dances in indigenous religions (2007: 323.623f). The same applies to the following dictionaries of Religious Studies: Ellwood: 2008; Stewart/Strathern: 2014. This selection is not all-encompassing but may be sufficient to prove the observation. In comparison to this, more than ten handbooks on dance in various fields and disciplines (e.g. The Oxford Handbook series) have been published in recent years. The overview will concentrate on works from scholars of religion, who are sometimes also theologians. Ethnological and sociological works have been left out. If monographs on certain individual dances had been included, the picture would have been more precise, but this would go beyond this introduction. Italics in Original.

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of ‘religion’ and ‘dance’ and surveys the methodological approaches to dance and religion(s), including the question about the sources used; it pays attention to the specific types of dance in religious and spiritual contexts and finally, it examines, which religions have been taken into account. An attempt is made to follow a more or less chronological order. The typology contains six types, which are illustrated using relevant works as examples. At the end I come back to the question: In which way does dance (not) count as religion? 5.1

Phenomenology of Religion: Sacred Dance

The first type is dealing with ‘sacred dance’ in the context of phenomenology of religion since the early 20th century. Phenomenologists seek to describe religious phenomena and to indicate structures and ‘essential’ elements. ‘Religion’ in their view is the experience of a supranatural power. The following authors assume an anthropological unity of ‘sacred dance’ and ‘religion’ using written sources and art works. William O.E. Oesterley (1866–1950), a Church of England theologian and professor of Hebrew and Old Testament, in “The Sacred Dance: A Study, in Comparative Folklore”, states: [T]here is a large consensus of opinion that the dance in its origin was sacred, and that every other subsequent form of dance was ultimately derived from it (Oesterley: 1923, 4).

Oesterley assumes further that sacred dance “was performed in imitation of some supernatural power” (Oesterley: 1923, 16). The Old Testament figures prominently as his starting point because he supposes that “most of the typical dances of antiquity” (Oesterley: 1923, 8) show evidence there. In addition, he can also find similar dance types in the ancient oriental, Greek and Roman World and what he would call “the uncultured races” (Oesterley: 1923, 77ff) in modern times, a term that reflects the Eurocentric and racist-colonial framework of his epoch. Thus, he creates a typology of processional dance, ritual dance, ecstatic dance, dance at vintage, harvest and festivals, dance in celebration of victory and dance as initiation rite, e.g. marriage and burial. Gerardus van der Leeuw (1890–1950), Dutch Reformed theologian, Egyptologist and professor of the History of Religion, defines ‘religion’ as a sort of experience of a superior power (cf. 4 1956, 4). He claims that dance was not always religious in the origin, but that the world formed a unity in which dance could be simultaneously aesthetic, sportive, erotic, performative and religious: “The primitive human being

Dance as Third Space

prays and dances at the same time”64 (1930, 7). The expression “primitive” is also embedded in a colonial hierarchy of cultures, where the Europeans claim to be not “primitive” but civilized. Theodor P. van Baaren, a Dutch poet and historian of religion, naturalizes and universalizes dance: “All life dances” (1964, 12), he says and asserts with enthusiasm: “Religion wants dance”, but he also indicates a limit: “Our occidental culture occupies an exceptional position” (1964, 31). Van Baaren uses an anthropological argument for the close connection between ‘religion’ and ‘dance’: Art and religion are two human ways to react to the supernatural world. “Dance is the language of the spirit through the body”, he summarizes (1964, 134).65 Dance referred to contemporary Christianity, has rarely been mentioned in these works. They leave “the impression that religious dance was a phenomenon only found in non-Western cultures” (Gundlach: 2004, 141). 5.2

Christian Liturgical Studies: Liturgical Dance

The second type of discourse is connected to sacred dance but deals with “liturgical dance” (Adams/Apostolos-Cappadona 1990, 7) in Jewish and Christian services. The volume “Dance as Religious Studies”, edited by Doug Adams, Professor of Christianity and the Arts, and Diane Apostolos-Cappadona, Lecturer in Religion and Art, presents “the history of liturgical dance in the Christian tradition, […] forms of biblical dance, interpretations of the Bible in twentieth-century choreographies, and current theories and practices of liturgical dance” (1990, 11). It stresses that the liturgical dance practice of women has been shaped by prophetic biblical themes in Christianity and Judaism (1990, 9). It underlines the vital role of dance in the Jewish tradition and the feminist approach of US-American Modern Dance by pioneers like Isadora Duncan (1877–1925), Ruth St. Denis (1879–1968) or Martha Graham (1894–1991), who focused on “religious subjects” (1990, 3). As modern dance influenced liturgical dance, both are intertwined: “Modern dance styles communicate prophetic biblical faith” (1990, 11). 5.3

Global Dialogue with Religions: Feminist Women’s Spiritual Dance

The third discourse, in some way, overlaps with the two others above, because it is connected to sacred dance,66 but I would rather call it ‘spiritual dance’. The protagonists understand it as a spiritual journey to oneself connected to modern 64 Translation by the author. 65 The English edition was published in 1937. 66 Another example of women’s spiritual dances is the “Spiral Dance”, as part of the Goddessworshipping religion Wicca (Starhawk: 1999).

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dance, which has often been practiced by female dancers (though there are also male dancers like Georg I. Gurdijew). The authors emphasize individual experiences as a source as well as archaeological findings, artistic expressions, written sources and empirical surveys. Iris J. Stewart, a US-American dancer, reflects her own biographical experiences and addresses women in search for their own spiritual expression in “Sacred Woman, Sacred Dance: Awakening Spirituality through Movement and Ritual” (2000). However, she uncovers the historic, anthropological and religious heritage of female dances: “The study of dance as sacred movement has been divorced from the study of history, cultural anthropology, and religion” (2000, 6). Fascinated by belly dance, Stewart founded her own troupe “WomanDance” (cf. 2000, 79f). She undertook an archaeological journey collecting a wide range of photographs, paintings and sculptures. The book is a valuable source for visual arts work witnessing women’s dances in many religions in the history. Stewart highlights the role of Goddesses and priestesses, and she illuminates dances connected culturally to femininity such as moon dance, circle dance, serpent dance and lamentation dance. Stewart connects her individual spiritual journey with traditions of sacred dance in organized religions.67 In contrast, Angela M. Yarber’s comparative study, entitled “Embodying the Feminine in the Dances of the World Religions” (Yarber: 2011), reflects this question more critically. Following the liberationist approach in the pluralist theology of religions (developed by the US-American Catholic Theologian and scholar of Religious Studies Paul Knitter) she enters in a “global responsible dialogue” (Yarber: 2011, ix) with four types of dance: Classical Dance Bhāratanāt.yam in India, kabuki onnagata in Japan, i.e. “male enactors of ‘female-likeness’” (2011, 2), the Islamic Mevlevi Sufi Order in the USA and Guri Kadman’s Israeli folk dance. Yarber, an ordained Baptist Minister and dancer, searches for dance traditions that would empower women. In her eyes, they can only be found outside Christianity (cf. 2011, x). 5.4

Systematic Comparative Approach: Dances in Religions

Comparative approaches to the study of religion refer to ‘sacred’ and ‘religious dances’ (Neitzke: 2006, 477) by giving cross-cultural examples in written sources. Judith Lynne Hanna, US-American anthropologist, for instance, employs the “theory of dance as nonverbal communication” (1988, 286) and offers “an analytic typology” of the “relationship of dance to divinity” (1988, 281). From an ethnographic

67 My question is, whether Stewart appropriates foreign cultural-religious traditions to find her key to access spirituality.

Dance as Third Space

perspective she unravels “five provisional broad categories” (1988, 286) and offers an overwhelming wide range of examples for these five categories (1988, 286–300). Dancers can embody the supernatural in possession dances, e.g. in African religions, indigenous religions in Indonesia, Shamanism, and Pentecostalisms in America); divinities can be represented by masked dancers, e.g. in African and Hindu religions; dancers become one with a God towards a mental state of enlightenment, e.g. in Tibetan Cham Buddhism and Sufism; dance is considered as a revelation of God the Creator e.g. in Protestant and Franciscan dance rituals; and finally, entertaining dances in temples and churches, when a dancer is representing the Divine, e.g. in Indian temple dance. Thus, Hanna also refers to Christianity, giving examples of some ‘dances in the Spirit’ in Baptist or Pentecostal churches (cf.1988, 191f) and theatrical dances in churches in the USA (cf. 1988, 300).68 Carl Olson, US-American Professor of Religious Studies perceives ‘dance’ as a “complex concept that often assumes the form of art, social interactions, entertainment, worship, and play”69 (2011, 64). He considers dance as a “Key Concept” of Religious Studies (2011, 64f) because of “its cross-cultural importance” (2011, ix). Dance can be connected with play, forms of worship, ecstasy and rites of initiation, and it stands not only for life energy, transformation of the person and self-empowerment, but it can also be connected with violence, Olson remarks (cf. 2011, 64f). The prohibition of dance is presented in connection with Islam (with the exception of Sufism) and the “Puritans of the Christian tradition”, who “prohibit dancing because they think that it represents the Devil’s handiwork” (2011, 65). The examples of religious dancing mentioned here, are taken from Indian Hinduism, African religions and indigenous religions in the Pacific. 5.5

Philosophy of Religion: Religion as Movement and Dance

Philosophical approaches to dance are increasingly of interest (cf. e.g. Alarcón: 2009; Albizu: 2017; Farinas/Van Camp: 2021), but this applies far less to philosophies that explicitly include religion (e.g. cf. Mullis: 2019). Kimerer L. LaMothe, a philosopher, dancer, choreographer and scholar of religion, is the outstanding thinker in this field. She brings ‘movement’ and ‘dance’ into the center of philosophy. In close readings of philosophers of the Enlightenment, she elaborates that philosophers preferred textual expressions of religious life (LaMothe: 2004). In contrast, she revives the phenomenological approach of Van der Leeuw and conceives “dance as religion” (LaMothe: 2004, 179ff) and “religion as a kind of dance“ (2004, 242).

68 In comparison to this systematic comparative approach, there are anthologies on dance in different religions, e.g. focusing on the idea of “cosmic dance” in Morich: 2017. 69 “Worship” and “play” are printed in bold in the original.

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In “Why we Dance” (2015) she develops a “Philosophy of Bodily Becoming” that states: Movement (not matter) founds reality (2015, 25).70 Her “movementcentered approach” (2005, 130) breaks new ground to understand dance in an all-encompassing way, as for her, it means to evolve, to matter, to be born, to know, to connect, to heal and to love (cf. 2015). Dancing “is for humans a biological, ethical, spiritual and ecological necessity” (2015, 3). LaMothe also refers here to movement studies, religious studies and natural sciences. In “Nietzsche’s Dancers” (2006),71 she reads Nietzsche using the choreographies of Martha Graham and Isadora Duncan. LaMothe is quite critical to Christianity. Developing “ecokinesis” (cf. 2015, 171f), she sympathizes with indigenous ritual dances, such as from the “Bushmen” (2018, 81) in the Kalahari (cf. 2018, 81ff.) In “A History of Theory and Method in the Study of Religion and Dance” (2018), she assumes that the “relationship between dance and religion is as old as humankind” (2018, 1). Dancing, for her, is “an initial form – the generative ground – for human culture and especially of religion” (2018, 5). Therefore, she wants to overcome the “conceptual dichotomy between ‘religion’ and ‘dance’ forged in the context of the colonial era” (2018, 2). She reveals its ongoing impact in the separation of religious studies and dance studies since Enlightenment (cf. 2018, 7; 56ff). As far as I can see, LaMothe is the only scholar, who gives a definition of ‘religion’ that contains dancing.72 5.6

Aesthetics of Religion: Aesthetic Experiences of Dancing as Religion

Aesthetics of religion (cf. Grieser/Johnson: 2017), a relatively new field in religious studies, adopt the cultural studies approach to the study of religion.73 They explore not only written and oral sources, but also the sensual, physical, emotional and aesthetic perceptions of religion in performative acts (rites, festivals, films, music, dance). Although they make use of non-verbal sources, dance is not the main focus: “The paucity of attention to dance by aestheticians has long be lamented” (Van Camp: 2009, 77). Cross-cultural approaches to religious dance are rare, but the German speaking volume “Approaches to the Unspeakable” (Schwaderer/Waldner:

70 Dance “happens when we consciously engage our sensory awareness as a guide to participating in the rhythm of bodily becoming” (LaMothe: 2015, 8). 71 Cf. her contribution in this volume. 72 Religion “represents a particular collection of movement patterns that humans have discovered, created, and passed on for their ability to help one another to create life-enabling relationships with sources of power” (LaMothe 2018, 6; italics in Original). 73 Discourses about “religious experiences” are considered to be “obsolete” in Aesthetics of Religion, because it is “culture-specific, what is experienced as contingent or transcendent” (Waldner: 2020, 20).

Dance as Third Space

2020a) comprises studies on cosmic dances of the angels in Antiquity, expressive dance in Germany and Indian classical dance. Schwaderer and Waldner point to the “aestheticization of religion” and the “sacralization of aesthetic experiences” (cf. Schwaderer/Waldner: 2020b, 8), also observed in relation to dance: Modern dancer Isadora Duncan describes her dance arts work as religion (cf. Neudorfer: 2020, 166). After these six types of discourse on dance in academic works that provide an intercultural and interreligious comparative perspective have been crystallized, striking red lines begin to emerge. Dance seems to be a ‘burning glass’ for a necessary decolonization of Religious studies. 5.7

Dance as a ‘Burning Glass’ for Decolonizing Religious Studies [Religious studies] was mostly conducted by Central European Christian theologians or Christian socialized philologists. They worked with theological and philological methods on the exegesis of religious writings (Gundlach: 2002, 176).

My analysis of these anthologies or monographs confirms Gundlach’s and LaMothe’s theses. Dance discourses in the field of religious studies in an interreligious and intercultural perspective seem to be shaped by a European-Christian perspective that has focused on scriptures and philology, but not on the body, movement, and performance. Thus, ‘religion’ is often ‘not dance’. Only recently has the aesthetics of religion here turned to sensual, bodily, emotional, and aesthetic dimensions, though dance has hardly been considered there either. Such a construction of ‘religion’ has been sweepingly projected onto religious phenomena in general. Thus, religious studies struggles with dichotomous perceptions of ‘dance’ and ‘religion’ that can be traced back to early European Christian history, as well as colonial and missionary history, as we have already seen above. Moreover, religious studies and dance studies have remained separate fields. This dichotomous framework based on a binary European and ‘Western’74 logic is reflected in multiple ways. There is a dichotomy between ‘non-Western European dancing religions’ and ‘European-Western Christianity’. The latter appears almost as an ‘anomaly’, while religious dance seems to be only present in non-European 74 I put ‘Western’ in quotation marks because when one uses the terms ‘the West’ and ‘Western’ one tends to fall into the trap of constructing the ideology of what Stuart Hall calls “the West and the rest” (Hall: 1992, 175ff). Morover “‘the West’ is no longer only in Europe, and not all of Europe is ‘in the West’. […] The ‘West’ is a historical, not a geographical, construct” (Hall: 1992, 176f; Italics in Original). Cf. also footnote 25.

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regions and non-Christian religions, or in North American Pentecostalism and Baptism. Even though Christianity does not have an institutionalized sacred art of dance, this unconscious premise carries the danger of overlooking the history and practice of dancing in European churches as well as dance as important key concept for the study of religion. However, as I have not taken in account monographs in religious studies about specific dance forms ad traditions have not been, these results remain preliminary. Obviously the authors try to overcome the dichotomy between ‘dance’ and ‘religion’ or ‘spirituality’. They try to prove that ‘dance is religion’ and ‘religion is dance’, sometimes with universal anthropological-evolutionary arguments that dance is a basic human form of expression. They often invoke aesthetic experiences in modern dance as religious or spiritual experiences: “Dance seems to be religiously charged” (Neitzke: 2006, 479). The categories of dance mentioned by the authors that I have used to differentiate the discourses oscillate between sacred dance, religious dance, liturgical dance, and spiritual dance. These distinctions more or less only indicate the purpose or setting of the dances. The notion of ‘religion’ as associated with an institutionalized religious community and of ‘spirituality’ as a personal and subjective variant, is obvious. In relation to dance, however, these boundaries are blurred, as individual spirituality often draws on dances of religions. Discourses about the ‘sacred’, ‘religious’ or ‘spiritual’ character of dances refer to a connection to a supernatural power or divinity, including God in Judaism and Christianity, but also to an aesthetic experience. The influence of female modern dancers of the 20th century on Christian forms of liturgical or spiritual dancing in North America and Europe is striking. Dance, however, can also be theatre, art, play, and entertainment, as the works show. Dance research in these Religious studies’ works is gendered. It reflects a binary gendering, both in terms of the authors, many of whom are women and take feminist perspectives, and in terms of the attention given to the dances of women and goddesses. Women contribute significantly to dance studies in Religious studies, and there is no doubt that dance plays an important role in feminist religious emancipation. Nevertheless, this is also a ‘Western’ gender construction, where dance politics and polemics against dance often assume binary gender notions and heteronomous orders as well. Against that, in non-European cultural and religious dance settings, dance is not always primarily attributed to women or associated with femininity. In fact, it is an “undoing gender” (Butler: 2004) of the European-Christian paradigm. To associate dancing with colonial dichotomies, e.g. to perceive dancing as “animal, erotic, chaotic, bodily sensations” (LaMothe: 2018, 1) – against civilized, decent, ordered, rational, and male behavior, is another observation. It would be interesting, if this is a unique European-Christian paradigm.

Dance as Third Space

In a way, I was surprised that these exemplary works in Religious studies tend to use experience-oriented methodological approaches, rather than cultural Religious studies on dance, connected with cultural studies, discourse theory and literary criticism. As dance is not a pre-cultural phenomenon, but embedded in sociopolitical and cultural-religious discourses, in my view, both approaches would be necessary. To sum up: Religious studies has been characterized by a colonial EuropeanChristian framework, which has rarely associated religion with dance (cf. Gundlach: 2004, 140). Working on dances in various cultural and religious settings, scholars of religion tend to apply their own background (cf. Gundlach: 2004, 142). Therefore, dance seems to be a ‘burning glass’ for the need of a decolonizing epistemology in Religious studies. The metaphor of a ‘burning glass’ imagines a glass shaped to concentrate incident light on a single point, which in this case is colonial EuropeanChristian dichotomous thinking. Therefore I propose a decolonizing perspective for Religious studies. A postcolonial turn in religious studies has been demanded for some time (cf. Wiredu: 1998; Nehring 2012; Walz: 2016, 120ff; Nye: 2019). [V]arious suggestions have been made for breaking up traditional formations of research in order to overcome ‘colonized’ modes of scholarship (Mackenthun/Hock: 2012, 16).

Dance could be a dynamic “world maker” (Klein/Noeth: 2011) in order to decolonize religious studies, but postcolonial critique should not be used as an unquestionable premise (cf. Walz: 2016, 113). Dance as postcolonial or decolonial undertaking is a question of debate to be addressed in this volume. To move beyond the dichotomies, I propose to use the metaphor of the “Third Space” used in postcolonial theory as a leitmotif for the exploration of dance and religion(s). In this sense, my proposal could give rise to another type of discourse on dance(s) and religion(s).

6.

Dance as Third Space But for me the importance of hybridity is not to be able to trace two original moments from which the third emerges, rather hybridity to me is the ‘Third Space’ which enables other positions to emerge. This Third Space displaces the histories that constitute it, and sets up new structures of authority, new political initiatives, which are inadequately understood through received wisdom (Rutherford: 1990, 211).

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The Third Space is a central element in Homi Bhabha’s thought, because he questions the binary logic and pairs of opposite (e.g. body versus mind), which are characteristic for ‘Western’ modern thinking (cf. Sieber: 2012, 98). Therefore, the Third Space is not only spatial, but discursive, in his view, as a space that goes beyond ‘Western’ modern conceptions of theory. Dichotomous ‘Western’ attributions are “displaced” (as Bhabha says above) and cultural identities and meanings are renegotiated. In the 1990 interview with Jonathan Rutherford above, Bhabha describes the Third Space as a Hybrid Space, which enables processes of negotiation in the context of global migration and flight movements. In his famous work “The Location of Culture” (1994) Bhabha uses the Third Space synonymously with the notion “‘in-between’ space” (1994, 7). He also understands the Third Space as a theoretical term, which – as is common in post-structuralist theory – eludes definition. Interestingly, the Argentinian anthropologist Néstor Canclini developed a similar cultural theory at the same time. For him, culture is also a dynamic process of negotiation (cf. Canclini: 2002 [1990]). For Bhabha, there are no ‘pure’, ‘solid’, ‘authentic’ cultures as well; instead he understands culture as a dynamic process of hybridization: “[…] all forms of culture are continually in a process of hybridity” (Rutherford: 1990, 211). Art was a source of inspiration for Bhabha. The installation by the AfricanAmerican artist Renée Green “Sites of Genealogy” in the stairwell of the “Institute of Contemporary Art” in New York in 1990 inspired Bhabha to imagine a Third Space. Green designed the staircase between the attic and the basement as a threshold space between above and below, between black and white and between one’s own and others. It is a space in which cultural meanings are dynamically renegotiated (Bhabha: 1994, 3f). Bhabha describes the Third Space as “Third Space of enunciation” (1994, 37): It is that Third Space, though unrepresentable in itself, which constitutes the discursive conditions of enunciation that ensure that the meaning and symbols of culture have no primordial unity or fixity; that even the same signs can be appropriated, translated, rehistoricized and read anew (1994, 37).

The staircase is a concrete idea of this unrepresentable Third Space, which for Bhabha is a discursive space. The participants move up and down, back and forth, they cross the Third Space. They are in motion, just as Bhabha understands culture as permanent becoming, as a continuous process of change. The participants transform and change history by re-reading experiences from the periphery and the center, from marginalized minorities and majorities, from migration experiences and local experiences. Culture exists in a threshold space in which it is constantly changing. Power attributions and constructions of meaning are in constant motion.

Dance as Third Space

Previously differentiated cultural backgrounds get in contact, impact with each other and something new evolves, so that powerful colonial discourses can be irritated. The Third Space opens up new spaces for thinking, acting and agency, working simultaneously theoretically and politically. One has to walk through the Third Space, and in the Third Space there is movement. Applied to cultural-religious aspects of dance, there are no ‘pure’ dances, cultures and religions. Moreover, one could imagine movement in the Third Space as a dance, as dance is a spatial phenomenon moving in space. Perhaps the Third Space could be an improvisational dance. Nobody knows what next movements and steps you and the others will make. You could imagine it as “Contango”, a fusion of contact improvisation and Argentinian tango.75 The dichotomous contrast between leading and following dissolves. A flow of intuition and connection with each other develops. The Third Space could be thought as “Dancing in-between” (Van der Haagen-Wulff: 2015). The idea of the Third Space has been enthusiastically received in postcolonial cultural studies, in literature and art studies during the last twenty years, whereby the difficulties were also addressed (cf. Bachmann-Medick: 1998; Sieber: 2012). The deconstructivist orientation contributes to freeing social and political power hierarchies, dichotomous cultural identity concepts and stereotypes from rigid patterns. The Third Space sets cultural-political negotiations in motion, even if this can sometimes fail (cf. Bachmann-Medick: 1998, 24). Janinka Greenwood, for instance, argues that dance was “the catalyst” for the intercultural encounter of Maori and Pakehi cultures in educational settings in New Zealand, which she calls “Dancing into the Third Space” (2016, 172). For Carl P. Opsahl hip-hop spirituality, already mentioned above, is such a “Third Space” (2016, 14). The Third Space has not been explored much in studies on interreligious and intercultural encounters, but one example is the encounter of Hindu Advaita Vedanta and Christianity in the lives and writings of the two Benedictine monks, Abhishiktananda and Bede Griffiths, who engaged with the Christian Ashram movement in India in the 20th century. Jonathan G. Schmith shows that “religious traditions are hybrid by nature” (2020, 4) and that Christian and Advaita traditions affect each other in the “in-between space” (ibid.) of the two monks. They adopted Hindu scriptures, clothes and imagery in their Christian worship and “moved away from the belief that all religions find their fulfillment in Christianity” (2020, 7).

75 Cf. the Contango performance by Javier Cura & Lydia Nassall at WieNeo tango festival, June 1st, 2011, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oeI2PlZMVXY&list=PL7j75LXGJuQuIYYr-Ghnwgs0uYtGwG0Ee&index=1 [14/1/2021].

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May dance provide a discursive Third Space, going beyond the dichotomy between dance and religion? Does dance offer a Third Space beyond sacralization and demonization? Could dance offer a Third Space for interreligious and intercultural encounters that moves people beyond their premises and frameworks? Or, does dance as Third Space provoke fear of cultural-religious mingling, just like in early Christianity? Therefore, I suggested to use the metaphor of a Third Space as an heuristic instrument in this volume. The contributors have taken up the impulse in various ways.76

Conclusionary Remarks When I say that dance is a thought, it must be understood that it is a thought as a dance, and not because it produces or nourishes thoughts.77

Thinking of dance as Third Space, following Homi Bhabha’s postcolonial metaphor, contributes to a deconstruction of colonial and ‘Western’ dichotomous either/or perceptions of ‘dance’ and ‘religion’, as I have argued in this chapter. In my critical postcolonial and decolonial perspective, dance is a ‘burning glass’ for the need to decolonize religious studies. Dance in the horizon of a Third Space “displaces the histories that constitute it” (Rutherford: 1990, 211), as Bhabha writes. Dance as Third Space thus transforms discourses in religious studies and intercultural theology. If thinking is dancing, as Jean-Luc Nancy says, and if dance is thought, as he writes, then dance in the horizon of a Third Space moves theoretical reflection beyond oppositional binary constructions so that they can be renegotiated. This does not mean that conflicts and disputes about appropriate forms of dance are obsolete. Nonetheless, dance as an ephemeral, fluid, and corporeal challenges static constructions of religion(s) and spirituality. Dance as practice and thought leads to more dynamic discourses: religion and spirituality can be seen as permanent movement, and dance is not either secular or religious, but can oscillate between the religious and the secular.

76 Cf. especially the contributions of Stephanie Schroedter, Martin Leutzsch, Karin Schlapbach, Nkosinathi Sithole, Dominika Hadrysiewicz, Iris B. Steil, and Raphael Sartorius. 77 “Quand je dis que la danse est une pensée, il faut bien entendre qu’elle l’est en tant que danse, et no parce qu’elle produirait ou nourrirait des pensées” (Nancy: 2005b, 111, translation by the author).

Dance as Third Space

Third Space thinking “enables that other positions emerge”, as Bhabha says (Rutherford 1990: 211). To think about dance as hybrid phenomenon, does move one ‘in-between’ practice and theory, and ‘in-between’ body and knowledge. If dance is understood provisionally as ‘rhythmic body movement, mostly to music’, as I suggested, it fuels a dynamic perspective on religions and spirituality – as a result of ongoing encounters, entangled histories and transformations. Dance has the potential to cross barriers between people. Therefore, I proposed to explore dance as an artistic medium and mediator in interreligious and intercultural encounters, and this includes intra-religious boundaries. Examples of religious peace and refugee work show that dance as body language has the ability to overcome barriers between people of different nationalities and cultural-religious backgrounds, and to enable communication beyond language with words. In Christian theologies one can speak of a dancing God and a dancing Christ. Dance in the indigenous religions of Africa, Asia, the Americas, and the Pacific has been considered ‘pagan’ and often banned in European missionary Christianity, but sometimes it it has been integrated into Christian rituals. Indigenous peoples, however, have drawn strength from the transformative power of ecstatic dance and song. Such examples of anti-colonial dance resistance demonstrate, in my argument, the need to implement the decolonial turn in the historiography of the European mission and in religious studies, because they have been informed by a European Christian mindset that does not necessarily view dance as religious or spiritual. Mapping the discourses on dance in religious studies since the 20th century led me to a typology with six types: phenomenological studies of sacred dance, Christian studies on liturgical dance, spiritual dance of feminist women in global dialogue with different religions, dance as a key concept in systematic comparative religion, philosophical approaches to religion as movement and dance, and finally aesthetic experiences of dancing to be experienced as religious. These forms of discourses struggle with a Western-European mindset that locates dance primarily in non-European Western religions. Even though Christianity has not developed an institutionalized sacred dance art, however, the hidden history of ‘dancing churches’ needs to be explored more deeply, as a contribution to the decolonization of knowledge in religious studies and intercultural theology. The Third Space as decolonizing approach opens new horizons for studies on religion(s) and spirituality, and for intercultural, interreligious, and interdisciplinary studies on dance as well.

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Van der Leeuw, G. (2 1956), Phänomenologie der Religion, Tübingen: Mohr. Walz, H. (2006), „… nicht mehr männlich und weiblich …“? Ekklesiologie und Geschlecht in ökumenischem Horizont, Frankfurt a.M.: Lembeck. Walz, H. (2012), El tango argentino como lenguaje espiritual transcultural. Sueno de una vida mejor en situaciones de migracion y de ambiguedades de genero, in: JEGTF 19 (2012), 125–149. Walz, H. (2015), Kritik der europäischen Vernunft? Herausforderungen für die Interkulturelle Theologie aus Afrika und Lateinamerika, Interkulturelle Theologie. Zeitschrift für Missionswissenschaft 41 (2–3), 261–283. Walz, H. (2016), Menschenrechte zwischen Religion und Gesellschaft in Argentinien. Postkoloniale Perspektiven für Religionswissenschaft und Interkulturelle Theologie, Berlin: Habilitation Humboldt-University (unpublished). Walz, H. (2017), Von intersektionalen zu postkolonialen Analysen? Inklusive Kirche in Afrika und Lateinamerika, in: M. Jochimsen/T. Knauth (Hg.), Einschließungen und Ausgrenzungen. Zur Intersektionalität von Religion, Geschlecht und sozialem Status für religiöse Bildung, Münster: Waxmann, 95–112. Walz, H. (2019a), Am Anfang war der Tanz? Tanz und Religion in interkultureller religionswissenschaftlicher Perspektive, Prospektiv Nr. 12, Theologisches und Religionswissenschaftliches aus Basel. Magazinbeilage zu bref, 7–8, https://theologie.unibas.ch/ fileadmin/user_upload/theologie/05_Fakultaet/1_Zur_Fakultaet/Publikationen/ Prospektiv_Nr_12_2019.pdf [15.10.2020]. Walz, H. (2019b), Modelle interkultureller und interreligiöser Begegnung, in: B. WittmannStasch/T. Böhme (Hg.), Wir sind so frei – Schulseelsorge und ihr Profil, Münster: Comenius-Institut, 11–36. Walz, H. (2020), A Critique of European Reason? Challenges for Intercultural Theology from Latin America and Africa (2015), in J.G. Flett/H. Wrogemann (eds.), Questions of Context. Reading a Century of German Mission Theology, Downers Grove/Illinois: InterVarsity Press, 190–196. Warren, L.S. (2017), God’s Red Son. The Ghost Dance Religion and the Making of Modern America, New York: Basic Books. Wenger, T. (2009), We Have a Religion: The 1920s Pueblo Indian Dance Controversy and American Religious Freedom, Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. Wilke, A. (2020), Sonality, in A. Koch/K. Wilkens (eds.), The Bloomsbury Handbook of the Cultural and Cognitive Aesthetics of Religion, Bloomsbury: Bloomsbury Academics, 107–116. Wiredu, K. (1998), Toward Decolonizing African Philosophy and Religion, ASQ 1 (4), 17–46. Wüthrich, M. (2019), Der tanzende Gott. Beobachtungen zur Rezeption der Tanzmetapher im Christentum, „Tanz“, Prospektiv N°. 12, Theologisches und Religionswissenschaftliches aus Basel, Magazinbeilage zu bref, 5–6, https://theologie.unibas.ch/fileadmin/user_

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upload/theologie/05_Fakultaet/1_Zur_Fakultaet/Publikationen/Prospektiv_Nr_12_2019. pdf [19.1.2021]. Yarber, A.M. (2011), Embodying the Feminine in the Dances of the World’s Religions, New York et al.: Peter Lang.

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Intertwinements of Music/Sound and Dance/Movement as a “Third Space”

1.

“What is dance?”

This was the opening question with which I was invited to give a lecture in the context of the interreligious, intercultural and interdisciplinary symposium upon which this anthology is based – a question which can be quickly answered in general and fundamental terms: Dance is first and foremost a spatially oriented and mostly also temporally structured (body) movement.1 With respect to the different temporal (historical) and spatial (geographical as well as sociological and cultural) manifestations of dance, this question involves much more sophistication. Thus, in 1983 (or rather ‘not until 1983?’) a 600-page anthology was dedicated, with good reason, to this very question2 , but unfortunately it focused primarily on the question of what exactly dance research or the academically established dance studies should actually deal with. From today’s perspective, this publication is an instructive document with regard to what U.S. American dance studies in the 1980s considered fundamental for a far-reaching understanding of dance. Therefore, it is worthwhile to take a brief look at this publication.3 The introduction of the anthology seems rather promising, as it opens with a long chapter exploring various answers to the question “What is dance?” The first expert quoted in this context is a French dancer and choreographer, who advanced the development of the ‘Ballet d’action’, i.e. a narrative ballet in the central European cultural region of the late 18th century. Its particular use of gestures and pantomimic expressions was characteristic and it served as the precursor of the so-called “classical romantic ballet” of the 19th century. The artist in question is Jean Georges Noverre (1727–1810). He experienced his big ‘comeback’ in the second half of the 20th century as “outstanding personality in the history of the ballet” (Dahms 2004,

1 Cf. for the perspective from dance studies based on a musicological approach Dahms (2001) or one based on theatre studies as in Brandstetter 2005. Those differently evaluated “disciplinary” approaches to (Western) dance cultures already indicate that above all dance (in theory) is what we attribute to it. 2 “What is dance?” Readings in Theory and Criticism, ed. by Copeland and Cohen (1983). 3 In order not to disturb the reading flow of my annotated review of this anthology edited by Copeland and Cohen, I will refrain from quoting each individual contribution separately in the following.

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col. 1230) – although there were other significant choreographers whose contributions to the development of this specific form of ballet were of equal importance (but they weren’t as ambitious in writing about their art as an early means for promoting themselves). Noverre’s Letters on Dancing and Ballets (1760/1803/1804/1930) can be interpreted as an elegant transition to the anthology’s next contribution by Selma Jeanne Cohen, entitled “Dance as an Art of Imitation” – the grand dame of the U.S. American dance research of the second half of the 20th century.4 This is followed by another essay on “Dance as a Means of Communication“5 – with excerpts from publications by the first influential dance author of American provenance, John Martin (1893–1985). The excerpts of Susanne K. Langer’s Feeling and Form (1953) approach dance from a philosophical perspective – or to be more precise, from the perspective of symbolical logic. The latter perspective still marks an important point of reference for the current phenomenological approaches within dance studies. The following contributions also refer to philosophical or literary texts in their attempts to explain the ‘phenomenon’ of dance. The dance author André Levinson (1887–1933), who was born in St. Petersburg, the internationally leading dance metropolis of the late 19th century, and immigrated to Paris in 1918, where he became quite influential, defines “The Idea of the Dance” by referring to well-known personalities from Aristotle to Stéphane Mallarmé, followed by Paul Valéry with his essay “Dance and the Soul” (translated by William McCausland Steward). Further answers to the increasingly tricky opening question are offered by excerpts from Nelson Goodman’s Languages of Art – which were especially adapted and extended for the anthology by the author himself, thus offering a symbolic-theoretical approach to dance. Finally yet importantly, the U.S. American philosopher David Michael Levin and Francis Sparshott, a British philosopher specializing in aesthetics, comment on the question why the relationship between philosophy and dance – and likewise that between religion and dance – is so ambivalent if not to say difficult. The following sections on as “The Dance Medium”, “Dance and the Other Arts”, “Genre and Style“, “Language, Notation, and Identity“, “Dance Criticism“ as well as “Dance and Society” (amazingly enough the latter serves as concluding chapter) mainly explore the distinctly “Western” theatre dance and early performance art affiliated with the Judson Church Theatre Movement in New York as well as ballet, modern dance and postmodern dance. Ethnic dance cultures are discussed only rudimentarily, particularly in the last chapter “Dance and Society”.

4 Selma Jeanne Cohen (1920–2005) was the main editor of the International Encyclopedia of Dance in six volumes (1998), which is still considered the most extensive English-speaking reference book about dance. 5 This is an excerpt of Martin’s publications The Dance, 1946 and The Modern Dance, 1972.

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So what is dance? Above all, dance seems to be what we consider it to be, in the end this concept of dance turns us back on ourselves or rather reveals our understanding of dance.

2.

A Leap into Dance Studies of the 21st Century

In the almost 40 years since the publication of the extensive anthology “What is Dance?” Anglo-American dance studies have undergone a profound change. Moreover, this academic discipline was also established in the German-speaking countries as “Tanzwissenschaften” (Dance Studies) shortly after the turn of the millennium (cf. Brandstetter 2015; Manning, Ruprecht 2012), and is now embedded into the German academic system. This fundamental change in trend in the U.S.A. is among others marked by the “Dance History Reader” moving history / dancing cultures, edited by Dils and Cooper Albright (2001). This anthology still opens quite ‘traditionally’ with a long chapter on dance history, but with special attention to the approaches of (dance) history (“Thinking about Dance History: Theories and Practices”). It already includes a section with gender-specific and explicitly inclusive approaches in the almost manifest-like contribution to “Five Premises for a Culturally Sensitive Approach to Dance” by Deidre Sklar. Consequently, the following large chapter “World Dance Traditions” mainly focuses on ethnic dances, whereas contributions discussing dance traditions affected by West European influences are only mentioned in the last section.6 This Euro-centric appendix to “World Dance Traditions”, the attention of which rather focuses on dances not performed on stage, seems to be even more important, since it is directly followed by a large chapter on “America Dancing”. In that context, dance cultures of minorities as well as the dance-migration phenomena from the periphery of the formerly ‘established’ dance discourses move into the centre of attention.7 The large-format volume with its almost 500 pages is rounded off with a long chapter on “Contemporary Dance: Global Contexts”. It discusses dance forms which have been developing as ‘alternatives’ or even countermovements to the ‘classical-academic dance technique’ and even to ‘modern’ dance techniques

6 Mentioned are developments of the French ballet de cour, “conventions” of the so-called Baroque dance in the direct run-up to the ballet d’action, which against this backdrop could also be called a reform ballet. Furthermore, the remarkable secondary importance of the dancer in the so-called classic romantic ballet of the 19th century. And finally the German “expressive dance” of the early 20th century as an important precondition for Pina Bausch’s “dance theatre”. 7 Cf. in this context the explanations concerning the “Hopi Ritual Drama and Euro-American Audiences” by Sharyn R. Udall, “The Africanist Presence in American Concert Dance” by Brenda Dixon Gottschild and “The Black Male Body in Concert Dance” by Thomas DeFrantz.

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– e.g. the “Contact Improvisation” which was introduced by Steve Paxton. This phenomenon leads to the questions of what ‘technique’ and ‘technology’ actually mean for dance in general. The chapter then concludes with inclusion and discussion of Asian and (Amero-)African dance cultures as well.8 One could give a long list of other anthologies that show similar ‘shifts of emphasis’ from dance (theatre) cultures affected by Western influences towards ethnic dance forms, at the same time referring to aspects of cultural difference (implicitly or explicitly). As a forceful proof for this, one only needs to compare the table of contents of the recently published “Dance Studies Reader” of Anglo-American provenance (cf. Giersdorf/Wong 3 2019; Dodds 2019; Thomas/Prickett 2020) and of the German-speaking counterpart (Brandstetter/Klein 2007, 2 2015). The latter focuses on a “signature piece” of German provenance, that is Pina Bausch’s Frühlingsopfer (The Rite of Spring, 1975), which serves as example for different ‘methods’ of analysis in the field of dance studies. There is another remarkable balancing act on which current dance studies are based: The implicit or explicit question as to where the dividing line between theory and practice runs. Or to put it differently: How much theory should dance practice require (or rather tolerates) and vice versa – how much practice does the development of a theory of dance need (and tolerate) as an artistic-cultural form of expression? This question leads yet to another question: Does there exist a specific dance knowledge, which is a knowledge generated through dance and therefore not knowledge of or about dance, but the dance’s knowledge itself?

3.

Why Study Dance? – Some Reflections on Dance Theory, or the Knowledge in and of Dance

The discussion about what theory might be and what theory should do and accomplish in dance studies as an academic discipline received new impetus from the post-structuralist turn of the 1970s and 80s as product of radical disagreements regarding signifying practices and modes of interpreting data of whatever provenance. Susan Foster, one of the leading pioneers of a ‘critical dance theory’ born from this development, explains that theory has been implemented most often to account for varieties of difference. Theories of the individual, of the social, of power and of interpretation itself have completely re-structured notions of identity 8 Cf. the contribution on the Butoh dance by Bonnie Sue Stein, on “Aesthetics and Politics of Idigenous Dance in the Philippines” by Kathleen Foreman, on the Indian female dancer Chandralekha (1928–2006) by Ananya Chatterjea with a response by Uttara Coorlawala, as well as “Epic Narrative and Cultural Identity in African American Dance” by Ann Cooper Albright.

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and canons of knowledge that had prevailed before – especially regarding race, sexuality, and class identity. As diverse as these inquiries have been, they seem unified around their common rejection of the theorist as a disembodied intellect who claims that truth can be apprehended objectively. They similarly challenge the notion of theory as generated from an omniscient or universal point of view, one that foregrounds vision as the primary mode of perceiving and organizing knowledge. They likewise contest the assumption that there exists a theoretical mode of cognition separate from will, desire, and emotions (Foster 2013, 22).

Thus dance studies move towards a ‘dangerous’ territory – at least from the perspective of ‘traditional’ academic research: On the one hand, because now ‘embodied knowledge’ comes into play, which stands against ‘rationally’ acquired and supposedly ‘objective’ knowledge, thus overstepping the ‘boundaries’ of traditional knowledge (cf. among others Batson with Wilson 2014; Brandstetter 2016). On the other hand, in connection with this ‘bodily knowledge’, due to a praxeological ‘turn’ (cf. Fröhlich/Rehbein 2012: 196–199); and for a dance specific praxeological approach among others (Gehm/Husemann/von Wilcke 2007), i.e. theoretical knowledge based on practical activities, ‘boundaries’ between theory and practice are blurring (cf. Brandstetter/Klein 2013). Against this backdrop, a research approach that is currently gaining in importance in all art disciplines now also becomes part of the dance: (Dance) Practice as Research respectively Artistic (Dance) Research (cf. Schroedter 2016, 223 with further references). What makes this territory “dangerous” is the fact that it is localized ‘between’ different academic cultures, which are always characterized by power structures, i.e. structures of limiting and excluding. As a result, they open a new “Hybrid” or “Third” Space – very much in line with Homi Bhabha (1994): A space that is more than the sum of two spaces, since it is an entirely new space. A space which asks us to reflect on our perception and understanding, in order to allow new, unfamiliar, irritating and even disturbing elements and to bear the tension coming from this field. But the question of a specific dance knowledge opens a further “Hybrid” or rather “Third” Space on a sensual level: A space, which transgresses the boundaries between watching and listening, but also between feeling and groping, in order to perceive movement with all our senses (in the broadest sense). Not only visible but also audible and/or tangible movements, and furthermore hardly or no longer visible, audible and/or tangible movements, which move us nonetheless (emotionally and/or imaginarily). These ‘intermediate spaces’ are an invitation to new sensual experiences, which not only generate new knowledge about dance, but also more generally about the arts and cultures as to their diversity and otherness. In the end,

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they will lead us back to ourselves or rather to our own understanding of art and culture.

4.

From “Third Spaces” between Music/Sound and Dance/Movement to Music/Sound and Dance/Movement as a “Third Space”

Music as an audible though not visible art of movement in time and space manifests itself in no other form of art as forcefully and plastically as in dance. Even beyond music visualizations or music illustrations through physical movements or graphic animation (etc.), which have repeatedly fallen victim to the verdict of trivial redundancy at least since postmodernism, music especially encourages an understanding in which motion and emotion correspond directly with each other. A precondition for this approach to music is a specific corporeal movement listening or rather embodied movement listening – which experiences and conceptualises music in motion (e.g. listening to music while dancing), music to motion (e.g. listening to music while watching movements) and music as motion (e.g. listening to music while imagining movements). Whereas during kinetic listening (as I term this mode of listening) the perception of music is directly linked with clearly recognizable physical/visible movement that coincides with it, kinaesthetic listening (as I term this mode of listening), in which music is also immediately experienced as movement, the physically/visually resonating movement does not necessarily have to be visible or at least visible movements do not necessarily have to be congruent with what has been heard. The music does not even have to be audible to be experienced as movement – which will be demonstrated in the following by analysing concert performances staged by the French dancer and choreographer Xavier Le Roy. They are based on compositions by the German composer Helmut Lachenmann. 4.1

Listening to Music in Motion – Listening to Music as Motion

In contrast to a mode of listening directly connected with one’s own bodily movements – a listening to music while being in motion – mostly emphasizing the musical ‘motion’ and thus in congruence with what can be heard, in music, dance, theatre production, in films or (so called) postdramatic performances (cf. Lehmann 2006) music, sounds or noises are heard in connection with physical movements. The latter move the viewer/listener inwardly, i.e. in the sense that he/she is affected, but not necessarily in a way which is externally visible. Especially in performances or ‘productions’ influenced by postmodern aesthetics the audible events do not necessarily have to relate to visible occurrences shown on stage or in film, nor do they particularly have to coincide with them, instead they not seldom supplement, sometimes even contradict the visible events to cause irritations while listening

Intertwinements of Music/Sound and Dance/Movement as a “Third Space”

and watching. In the course of the presentation, imaginary movements between listening and watching arise in the perception of the listeners. They can lead to those emergence effects (cf. Roth 1992), in which the sum of auditory and visual, i.e. audio-visual impressions result in more, or rather in something new and completely different than the individual audible and visible components presage in themselves. Finally, music in a concert hall, i.e. music not performed to accompany movements on stage or in film, can be heard as (imaginary) motion due to its implicitly inherent, theatrical or performative dimensions. This can be comprehended very vividly in the case of Lachenmann’s music, which “stages” the process of the sound production, not least supported by very detailed playing techniques and playing instructions. Under these conditions the gestures of the musicians can appear choreographed, so that the music can take on body-like or corporeal contours. However, music does not inevitably have to be linked to physically visible, performed, choreographed or improvised movements (i.e. movement components apart from playing the instruments) in order to perceive them regardless of their invisible corporeality as a moving body, i.e. to experience and to comprehend them as motion – provided that the perceiver is able to grasp them with his/her sense of movement, the so-called kinaesthesia. Kinaesthetic listening, which is a precondition for this kind of perception, has been barely examined in relevant studies on the act of listening to date. The challenges for kinaesthetic listening are not only the emergence effects mentioned above, in which very different impressions melt into each other. Moments of surprising difference and experiences of interferences can arise that mark a gulf between what is heard and what is seen (or heard, but not seen and vice versa: seen, but not heard) and thus expand the listener’s aesthetic horizon of experiences by their failing expectations. These moments open a “Third” or “Hybrid” Space of perception. Hence, kinaesthetic listening (and the respective kind of watching) is a firmly movement-sensitive listening (watching), also including haptic and tactile aspects of movement (imaginations). Musicians generally associate a distinctively haptic component with acoustic events, since the production of sound is mostly connected with a sensorimotor activity such as pressing, fingering, bowing, feeling one’s way on the instrument etc. After longer practice, the motoric process of sound production is so closely linked to the resulting sound experience that the movement as such can already trigger the (audible) impression of a sound or the sound can be (audibly) imagined. And vice versa: specific instrumental sounds can directly trigger in experienced players imaginations of movements, virtual movement patterns, which are necessary for the production of sound (cf. Meyer-Kalkus 2007). This is comparable with a conditioning learning process gaining ‘embodied’ (cf. Bouton 2007, 2 2016) and thus generating tacit knowledge (Polanyi 1996) as a special manifestation of an embodied knowledge. The latter originates most notably in a practical craftsmanship, particularly in the haptic and tactile skills and sources of

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knowledge before it can be rationalized (mostly just rudimentarily). Music is here at first grasped tactile-haptically, in order to be gripped by it emotionally and to grasp it rationally/cognitively. 4.2

Helmut Lachenmann’s Gripping and Grasping Listening

Lachenmann discusses the aspect of a tactile and haptic perception of sound events, which can be experienced physically, explicitly in his “methodology of composition and aesthetics of listening” (cf. Utz/Gadenstätter 2008 in their explanations of Lachenmann’s music). He virtually puts it at the core of his artistic practice by starting with the composition at the level of the production of sound as sensorimotor activity – instead of taking traditional tonal systems or standardised articulations as the starting point. Emphasising motor activity or highly diverse movement articulations for the accentuation of entirely new, subtly nuanced timbres, leads to the facts outlined earlier: Lachenmann’s music, first of all, must be felt for or rather gripped and grasped (“tasten” or “er-/zu-/greifen” in German) so that one can comprehend it (“begreifen” in German). Lachenmann calls this a “gripping process” (“Abtastprozess” in German) (Häusler/Lachenmann 1996, 123). An essential prerequisite for the understanding of Lachenmann’s music is first of all a bodily knowledge of movement as a specifically tactile-haptic skilfulness. Furthermore according to Lachenmann, the motor activity upon which sound events are based does not aim at a sympathetic “listening” as recognizing something familiar, rather it wants to train a self-reflective “critical listening,” which questions traditional listening habits, in order to repeatedly become receptive with full attentiveness to the unusual and new (cf. Häusler/Lachenmann 1996, esp. 116–135 and 352–356). 4.3

Choreographed Listening in Xavier Le Roy’s Staged Concerts

Xavier Le Roy’s first staging of a “concert evening” called Mouvements für Lachenmann originated in 2005 on the occasion of the celebration of the composer’s 70th birthday at the festival Wien Modern. At the beginning one could listen and watch Lachenmann’s “Schattentanz” (shadow dance) for piano no. 7 from Ein Kinderspiel (1980), performed by Marino Formenti – the very piece with which Lachenmann, according to his own statement, started the “provocation” of listening by choosing something where the recipient feels most comfortable – nursery rhymes and dance models. It was followed by Lachenmann’s Salut für Caudwell for two guitars (1977), which three years later was also the centre of the premiere of More Mouvement für Lachenmann as a further development of the first staged concert (2008). In this performance it was framed by Pression (1969/70) and Gran Torso (1971)

Intertwinements of Music/Sound and Dance/Movement as a “Third Space”

though, whereas Mouvements für Lachenmann in 2005 ended with Lachenmann’s Mouvement (– vor der Erstarrung) (1982/84). I would like to briefly focus especially on Le Roy’s staging of Lachenmann’s Salut für Caudwell, which stood at the centre of both three-part concerts, since it raised essential questions about listening and watching movements. It gives those gestures of decoupling (of listening and watching) especially forceful contours, which I consider as symptomatic for a postmodern aesthetic of intertwinements of audible and visual, but also hardly or no longer audible and visible movements in choreography and performance. Especially these gestures are opening a “Third” or “Hybrid Space” (related to Bhabha’s concept of this term), that forces us to reconsider out habits of listening, watching, or more general: of perception as a central tool to understand our “world.” In Le Roy’s staged version of Lachenmann’s Salut für Caudwell two guitarists played the composition without their instruments as if playing air guitar, whereas the respective music was actually played by two other guitarists who were hidden behind a folding screen. However, it did not stop at this comparably simple arrangement of decoupling the audible and the visible as an acousmatic setting, so to speak. It became increasingly perceptible that the visible gestures were distorted choreographically. One example occurs when the players behind the folding screen paused, whereas the silent play in front of the screen was continuing. Thus, the visible events departed further from the audible and increasingly unsettled the listening/watching audience, since the movements they saw were different from those needed to produce those sounds. In short, the listeners did not hear what they saw – and vice versa, they saw something they did not hear. These gestures of difference and interference, which oscillated between the audible and the visible, finally resulted in the audience being thrown back on themselves and reflecting what and how they were perceiving. In this way, Xavier Le Roy transferred Lachenmann’s intended listening as a critically reflecting perception into a respectively analogous kind of watching. Remarkable are also the consequences for the musicians resulting from this experimental set-up, which means that is was a kind of artistic research: a staged artistic research. Afterwards Le Roy explained to the musicians: The specific quality of the movements produced by you as musicians is also very interesting. Dancers would not be able to achieve this. It gets obvious that unlike dancers, who could make the same movements, you know exactly how these movements would sound, what function they have, how much pressure you have to apply etc. This knowledge lends your movements a special quality that the audience notice (Translation from the programme for More Mouvements für Lachenmann, at the Dresden Festival of Contemporary Music TonLagen, 2009).

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5.

Conclusionary Remarks

Since the actual impulse for the movements of the musicians originates from their sound imagination (combined with an embodied knowledge of how to produce it) – and not from physical or movement techniques (for their own sake), let alone codified gestures and figures of movement, musicians become a species of dancers in their own right. Equally, dancers can become a species of musicians, if they are led in their movement creations by musical impulses without being inevitably ensnared by the music. What connects both species of artists is a kinaesthetic listening which above all perceives music as audible but also physically (tactile-haptic) tangible movement, in order to enter a “Third” space of (and not just between) music/sound and dance/movement – with the eye and the ear in an equal partnership.

Bibliography Batson, G./Wilson, M. (2014), Body and Mind in Motion. Dance and Neuroscience in Conversation, Bristol: Intellect Books. Bhabha, H. (1994), The Location of Culture, London/New York: Routledge. Bouton, M.E. (2007, 2 2016), Learning and Behavior. A Contemporary Synthesis, Sunderland, Mass.: Sinauer Associates Inc., U.S. [Oxford University Press]. Brandstetter, G. (2005), „Tanz“, in: E. Fischer-Lichte/D. Kolesch/M. Warstat (ed.), Metzler Lexikon Theaterteorie, Stuttgart: Metzler, 327–332. Brandstetter, G. (2015), „Tanzwissenschaft – eine kleine Topografie“, in: M. Bischof/B. Glauser (Hg.), vielfältig – hartnäckig – weitblickend. 13 Jahre Tanzkultur, Bern: Universität Bern, 14–17. Brandstetter, G. (2016), Körperwissen im Tanz. Bewegung und Übertragung, in: A.-B. Renger/C. Wulf (ed.), Körperwissen: Transfer und Innovation (= Paragrana, vol. 25/1), Berlin: De Gruyter, 327–332. Brandstetter, G./Klein, G. (2007, 2 2015), Methoden der Tanzwissenschaft. Modellanalysen zu Pina Bauschs Le Sacre du Printemps/Das Frühlingsopfer, Bielefeld: Transcript. Brandstetter, G./Klein, G. (ed.) (2013), Dance [and] Theory, Bielefeld: Transcript. Cohen, S.J. (ed.) (1998), International Encyclopedia of Dance. A project of Dance Perspectives Foundation Inc., New York/Oxford et al.: Oxford University Press. Copeland, R./Cohen, M. (ed.) (1983), “What is dance?” Readings in Theory and Criticism, New York/Oxford et al.: Oxford University Press. Dahms, S. (2004), “Noverre, Jean Georges”, in L. Finscher (ed.), Die Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart, Personenteil, vol. 12, Kassel/Stuttgart et al.: Bärenreiter/Metzler, col. 1227–1231, esp. 1230. Dahms, S. (ed.) together with Claudia Jeschke and Monika Woitas (2001), Tanz, Kassel/ Stuttgart et al.: Bärenreiter/Metzler (MGG prisma).

Intertwinements of Music/Sound and Dance/Movement as a “Third Space”

Dils, A./Albright, A.C. (ed.) (2001), Moving History / Dancing cultures. A Dance History Reader, Middletown, Connecticut: Wesleyan University Press. Dodds, S. (ed.) (2019), The Bloomsbury Companion to Dance Studies, London/New York. European Centre of the Arts Dresden (ed.) (2009), [booklet for the performance of:] More Mouvements für Lachenmann, Dresden Festival of Contemporary Music TonLagen [without pagination (p. 4f)] Foster, S.L. (2013), “Dancing and Theorizing and Theorizing Dancing”, in Dance [and] Theory, ed. by G. Brandstetter/G. Klein, Bielefeld: Transcript, 19–32. Fröhlich, G./Rehbein, B. (ed.) (2014), Bourdieu Handbuch. Leben – Werk – Wirkung, Stuttgart: Metzler/Springer. Gehm, S./Husemann, P./Wilcke, K. von (ed.) (2007 [German edition]/2008 [English edition]), Wissen in Bewegung. Perspektiven der künstlerischen und wissenschaftlichen Forschung im Tanz. (Translation:) Knowledge in Motion. Perspectives of Artistic and Scientific Research in Dance, Bielefeld: Transcript. Giersdorf, J.R./Wong, Y. (ed.) ([1 1998, 2 2010] 3 2019), The Routledge Dance Studies Reader, Oxon/New York: Routledge. Häusler, J. (ed.) (1996), Helmut Lachenmann. Musik als existentielle Erfahrung. Schriften 1966–1995, Wiesbaden: Breitkopf & Härtel. Lehmann, H.-T. (2006), Postdramatic Theatre. Oxon/New York: Routledge. Manning, S./Ruprecht, L. (ed.) (2012), New German Dance Studies, Urbana/Chicago/ Springfield: University of Illinois Press. Meyer-Kalkus, R. (2006), “Klangmotorik und verkörpertes Hören in der Musik Helmut Lachenmanns”, in: H.-K. Jungheinrich (ed.), Der Atem des Wanderers. Der Komponist Helmut Lachenmann, Mainz: Schott Music, 91–110. Noverre, J.G. (1760), Lettres sur la Danse et sur les Ballets, Lyon/Stuttgart (followed by editions: Wien 1767, Paris 1783, St. Petersburg 1803/1804; here cited as translation of the 1760/1803/1804 editions by Cyril W. Beaumont 1930). Polanyi, M. (1966), The Tacit Dimension, New York: Doubleday & Company. Roth, G. (1992), Kognition. Die Entstehung von Bedeutung im Gehirn, in: W. Krohn/G. Küppers (ed.), Emergenz. Die Entstehung von Ordnung, Organisation und Bedeutung, Frankfurt a.M.: Suhrkamp, 104–133. Schroedter, S. (2016), “Musikchoreographische Forschungspraxis. Eine Fallstudie zur Historiographie des Experimentellen im Zusammenspiel von Tanz, Musik/Klang und Bildender Kunst“, in: S. Quinten/S. Schroedter (Hg.), Tanzpraxis in der Forschung – Tanz als Forschungspraxis. Choreographie – Improvisation – Exploration, Bielefeld, 223–240. Thomas, H./Prickett, S. (ed.) (2020), The Routledge Companion to Dance Studies, Oxon/ New York. Utz, C./Gadenstätter, C. (ed.) (2008), Musik als Wahrnehmungskunst. Untersuchungen zu Kompositionsmethodik und Hörästhetik bei Helmut Lachenmann, Saarbrücken: Pfau.

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Does Your God Dance? The Role of Rhythmic Bodily Movement in Friedrich Nietzsche’s Revaluation of Values Ich würde nur an einen Gott Glauben, der zu tanzen verstünde.1 Friedrich Nietzsche

1.

An Historical Anomaly

When I began my doctoral work years ago in Christian Theology in the Modern West, I was keen to study why the human act of dancing has not been an integral part of mainline European Christian Protestant traditions. Why do these Christians not dance as a form of worship, prayer, praise, or meditation? Why is dancing not a sanctioned medium of religious experience and expression, as it is within many indigenous traditions, within major strands of each world religion, and even within other expressions of Christianity itself?2 These forms of Protestant Christianity not only played an oversized role in shaping the field of religious studies and its attitudes towards dancing, but they also represent an historical anomaly. As part of my quest for answers, I delved into theological and philosophical texts written in Europe and the United States since the 1600s seeking to identify the logic, the bias, and the implicit assumptions that prevented the range of thinkers from considering dancing as worthy of attention in their efforts to define religion and chart a human path to a right relationship with the divine. One of my primary findings was that scholars and philosophers rely heavily on the sensory education provided by bodily practices of reading and writing to justify their arguments concerning the nature or essence of religion (cf. LaMothe: 2004). Whether construed as rational belief or deeply inward experience, this “essence” takes as its metaphorical and experiential paradigm a felt separation between mind

1 “I would only believe in a god who could dance” (Nietzsche: 1990, 34; 1954, 153). 2 As other chapters in this volume attest, dance is and has been present in Christian scripture, iconography, and practice at various times over the past 2000 years. Dancing is also an integral part of African American Protestant and Pentecostal worship, and constituted the central ritual of the United Society of Believers in Christ’s Second Appearing, also known as the American Shakers. The Shakers are the longest successful experiment in Christian socialism, spanning over two hundred years, and claiming over 6000 members at their height during the 1840s (cf. LaMothe: 2017, 2018).

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and body that people who read and write cultivate as the condition of their success in reading and writing. People, who learn to process their thought through abstract signs on a page, learn to identify themselves – their “I” – with this abstracted, inward thinking. They learn to distance themselves from the sensations in their bodily selves. They develop the capacity to imagine, as Descartes so famously expressed, that they have no body (cf. 1956: 20–1). Humans can learn to think and feel and act as if they are minds living over and against their bodies. They can also learn to privilege this method of mind-over-body sensory education not only as the preferred means for encountering the divine, but as the method most conducive to acquiring certain and true knowledge of any kind, whether scientific or religious. Within such an epistemological terrain, “dancing”, conceived as rhythmic bodily movement, bares no essential relationship to “religion”, conceived as a matter of belief or inward experience. To the contrary. For many intellectuals and Christian practitioners in the Modern West, dance is an unnecessary distraction – even a temptation to sin – one activity among others that people can choose to do with their bodies … or not. However, in my intellectual travels, I also found that there are thinkers in the Modern West who embrace dance – precisely because of its status as a marginalized activity – as a powerful tool for exposing the limitations of a reading-writingenabled, mind-over-body sensory education when it comes to theorizing religion as well as dance. One of those figures – the philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche – repeatedly appeals to “dance” when criticizing Christian values that he perceives as “hostile to life.” In the process, he illuminates a complex interdependence between dance and religion that offers a wealth of resources for contemporary scholars seeking to understand this relationship. Moreover, his work has proven influential for dancers in Europe and the United States, who have been inspired by him in developing techniques of dance training, choreography, and performance that do not simply express religious values, but create and reform them (cf. LaMothe: 2006; 2018). In my contribution to this volume, I examine the role of dance in Nietzsche’s philosophical project. I argue that his references to dance blaze a trail toward a philosophy of religion and dance that acknowledges the agency of rhythmic bodily movement in generating and sustaining our highest values and most steadfast beliefs.

2.

A Revaluation of All Values

Friedrich Nietzsche was born in 1844 in the rural town of Röcken, and raised with the expectation that he would become a Lutheran pastor like his father and both of his grandfathers. While studying theology at the University of Bonn, however,

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Nietzsche stopped going to church, and shifted his major from theology to philology. In 1868, his evident brilliance led to an early job offer. Before he had even completed his doctoral work, he accepted a position as a Professor of Ancient Languages at the University of Basel. After ten years at Basel, Nietzsche retired due to poor health. Constant headaches and digestive issues made it impossible for him to continue teaching, and even more necessary, perhaps, for him to keep developing a philosophy predicated on a radical affirmation of life.3 Beginning with his first book, The Birth of Tragedy (1872), Nietzsche produced a body of work dedicated to what he later describes as a “revaluation” (or “transvaluation”) of all values: “Revaluation of all values [Umwerthung aller Werthe]: that is my formula for an act of supreme self-examination [Selbstbesinnung] on the part of humanity, become flesh and genius in me” (1980, 6: 365; 1989, 326). This examination involves interrogating values – that is, those moral commitments that anchor people’s action, attention, and aspirations; and not just any values, but his own inherited Christian values, as expressed in theological ideas, moral prescriptions, and spiritual practices. His aim is to discern whether these values are actually what they claim to be: good and true and just. For Nietzsche, this project is personal. The values he examines are values he observes in his family, among colleagues, and among fellow Germans. In 1885, his younger sister Elisabeth, a devout Christian, married Bernard Förster, a member of the proto-Nazi Nationalist Socialist party. Forster felt it was his duty as a Christian to limit Jewish immigration, Jewish influence on German culture, and Jewish participation in the financial industry. Elizabeth made Förster’s program her own. After their wedding, the pair sailed to Paraguay to found a pure Aryan colony (cf. MacIntyre: 1992; Diethe: 2003). Nietzsche was devastated. How, he wondered, could Christians – like his own sister – who preach love and forgiveness and claim to be morally correct, still perpetrate racism, anti-Semitism, Christian imperialism, xenophobic nationalism, and a pervasive hostility to life? What Nietzsche concludes is that values like these that are “hostile to life” emerge from a process of revaluation: a phenomenon that occurs in the evolution of human societies when one value is swapped for its opposite, such that what was once perceived as good is now perceived as evil, and what was once considered evil is now considered good. As he notes, [Looking from the perspective of the sick toward healthier concepts and values … and vice versa …] in this I have had the longest training, my truest experience; if in anything, I became master in this. Now I know how, have the know-how, to reverse perspectives: the

3 For biographical details, see Hayman: 1980; Krell: 1997; Prideaux: 2018.

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first reason why a ‘revaluation of values’ is perhaps possible for me alone (1980, 6; 1989, 223).

In this project of revaluation, moreover, Nietzsche is not interested in simply “examining” values that he perceives as hostile to life. Nor is he keen on positing his own “system” as a replacement. Rather, he writes in an effort to spur his readers to participate in creating new values – honest, healthy, life-affirming values; and he intends to help them do so by laying out the psychological and physiological conditions that are necessary to ensure that those values, in the words of his alter-ego Zarathustra, “remain faithful to the earth” (1954, 125; 1980, 4: 99). Although Nietzsche’s corpus spans multiple genres, from prose to poetry to fiction, in every major book, from first to last, he refers to dance, dancers, and dancing to advance his aims. For example, in Thus Spoke Zarathustra, a fictional book he considered his finest work, Zarathustra is a dancer who calls upon the higher men to dance – to lift up their legs and their hearts. It is also Zarathustra, who utters the line above: “I would only believe in a god who could dance” (1954, 153; 1990, 34). In penning this line, Nietzsche obviously exploits the shock value it would have for his European Christian readers to juxtapose “dance” with “god.” But why? As the rest of this chapter explains, dancing plays several critical and constructive roles in Nietzsche’s project of revaluing values. On the one hand, dancing emerges as the paradigm for activities that generate the psychological and physiological conditions needed to discern whether a given value affirms life. Even more significantly, however, dancing emerges as the medium through which life-affirming values take shape and become real. In this sense, the sensory education that dancing provides affords more than a critical perspective; the action of dancing has agency as a source of values that express and uphold what Nietzsche calls “the great health – that one does not merely have but also acquires continually, and must acquire because one gives it up again and again” (1974, #382, 346; 1980, 3:635–636).

3.

Hostile to Life

Understanding the role of dance in Nietzsche’s revaluation requires grasping what he means when he claims that Christian values harbor a “hostility to life” (1967, 23; 1980, 1: 18). “Life,” for Nietzsche, refers to the realm of the senses, with its multiple, partial, and conflicting perspectives. It refers to artistic expressions that reveal and conceal. It refers to the natural world with its beauty and its terrors, its peace and its violence, its indifference to human ends and its breathtaking creativity in support of them.

Does Your God Dance?

Life is the realm of change; the realm of appearances. Nietzsche writes, “All of life is based on semblance, art, deception, points of view, and the necessity of perspectives and error” (1967, 23; 1980, 1: 18). In short, “Life,” for Nietzsche, is best construed as a human’s ever-evolving sensory entanglement with existence. According to Nietzsche, Christian values are “hostile” to this sensory entanglement when they first, posit that God, or Truth, is an immortal and wholly transcendent Other, and second, enshrine this belief as the defining mark of a Christian. For people who privilege this belief, the earthly realm of finite, erring bodies pales in comparison. Any information we perceive through our senses is inadequate when pursuing the Truth – including and especially where God is concerned. In short, when Truth is defined as unchanging and eternal, sensory entanglement poses an epistemological problem. “Life” looms as an obstacle that must be overcome, through a thorough training of reason (as prescribed, for example, by Immanuel Kant or Georg W.F. Hegel), or through a carefully cultivated inward experience (as recommended, for example, by Friedrich Schleiermacher or Søren Kierkegaard). In so far as moral prescriptions train human attention away from sensory inputs and towards a presumed higher, purer, more spiritual goal, Nietzsche asks: “might not morality be ‘a will to negate life’”? (1967, 23; 1980, 1:18) Further, as Nietzsche observes, the perception that sensory entanglement is an obstacle easily shades into an eagerness to blame sensory entanglement for any failure to succeed in knowing God. Here sensory entanglement becomes as an ontological problem; it looms as evil by virtue of the good it prevents. Persons who hold such values, Nietzsche insists, believe they are called to fight against the realm of the senses – against the desires and longings of their bodily selves. They believe they must fight as well against other humans, non-Christians, and especially Jewish people, who refuse to share their beliefs. Christian values are hostile to life, then, when they teach people that to love God they must hate themselves, non-Christians, and the earth. Christian values are hostile to life when they teach people to embrace pain and suffering as signs of God’s Will, and accept that the life that matters most is not here on earth, but after death in heaven. As Nietzsche summarizes, “Behind this mode of thought and valuation […] I never failed to sense […] a furious, vengeful antipathy to life itself […] Hatred of ‘the world,’ condemnation of the passions, fear of beauty and sensuality, a beyond invented the better to slander this life, at bottom a craving for the nothing, for the end, for respite” (1967, 23, elisions by the author; 1980, 1: 18). Christian values are hostile to life when they forbid people from dancing.

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4.

Ressentiment

Nietzsche does not just identify this hostility as a problem, he investigates how such hostility takes hold in people’s hearts. Must belief in an all-encompassing God necessarily segue into hatred of bodies and “the world”? And, if it does, is it necessarily a problem? Nietzsche answers these questions as he traces the origin of life-denying values to a specific set of sensory, kinetic experiences. Life-denying values, he discerns, derive their power from a physiological condition in which a person feels blocked from following through on their desires, and unable to move towards what they want. In this situation, a host of emotions is apt to follow – frustration, anger, and despair. People may feel bereft, helpless, and alone; they feel the “sting of impossible desire” (cf. LaMothe: 2011). They may respond by blaming someone or something else for their unhappiness, a phenomenon that Nietzsche calls ressentiment: “this need to direct one’s view outward instead of back to oneself – is of the essence of ressentiment” (1980, 5: 270–271; 1989, I: 10.37). It is in such a moment of ressentiment, Nietzsche explains, that those who feel frustrated revalue their values. They insist that their disadvantage is an advantage, that their inability to act has higher value than an ability to act. What was once perceived as evil – the pain and suffering of not doing or getting or being what one wants – is now embraced as good and even salvific. Conversely, the ability to discharge one’s will and succeed is revalued as evil. For a person overcome with ressentiment, “No is its creative deed”. As Nietzsche affirms, such “natures that are denied the true reaction, that of deeds […] compensate themselves with an imaginary revenge” (1980, 5: 270–271; 1989, I: 10.36–37, elision by the author). Nietzsche discerns such a ressentiment-powered revaluation: in Christian ideas of God as transcendent; in Christian injunctions to meekness and submission; in efforts to blame and vilify a bodily self ’s sensory entanglements as a source of evil; as well as in a willingness – that he saw in his own sister – to inflict violence upon people of other races and religions to protect and purify a Christian faith. When Church authorities preach and teach these ressentiment-powered revaluations to people who are suffering from the sting of impossible desire, Nietzsche confirms, they create true believers ready to proclaim that God will punish the strong, and bless them, the weak – true believers convinced that their suffering is both God’s will and a promise of future vindication over others. As Nietzsche writes, “It is because of their impotence that in them hatred grows to monstrous and uncanny proportions, to the most spiritual and poisonous kind of hatred” (1980, 5: 266–267; 1989, I: 7.33). Here, human creativity, in a desperate bid to gain the upper hand, turns on itself, like a fox caught in a trap who chews off its own paw. To some extent, as Nietzsche admits, these life-denying values do work: they provide people with a way to feel something other than defeat. Instead, they feel

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hatred that seeks revenge, or righteousness meriting praise, or guilt deserving punishment. In each case, the effect is the same. As Nietzsche avers, “This alone, I surmise, constitutes the actual physiological cause of ressentiment, vengefulness, and the like: a desire to deaden pain by means of affects” (1980, 5: 374; 1989, III: 15.127). These “affects” overwhelm the sensation of pain, providing people with an emotion they can manage. In short, the efficacy and authority of life-denying values does not emanate from rational exposition, or from divine revelation, Christian tradition, or Scripture but from their ability to avoid suffering. The problem for Nietzsche – and the well spring of his own passionate desire to revalue these ideas and affects – is practical. He is not concerned with the hypocrisy as much as he is with the fact that life-denying values make that suffering worse. They address the symptoms of human suffering, and not the causes. For example, when people who feel blocked imbibe ideals of meekness and submission, they stop trying to act. Their energy levels drop. They grow weaker in mind and body, and less able to execute their will or control their own desires. They suffer more from slights and stings, and fall prey more easily to their own emotions and rampant desires – including their hatred for others. They lose the ability to discern what is good for them and crave more stimulation – more righteous indignation or monstrous antipathy – to deaden their growing pain. As a result, they experience even more frustration, and so lean ever more heavily on the ideals and authorities that give them a modicum of relief. They become ever more ardent in their denunciation of sensory pleasures, artistic exuberance, and those who appear to threaten their hold on happiness. Their own beliefs blind them to the true sources of their suffering. Thus, Nietzsche maps a vicious cycle that begins in sensations of physiological and psychological impotence and leads to fierce belief in a transcendent God whose existence justifies hatred and violence, pitting humans against humans, humans against nature, and human minds against their own bodily selves.

5.

An Alternative Path The effect of [Birth of Tragedy] proved and proves that it has a knack for seeking out fellow-rhapsodizers and for luring them on to new secret paths and dancing places (1967, 19, addition by the author; 1980, 1).

The genius of Nietzsche’s critique is that it immediately illuminates an alternative path. As life-denying values do not derive their power from intellectual maneuvering or historical precedent, any alternative cannot appear by way of rational argument. The only way to disempower life-denying values is to change the game: that is, to

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create opportunities for people to have a different set of sensory, kinetic experiences, in short, a different sensory education. They need a sensory education that will grow in them the physiological and psychological health that they need in order to embrace the inevitable sting of impossible desire and still create and enact values that express love for life. As Nietzsche suggests: To be incapable of taking one’s enemies, one’s accidents, even one’s misdeeds seriously for very long – that is the sign of strong, full natures in whom there is an excess of the power to form, to mold, to recuperate and to forget. […] Such a man shakes off with a single shrug many vermin that eat deep into others; here alone genuine love of one’s enemies is possible (1980, 5; 1989, I: 10, 39, elision by the author).

In these sentences, Nietzsche posits these “strong, full natures” as those able to do what Christian teaching demands – and love their enemies. And from beginning to end of Nietzsche work, dance is the paradigm for the alternative sensory education that builds these strong, full natures. Dancing is the art of bodily movement that cultivates one’s ability to form, to heal, to forget – and to love one’s enemies. In the Genealogy, to take one example, those people who are able to digest their experiences and resist ressentiment are those who engage in dancing – a “vigorous, free, joyful activity” that both presupposes and preserves a “flourishing, abundant, even overflowing health” (1980, 5: 266; 1989, I: 7, 33). So how does the act of dancing effect this sensory education? How can dancing free people from feeling despair at their own impotence, and so alleviate their need to foment violence and hatred towards others? How does dancing enable experiences of joy, and give rise to values that affirm life? Answers lie in Nietzsche’s account of what dancing is and does. As a school boy and a university student, Nietzsche attended social dances. At Schulpforta, a boarding school for boys in Naumburg, and as part of a college fraternity at the University of Bonn, he engaged in parades and military style dances. As a student of theology, he was well versed both in biblical exhortations to dance and in Christian admonitions against dancing. Yet perhaps the greatest influence on his concept of dance came from his work as a scholar of Greek literature. Nietzsche read, taught, and wrote about the forms of tragic theater created and performed in Athens in the fifth century BCE, often called Attic tragedy. His first book, Birth of Tragedy, analyzes the historical interval during which earlier Dionysian rituals evolved into these public stage performances which involved dancing and singing. In his writing, Nietzsche returns to the topic of Attic tragedy time and again for one reason: there he finds an example of religion-art that succeeds in communicating to its audience members what he believes Christian education fails to deliver: a whole-hearted love for life – all of it. Attic tragedy, he writes, contains “a formula

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for the highest affirmation, born of fullness, of overfullness, a Yes-saying [Ja-sagen] without reservation, even to suffering, even to guilt, even to everything that is questionable and strange in existence” (1989, 272; 1980, 6: 311). For Nietzsche the task of unpacking the secret of this highest affirmation, and enacting it in his own work, impelled his philosophical projects throughout his lifetime. In Birth of Tragedy, as he analyzes this “formula”, Nietzsche hones in on the dramatic structure of the play. A tragedy conjoins two elements: a narrative featuring actors who play individual characters – an Apollonian element; and a chorus of anonymous figures who enter to dance and sing at significant junctures in the narrative – a Dionysian element. Taken together, the interplay of actors and chorus effects in spectators what Nietzsche calls a “magic transformation” or Verzauberung. Even as the spectators are slammed by a story of failure and defeat, even as they gaze directly into the annihilation of their own individual being, they nonetheless experience this inevitable, unavoidable death, this sting of impossible desire, as a reason to feel joy and love for life. Such a magic transformation, Nietzsche claims, is “the presupposition of all dramatic arts” (1967, 64; 1980, 1: 61–62). In explaining how this magic transformation occurs, Nietzsche fleshes out the theory of dance that persists through his corpus. Dancing is the art that provides audience members with the sensory education that any transformation requires: dancing forges a visceral identification between spectators and chorus members that grants spectators an occasion to perceive and know their own bodily movement both as creative, and as participating in the ongoing creativity of a larger nature. While the exact movements of Attic tragedy choruses are shrouded in history, the members were described as moving together, in unison. Their synchronous movements were designed to evoke the elemental rhythms of the natural world. As Nietzsche writes, in the chorus: The essence of nature is now to be expressed symbolically […] and the entire symbolism of the body is called into play, not the mere symbolism of the lips, face, and speech but the whole pantomime of dancing, forcing every member into rhythmic movement (1967, 41, elision by the author; 1980, 1: 33–34).

Here choral members mobilize a body’s full capacity for movement-making in order to express and evoke the “essence” of nature – that is, not its “truth” but its rhythm – its unending beat and pulse, its undying fecundity. The movement patterns of the chorus thus appear as symbols – kinetic images – of a human’s sensory entanglement with existence. When confronted with these patterns of rhythmic movement, Nietzsche avers, spectators cannot not respond. They feel compelled to move. They entrain (cf. McNeill: 1995). The choral dancing, in other words, wakes up a human instinct to

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notice and recreate patterns of movement. Nietzsche calls it an “imitation of gesture” that all humans exercise without thinking, even “when the language of gesture is universally suppressed and the educated are taught to control their muscles” (1980, 2: 176; 1984, #215, 128). Yet this imitation is not simply a copy. As humans instinctively move with, they create and exercise new patterns of bodily movement that symbolize their relationship with whatever impelled them to move. Dancing, thus, puts spectators in touch with their own kinetic creativity. Humans are beings who create through a process of making particular patterns of bodily movement. Moreover, what the spectators create as they move with the chorus, according to Nietzsche, is a sense of visceral identification with the chorus and with the nature it represents. Spectators moved by the chorus come to feel that they too are part of the chorus; they too are moved by something joyful and generative that extends beyond their individual selves. As Nietzsche writes, “The Dionysian excitement is capable of communicating this artistic gift to a multitude, so they can see themselves surrounded by such a host of spirits while knowing themselves to be essentially one with them” (1967, 64; 1980, 1: 61–62). It is in this moment of visceral identification that the dancing effects its magic transformation. A spectator feels like they are someone else. As Nietzsche avers, “This process of the tragic chorus is […] to see oneself transformed before one’s own eyes and to begin to act as if one had actually entered into another body, another character” (ibid., 64, elision by the author). The spectator is no longer a lonely individual (like the tragic hero), but is participating in a rhythmic essence of nature – a greater creator – that stampedes through every person without being exhausted nor contained. As Nietzsche observes, “In song and in dance man expresses himself as a member of a higher community […] he feels himself a god, he himself now walks about enchanted, in ecstasy” (1967, 37, my elision; 1980, 1: 30). For Nietzsche, this ecstatic joy washes over the other moments of spectacle – including the tragic narrative – “turn[ing] these nauseous thoughts about the horror or absurdity of existence into notions with which one can live” (1967, 60, alteration by the author; 1980, 1). This dance-induced ecstatic experience of magic transformation nips ressentiment in the bud. Roused by joy, spectators have no need to blame anyone for the pain they feel when the hero fails or dies. From the sensory perspective opened by dancing, the hero’s failure or death is not an end. It is one moment in the “real immortality, that of movement,” which is always flexing, flooding, and overflowing our expectations (1980, 2: 171; 1984, #208, 126). Life will continue. Dancing will continue – and it will continue to enable spectators to feel and know that their sensory entanglement with existence – their rhythmic unity with the pulse and beat of creation – is good, is healing, is generative, and is worthy of love. Finally, the effects of this “magic transformation” or Verzauberung are not bound by the time and space of the performance. Spectators emerges from the performance,

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having unleashed their own kinetic creativity. They have discovered their capacity to make bodily movements that effect their connection with the energy and creativity of life itself. They have a sensory awareness of themselves as a rhythm of bodily becoming (cf. LaMothe: 2015). With every movement they make from then on, they have the opportunity to activate this sensory awareness – to feel and know that they can exercise a capacity to dance – using it, strengthening it, and making it more likely that, when they again come face to face with the sting of impossible desire, they will be able to make movements that express joy and love for what more is possible. As they do, they will be creating values that expresses a radical affirmation of life.

6.

Nietzsche’s Dance [B]eing practiced in maintaining himself on insubstantial ropes and possibilities and dancing even near abysses. Such a spirit would be the free spirit par excellence (1974, #347, 289–290, capitalization by the author; 1980, 3: 583).

Nietzsche’s analysis of Attic tragedy offers an interpretive key for references to dancing that appear elsewhere in his work. So interpreted these references shed further light on relationship of dancing and religion in his project of revaluing values. This analysis explains, for example, why Nietzsche calls upon dancing as a litmus test for determining whether a book, an ideal, or a person is life affirming. When Nietzsche asks: “Can they dance?” (1974, #366, 322; 1980, 3: 614), he wants to know: do they serve to strengthen one’s ability to love life – all of it? Do they quicken a sensory awareness of bodily participation in the ongoing fecundity of life? This analysis also explains why Zarathustra, when confronting the frustration and despair of his followers, the “higher men [hoheren Menschen],” intones, “[T]he worst about you is that you have not learned to dance as one must dance – dancing away over yourselves! What does it matter if you are failures? How much is still possible!” (1990, 283; 1954, 407). Here “dancing” is not merely a metaphor. It points to action. It is by making bodily movements that feed and exercise their kinetic creativity and nourish their great health, that the “higher men” will be able to stage for themselves a magic transformation, dissolve their ressentiment, and come to love themselves … enough. Further, when Zarathustra says, “I would only believe in a god who could dance,” the significance is now clear (1990, 34; 1954, 153). A god who could dance, whether Christian or not, is a highest, overriding ideal that would inspire those who believe in it to dance as well – that is, a god who would inspire a believer to keep cultivating

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a visceral, living connection with all that is as a source of health and well-being. So too, Zarathustra does not say that he does believe in such a god, only that he would, reminding us that beliefs depend for their legitimacy on the sensory experiences that make those beliefs real. The fact that Zarathustra could believe and would believe tells us that he is a dancer, actively seeking to participate consciously in his own rhythm of bodily becoming. Several lines later, when Zarathustra utters: “Now I am light, now I fly, now a god dances through me [jetzt tanzt ein Gott durch mich]” (1990, 35; 1954, 153) he completes the sequence of thought: dancing is not simply something to know about god. Dancing is the way that the god we know becomes present and real in us, again where “god” is our highest value, the manifestation of our love. Dancing, Nietzsche suggests, is the activity that incarnates god. Incarnation is what happens as we dance. Nietzsche never specifies what kind of movements this dancing would entail.4 Readers are responsible for discovering the reach and range of their own movement capacity, however great or small. The size, the degree of agility, the level of technical prowess does not matter. What matters, for Nietzsche, is whether the movements quicken a sensory awareness of a rhythmic, sensory, life-enabling connection with existence. In sum, for Nietzsche, dance itself is an ideal – dance is a life-affirming value. Those who dance as he describes can tolerate dissatisfaction without blaming others; they can prod and challenge their desires without being driven by them. Those who dance are constantly building the sensory strength and courage needed to embrace with love their bodily entanglement with the natural world. They are free spirits. Moreover, in every move they make, they remain faithful to the earth. As Nietzsche, writes, “I would not know what the spirit of a philosopher might wish more to be than a good dancer. For the dance is his ideal, also his art, and finally also his only piety, his ‘service of God’” (1989, #381, 345–346; 1980, 3: 635).

7.

Concluding Remarks

Nietzsche’s revaluation of all values is a work in progress. He had a mental breakdown and died before he could complete it, but not before calling readers to join him in interrogating our values, and sounding out their contradictions. If nothing more, he presents a clear case for how life-denying values can carry deadly consequences, even in our attempts to spread love.

4 Both Isadora Duncan and Martha Graham conceived of their work as discovering what those movement patterns might be. See LaMothe: 2006.

Does Your God Dance?

For scholars and philosophers in the fields of religion and dance, moreover, Nietzsche offers specific counsel. Any conceptual distinction between “religion” and “dance” that presupposes a dichotomy between spirit and flesh, or mind and body, is hostile to life: it expresses a sensory education that has trained us to ignore the generative interplay of thinking and moving, our own as well as that of others. It thus denies what Nietzsche’s revaluation reveals: that our gods and goddesses – and our methods of acquiring truth and knowledge – derive their authority from the patterns of bodily movements we make and the sensory education those movements provide. Even the most abstract god-concepts, as Nietzsche demonstrates, are inseparable from the physiological and psychological experiences – the patterns of movement – that render them possible and desirable. So too, even the simplest forms of dancing – stepping together in a group – create compelling symbols that orient our attention, aspirations, and action. There is no religion that exists apart from dance and no dancing that exists apart from religion. One cannot be studied without heed to the other – even if the “dance” has been reduced to sitting in a pew. At the same time, Nietzsche’s analysis does not suggest that religion and dance operate in seamless unison, even in traditions where dancing is an integral part of spiritual life. His work teases out a generative tension, in which the move to establish moral and religious values is always in danger of moving too far away from the physiological conditions needed to ensure human health; and where practices of bodily movement are ever in danger of forgetting the power they exert on our capacity to think, feel, and imagine. Contrary to what some commentators assert, Nietzsche does not endorse casting off moral values or religious beliefs, so people could do whatever they want with their bodies. Such action would signal a depravity and decadence as hostile to life as a belief in a transcendent truth. Rather, for Nietzsche, the instinct to form gods (1967b, #1038, 534) and the instinct to imitate gestures are equally essential for humans to exercise; these two inherent capacities are ever moving in a rhythmic, generative opposition that cannot and should not be collapsed to one side or the other. Dancing and writing are both necessary for the creation of values that affirm life. For those of us who read and write about religion and dance, the call is clear. Nietzsche encourages us not only to examine our concepts and methods for lifedenying values, but also to dance, to engage in bodily practices that animate our sensory awareness of our own movement-making, so that the thoughts we think and the insights we glean into the experience of others will be more likely to express values that remain faithful to the earth.

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Bibliography Descartes, R. (1956), Discourse on Method, T. Laurence, J. Lafleur, New York: Macmillan. Diethe, C. (2003), Nietzsche’s Sister and the Will to Power. A Biography of Elisabeth FoersterNietzsche, Urbana & Chicago: University of Illinois Press. Hayman, R. (1980), Nietzsche. A Critical Life, New York: Oxford University Press. Krell, D. (1997), The Good European. Nietzsche’s Work Sites in Word and Image, Chicago: University of Chicago Press. LaMothe, K. (2018), A History of Theory and Method in the Study of Religion and Dance, The Netherlands: Brill Research Series. LaMothe, K. (2017), Enlivening Spirits. Shaker Dance Ritual as Theopraxis, Théologiques 25 (1), 87–108. LaMothe, K. (2015), Why We Dance. A Philosophy of Bodily Becoming, New York: Columbia University Press. LaMothe, K. (2011), Family Planting. A farm-fed philosophy of human relations, United Kingdom: John Hunt Publishing. LaMothe, K. (2006), Nietzsche’s Dancers. Isadora Duncan, Martha Graham, and the Revaluation of Christian Values, New York: Palgrave MacMillan. LaMothe, K. (2004), Between Dancing and Writing. The Practice of Religious Studies, New York: Fordham University Press. MacIntyre, B. (1992), Forgotten Fatherland. The True Story of Nietzsche’s Sister and Her Lost Aryan Colony, New York: Crown Publishing/Random House. McNeill, W.H. (1995), Keeping Together in Time. Dance and Drill in Human History, Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Nietzsche, F. (1990), Also Sprach Zarathustra. Ein Buch für Alle und Keinen, Stuttgart: Universal-Bibliothek. Nietzsche, F. (1989), On the Genealogy of Morals and Ecce Homo, W. Kaufmann (ed. & tr.). New York: Vintage Press. Nietzsche, F. (1984), Human, All Too Human. A Book for Free Spirits, T.M. Faber with S. Lehmann, Lincoln/London: University of Nebraska Press. Nietzsche, F. (1980), Kritische Studienausgabe in 15 Bänden, G. Colli and M. Montinari (ed.), Munich: Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag; Berlin: Walter de Gruyer. Nietzsche, F. (1974), The Gay Science with a prelude in rhymes and an appendix of songs, New York: Vintage Press. Nietzsche, F. (1967), The Birth of Tragedy and The Case of Wagner, W. Kaufmann (ed. & trans.), New York: Vintage Press. Nietzsche, F. (1967b), The Will to Power, Tr. Walter Kaufmann and R.J. Hollingdale, Ed. W. Kaufmann, New York: Vintage Press. Nietzsche, F. (1954), The Portable Nietzsche, (ed.) W. Kaufmann, New York: Penguin. Nietzsche, F. (1914), On Truth and Falsity in their Ultramoral Sense, in The Complete Works of Friedrich Nietzsche, O. Levy (ed.), 2, New York: Macmillan.

Part II Dance in the History of Christianity: From the Early Church to World Christianity

Camille Lepeigneux

The Indictment of Dance by Christian Authors in Late Antiquity The Example of the Dance of Herodias’ Daughter (Mt 14; Mk 6) “Wherever there is dancing, there is the devil”, John Chrysostom said.1 This aphorism is frequently used to summarize, if not caricature, the overall indictment of dance by the Church of early ages. However, this quotation cannot convey the whole argument and it must be replaced in its logical, pastoral and cultural context.2 Dance in Christian Antiquity is indeed mostly criticized and condemned within a larger indictment of theatre shows. This critique is famous (Lugaresi: 2008; Webb: 2008, 197–216). From as early as the second c. AD, Tertullian, in On Spectacles, tried to prevent Christians from attending spectacles of any kind (theatrical, gladiators’ fights, horse races, athletic competitions), because they were connected to paganism. The identity of the young Church was thus at stake. Dance was indeed performed for a long time not only by pagans, but also by Jews and later on by unorthodox Christian communities. The Church deemed it necessary to develop a way of life of its own, which clearly identifies Christians and differentiates them from other religious groups.3 Moreover, regarding its moral issue, dance is never condemned alone. It is generally associated with other entertainments, which, as a whole, lead to debased behaviors, which are to be avoided by the faithful. This criticism on indecent behaviors, in which dance often partakes, was inherited from the Graeco-Roman mentality. It was then assimilated by Christians and transposed on a spiritual level. The endless fight against dance, which pervaded bishops’ texts and conciliar documents, throughout late Antiquity, shows, however, that dancing was a vivid practice among Christians, which authorities tried to regulate and ban.4

1 John Chrysostom, Homily 48 on Matthew (PG 58, 491): ἔνθα γὰρ ὄρχησις, ἐκεῖ διάβολος. Translation by the author. 2 Andresen: 1961 presents the most detailed overview of the condemnation of dance by the early Church. 3 On the relationship between Christianity and Paganism, see MacMullen: 1997. How dance can be an element in the process of Christian identity’s differentiation, see Tronca: 2017. 4 A selection of these texts is presented and analysed in Resta: 2015. The actual practice of dance by Christians is hard to establish, because most information we have about it comes from biased material: ecclesiological legislative documents and the Patristic critique in homiletics. Positive or neutral evidence is sparse. Much of it is found in apocryphal literature. See Dilley: 2013; Schlapbach: 2018.

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In order to deepen our understanding of this criticism on dance in its various features, I would like to examine a famous dancing figure of the New Testament, which Christian authors have much commented on, that of Herodias’ daughter, better known today as Salome (Matt 14:6–11; Mark 6:21–28). Her deadly performance indeed gives Christian commentators a chance to elaborate on their negative vision of dance. Chrysostom’s phrase, previously quoted, is precisely excerpted from a homily devoted to the exegesis of this episode. Thus, studying how Christian authors explain this passage of the New Testament may clarify the general indictment on dance, inasmuch as the biblical exegesis on dance is somewhat influenced by the cultural context. I will focus on four authors whose exegetical work shed light on various aspects of the controversy about dance, through different methods of reading. The first two are figurative readings. First, Origen’s interpretation consists of a figurative reading of the episode in which the vision of dance is influenced by Plato. Then I will show how Athanasius of Alexandria makes a metaphorical and satirical use of this biblical episode of dance in a polemical context against heretics. Afterwards, two literal exegeses are dealt with. The commentary of Ambrose provides the typical portrait of a dancer shared by many Christian authors, which is actually inherited from the Graeco-Roman imaginary representation of dance. Finally, the evil vision of dance by John Chrysostom is examined, who had an important impact on writers after him and whose main purpose is pastoral: to prevent the faithful from attending dancing performances and to warn them against practicing dance. The dance of Herodias’ daughter is mentioned in Matt 14:6 and Mark 6:22. The framework of both narratives is the same, but the episode is far more detailed in Mark’s version, in which the action and motives of the characters are described more in detail. During Herod’s birthday, the daughter of Herodias danced before him and the guests, so well that the tetrarch promised to give her whatever she wanted. The girl, advised by her mother asked for John the Baptist’s head. Despite his grief, Herod accepted and had John killed. His head was brought on a platter to the girl who gave it to her mother. The dancer is not described, nor does she have a name. The Greek word used to name her is κοράσιον, which refers roughly to a young girl, as a diminutive for κόρη, which generally means a young virgin of marriageable age.5 Furthermore, the Greek manuscripts do not agree on the name and the affiliation of the girl. Contrary to the traditional textual state, which says “the daughter of Herodias”, we find in some important manuscripts “his daughter, Herodias”, Herod being the father and the name of the girl being Herodias, like 5 In the Gospel of Mark, the same Greek term is also used to designate the daughter of Jaïre, a synagogue leader, who is woken up by Jesus, and is said to be twelve years old (Mark 5:41–42). It seems significant that this episode occurs just before the story of John Baptist’s death, and this leads us to identify the dancer to a very young teenager.

The Indictment of Dance by Christian Authors in Late Antiquity

her mother.6 In late Antiquity, this ambiguity is still current. Some Latin texts specify that the dancer is Herod’s daughter, which influences the interpretation of the episode, and some authors, especially those writing in Greek, call the girl “Herodias”, like for instance Origen of Alexandria. The name ‘Salome’ is given by the Jewish historian Flavius Josephus (first century AD), without mentioning her dancing,7 but it is never used in the Patristic period.8 Because of this blurred depiction and the lack of details of this rather peculiar story, ancient commentators tried to complete the dancer’s portrait and to explain how this deadly end could have ever happened. The dance is thus a meaningful clue.

1.

Opposition between Impure and Holy Dancing: Figurative Exegesis by Origen of Alexandria

Nevertheless important and influential Origen (second to third c. AD) was among Christian writers, his figurative interpretation of the episode is rather unique.9 In this exegesis, which takes place in his Commentary on Matthew,10 he seeks to condemn the wrong belief and behavior of the Jews who have not recognized the prophecy of John the Baptist. In that respect, the girl’s dance embodies the wrong attitude of the Jews. What is interesting here is that Origen confronts two different attitudes toward the true belief (that of John the Baptist) exemplified by two opposite dances, one positive and the other negative: However, the wife of the king of Trachonitis, who was some sort of bad doctrine and unrighteous teaching, gave birth to a daughter of the same name; her movements seem-

6 For the Gospel of Matthew, codex Bezae (4th –5th century ad) presents this textual variant, and for the Gospel of Mark, three of the most ancient and important manuscripts (Vaticanus, Sinaiticus, Bezae) have it, so that the modern editors of the Greek Gospel chose this variant (Nestle-Aland: 2012, 125). 7 Flavius Josephus, Jewish Antiquities 18.136–137. 8 The Salome of Flavius is first identified with the dancer of the Gospel by Isidore of Pelusium in the fifth century (Letter 1716b–c); however it is nothing but a quotation. Then the clearest identification of both characters is found in the ninth century in the Chronicle of George the Monk (Chronicon 3). This text is quoted by many later historians in the Byzantine period. However, the name is given only as a historical detail, but it is never used otherwise. While her legend grows in the Middle Ages, she is still mostly nameless or confused with her mother Herodias. The dancer became a real star at the end of the 19th century, and from there, the name of Salome was the most famous one, especially because of the tragedy written by Oscar Wilde, entitled Salome. 9 He probably influenced the commentary on Matthew by Hilary of Poitiers, fourth century AD (On Matthew 14.3.6–8), even if this point is discussed (Doignon: 1971, 170–175). 10 Origen of Alexandria, Commentary on Matthew 10.22.247–251.

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ingly harmonious, pleased Herod, who was fond of things, connected with birth, and became the cause of there being no longer a prophetic head among the people. Moreover, up to this point I think that the movements of the people of the Jews, which seem to be according to the law, are nothing else than the movements of the daughter of Herodias. However, the dancing of Herodias was opposed to that holy dancing, which those who have not danced will be reproached when they hear the words, ‘We played the pipe for you, and you did not dance’. In addition, they dance on a birthday, when a lawless doctrine reigns over them, so that their movements please that doctrine.11

Origen interprets this episode through a sort of allegory. Later in the text, he says that he reads the episode through an “elevation” or “spiritual transposition” (ἀναγωγή). In this kind of interpretation, the author regards the characters as figurative of a larger spiritual meaning. Thus John embodies the “prophetical speech”, following Peter’s words (1 Pet 1:19); Herodias, the mother, is the “bad doctrine and the unrighteous teaching” (πονηρά τις δόξα καὶ μοχθηρὰ διδασκαλία) ruling the Jews. As for her daughter, she represents the “movements (κινήματα) of the Jews”, which means their way of life, their actions. From this assimilation, Origen distinguishes between two opposite spiritual attitudes, which are reflected by two types of dancing. Indeed, he highlights a wrong spiritual attitude, that of Herod, who is fond of “the things related to birth” (τὰ γενέσεως πράγματα), as opposed to another one which would be truly devoted to God. The wrong attitude is that of the Jews who seem to respect the law, but in reality, their obedience is corrupted because the law is mistaken (this law, as we have seen, is embodied by the mother). It is wrong because it is fond of “the things related to birth”. This phrase refers to everything, which is created, as opposed to divine realities. Γένεσις in Greek means “origin, creation, birth”, and all that is created. Therefore, the wrong spiritual attitude is the one, which is involved only in physical things, human matters, as opposed to the true spiritual attitude that is dedicated to God. This antithetic distinction, which also matches what, is visible and what is invisible12 , is inherited from the metaphysical philosophy of Plato, who distinguishes the world of appearances and that of reality or essence. This philosophical distinction is here spiritualized: Herod who is concerned only by the world of appearance is distracted from God. Thus, Origen identifies with these opposite attitudes two opposite types of dancing: a holy dancing (ὄρχησις ἁγία) and an unholy dancing. The holy dancing is the one described in Luke 7:32 and Matt 11:17 when Jesus says, talking about the 11 Origen of Alexandria, Commentary on Matthew 10.22.247–251. Translation by the author. To read the Greek text in its latest edition, see the bibliography. 12 The “things concerning creation” and the visible are analogous in Against Celsus 7.46, and opposed to the invisible which is called also the “essence”, and finally concerns everything which is divine and coming from a superior world.

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generation of his time, who has not believed in John the Baptist’s teaching: “we played the pipe for you, and you did not dance”. About the disharmonious dance, it is described further in the text, as “irregular and out of tune” (ἀρρύθμος καὶ ἐκμελής), though seeming regular and pleasing to those involved in human and physical matters.13 The dance is characterized by what she lacks. She lacks harmony, regularity and accordance, which therefore characterizes the opposite holy dancing. The musical vocabulary, which pervades the text, is another inheritance from Plato, who describes the virtuous soul as a musical harmony, which can be acquired by the practice of mousikè.14 Mousikè is the Greek art, which gathers at the same time music, song, dance and poetry. To Plato, learning how to dance harmoniously teaches how to behave properly.15 This harmonious dance is the choreia, a collective dancing in a chorus, and it is opposed to an erratic and violent dancing, whose features are those of young and uncivilized people.16 This Plato’s approach of dance is thus translated by Origen within a Christian framework where the harmonious soul is also the pious one, who has recognized the Christ announced by John the Baptist.17 Some Christian authors oppose in the same way two sorts of dances (Tronca: 2016, 52–54; 2017, 205–214; 2019). Especially, in his Discourse 5 against Julian, Gregory of Nazianzus distinguishes between two types of festivities, the physical and indecent ones, and the religious ones. Explaining the latter, he refers to David’s dance before the arch as opposed to that of Herodias’ daughter.18

13 Origen, Commentary on Matthew 10.23.254–255: “But since after the letter we must also investigate the passage according to a spiritual elevation, we must say that, when prophecy was plotted against among the Jews and destroyed, because of their giving honour to things concerning birth, and to reward them practicing vain movements which, though conceived by the ruler of the wicked and those who feast along with him to be regular and pleasing to them, were irregular and out of tune, if truth be judge, then Jesus withdraws from the place in which prophecy was plotted against and condemned.” Translation by the author. 14 This musical vocabulary is very often used by Christian authors to depict the harmonious Creation and the harmonious soul devoted to God. This musical conception of the cosmos is inherited from Greek philosophy. The best example of Christian use of this vocabulary is Clement of Alexandria (second to third centuries AD). See S. Morlet: 2019. 15 See especially Plato, Laws 2.653e–654b: “Therefore the uneducated man (ἀπαίδευτος) will be, in our opinion, the one who doesn’t belong to a chorus (ἀχόρευτος), whereas we must regard the educated man (πεπαιδευμένον) as having sufficiently belonged to a chorus (ἱκανῶς κεχορευκότα). […] So the well-educated man will be able both to sing and dance (ὀρχεῖσθαι) well.” Translation and omission by the author. 16 For instance, Plato, Laws 2.653d–e. On the dance choreia, see Wersinger 2011: 183–195. 17 Before Origen, the Jewish writer Philo of Alexandria was also influenced by Plato’s philosophy and transposed his theory about dance in the Jewish exegesis and theology. See Bermond: 2001. 18 Gregory of Nazianzus, Discourse 5.35.368–369: “And if you have to dance, […] perform a dance, though not that of the shameless Herodias whose work was the Baptist’s death, but that of David

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There are two types of dancing, then. One is reprehensible, and the other one is praiseworthy because it matches a true devotion to God. The figurative reading of the text leads Origen to understand the dance in a spiritual perspective, and enables him to oppose two types of dancing presented in Scripture, which cannot only be understood in a literal sense.

2.

Dance as a Satirical Metaphor in Athanasius’ Literary Fight Against Heresy

The context in which Athanasius of Alexandria (fourth century AD) recalls the episode of the dance is not exegetical, as that of Origen’s work, but polemical. Although Arius’ heresy was condemned in the year 325 in the Nicaean council, it was still vivid in the Orient until the reign of Theodosius 1st and Athanasius fought it until the end of his life. An interesting mention of the dance appears in one of his late work, called ‘The History of Arians’, probably written while being in exile (Portmann: 2006, 65). In this text, he related the story of the last two decades of his episcopate and fiercely criticized the religious policy of the emperor Constantius 2nd who defended Arians. In the following excerpt, he denounces how the emperor and the Arian bishops abusively collaborate, leading to unfair persecutions. Athanasius ironically depicted this collaboration within a theatrical metaphor: One might look upon their proceedings as a comedy, which they are performing on the stage: the so-called bishops playing as actors, and Constantius executing their demands and in return making promises to them, as Herod did to Herodias, and them in return dancing the slanders in order to obtain the exile and the death of the pious toward the Lord.19

The figure of Herodias’ daughter, who is called Herodias in this text, is used as a stylistic and satiric device for the bishops’ actions. The theatre metaphor caricatures the characters who become stereotyped roles, with mutual dependence. The phrase “dancing the slanders” (ὀρχεῖσθαι τὰς διαβολὰς) unusually gives a direct complement to the verb “to dance”, which conveys the context of theatrical performances of the time, where the genre of pantomime and of mime prevail. Pantomime was a mythical story connected to codified dancing movements by a single male actor, accompanied by musicians and singers. Mime was a sort of comedy or a farce

when the Arch rested (2 Sam 6:14–21), which I regard as the mystery of a smooth and flexible gait adapted to God”. Translation by the author. 19 Athanasius of Alexandria, History of the Arians 52.6.213.Translation by the author.

The Indictment of Dance by Christian Authors in Late Antiquity

played by several actors, which was also composed of songs, music and dances. The phrase “dancing the slanders” seems to refer to the figure of the actor miming an action in dancing. The bishops here are depicted as ridiculous and flattering characters, in a satiric perspective. Dancing is thus presented through this metaphor as a silly performance, contrary to a righteous and religious behavior. This figurative use of the dance of Herodias’ daughter seems therefore to be influenced by the contemporary theatrical performance at the time of Athanasius.

3.

Ambrose of Milan: Classical Inheritance of the Moral Condemnation of the Dancer

Ambrose, who became bishop of Milan in the year 374, mainly comments on the dance of Herodias’ daughter, in an exhortative discourse addressed to virgins, focusing on moral issues. In the third book of this text, he distinguishes between two kinds of festivities: one, which is the true expression of spiritual joy, and one which is morally reprehensible and which does not suit the behavior of virgins consecrated to God. Belonging to the latter, the dance of Herodias’ daughter is a scriptural example of the moral dangers of human festivities in which the dance partakes. Then there has to be the joy of the mind, which has a good conscience, not caused by unrestrained feasts, or nuptial concerts. For there, modesty is not safe, and seduction is suspected where “dancing ultimately accompanies pleasure.” I desire that the virgins of God stay away from this. For as a certain scholar of this world has said: “No one dances when sober unless he is mad.” Now if, according to the wisdom of this world, either drunkenness or madness is the cause of dancing, what a warning is given to us among the instances mentioned in the Divine Scriptures, where John, the forerunner of Christ, being beheaded at the wish of a dancer, is an instance that the seductions of dancing did more harm than the insanity of sacrilegious fury.20

What is striking in the extract is that Ambrose uses quotations from Cicero (“a certain scholar of this world”) to indict the dance.21 In fact, these quotations reveal that the conviction of dance is inherited from Roman ethics and rhetoric. Ambrose uses Cicero as an authority: if even pagans criticized dancing, how much more do Christians have to avoid dancing even more. In Cicero’s opinion, dancing revealed immorality. He often uses the conviction of dancing in polemical and political

20 Ambrose, De Virginibus 3.5.25.228–230. Translation by the author. 21 Cicero, Pro Murena 6.13.

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contexts,22 as a shameful activity, which does not suit the grauitas, the serious attitude of the uir bonus, the honourable man (Garelli-François: 1995, 38–42). Therefore, those quotations tell us that Ambrose’s criticism of dancing is stereotyped. I. Cazzaniga emphasized the rhetorical debt of Ambrose’s depiction of Herod’s feast, by comparing his text to some extracts of a rhetorical controversia recorded by Seneca the Elder (Cazzaniga: 1954, 569–576). The topic is very similar to the story told in the Biblical episode and is inspired from an authentic episode of the Roman history.23 The consul Flaminius, during a feast, had a prisoner beheaded, to please a courtesan who requested it. This famous affair became a classical subject matter in rhetorical schools. Hence Cazzaniga identified striking parallels between these rhetorical exercises and Ambrose’ text in the condemnation of the feast. The following depiction of the dancing young girl seems to be stereotyped as well. A fatal banquet is set out with royal luxury, and once has been reviewed when the crowd is larger than usual, the daughter of the queen, who should have been kept away in the most intimate apartments, is brought forth to dance in the sight of men. What could she have learned from an adulterous woman but loss of modesty? Is there anything, which leads more to lusts than to strip naked, through shapeless movements, concealed parts of the body, which either nature has hidden or custom has veiled, to play with the eyes, to turn the neck, to loosen the hair? From there the next step is a necessary offense against the divinity. For what modesty can there be, where there is dancing and noise and clapping of hands?24

The detailed narration makes the dance more spectacular and seductive than it is in the Gospels. Indeed, the dancer willingly waits for the best occasion to make her dance effective, and her performance, as described by Ambrose, openly seeks to raise desire among the men. The nature of the dancer is convicted as immoral and perverse, because she deliberately behaves with indecency. Her movements are typical of a shameless seduction: she leaves some parts of her body naked, her movements are said to be “shapeless”, inconditi in Latin, which means “disordered”, and her eyes are flirtatious. The fact that the look must be studied to show modesty is reliant on the Graeco-Roman culture.25 Moreover another stereotyped image is employed, that of the Maenad or the Bacchante, the female follower of Dionysus.

22 See Cicero, In Pisonem 8.18; Post reditum in senatu 13; Pro Cn. Plancio 32.87; In Catilinam 2.23; De Officiis 1.42.150. 23 Titus-Livius, Ab urbe condita 29.42.10–12; Cicero, Cato maior 12.42; etc. 24 Ambrose, De Virginibus 3.6.27–28, 230–232. Translation by the author. 25 See for instance Xenophon, Memorabilia 2.1.22. To further understand the social and moral overtone of Roman physical attitude, especially in the look, see Bremmer: 1995, 23f.

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Loosening one’s hair and turning one’s neck are typical movements of the representation of the Bacchic state of trance.26 In another text, Ambrose describes in similar terms drunken women dancing shamelessly.27 This immoral behavior necessarily leads to impiety, in Ambrose’s words. The questions, which end the text, are typical of the art of classical rhetoric and strengthen the erotic and immoral interpretation of this dance. Ambrose’s vision is thus inherited from conventional representations of dance and of the feminine seducer. However, the dancer is not fully condemned, because her immorality is due to her corrupt education. From her mother, who was her main instructor and was already adulterous and vicious, the daughter could not learn modesty and morality. Later on in the text, Ambrose mentions the cruelty of the mother and her evil rejoicing when she receives the head of the Baptist.28 The mother is thus the one who is truly responsible for her daughter’s performance. In that respect, this scriptural example is scrutinized not only in a moral perspective but also in an educational one. The last section related to the episode advocates a proper education by mothers, which has to lead to piety: What do you say, holy women? Do you see what you have to teach, and what also to unteach your daughters? She may be dancing, but she is the daughter of an adulterous woman. However, she who is modest, she who is chaste, she must teach her daughter religious feeling, not dancing.29

Ambrose puts in contrast religio and saltatio to condemn dance as a practice contradictory with religious ones. Dancing is so morally dangerous that religious people, and especially women must avoid it, because this performance does not suit the ideal Christian female behavior.

4.

Spiritual Dangers of Dancing: John Chrysostom

John Chrysostom, appointed archbishop of Constantinople in 397, dedicated a series of homilies to the complete explanation of the Gospel of Matthew, following the progress of the text and giving pastoral issues to the exegesis. The Homily 48

26 Quintilian in Institutio oratoria 11.3.71 forbids violent and recurring nodding of the head because shaking ones hair evokes an ecstatic behaviour. Ovid also associates loosened hair with Bacchic fury (Ars amatoria 3.709f; 783f). Concerning Maenad’s representations, see Lawler: 1927; VillanuevaPuig: 1992. 27 Ambrose, De Helia et ieiunio 18.66. 28 Ambrose, De Virginibus 3.6.30. 29 Ambrose, De Virginibus 3.6.31. Translation by the author.

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deals with the episode of John the Baptist’s death and gives general and long considerations about the dangers of dance and of the one of Herodias’ daughter in particular. The style is emotional and virulent from the beginning of the homily, punctuated with many exclamations: “O diabolical banquet! O satanic theatre! O lawless dancing! And more lawless reward for the dancing.”30 First, Chrysostom comments on the literal meaning of the episode, exploring the motives and psychology of the characters. The dancer is mainly characterized by her indecency, which suits the context of the feast, made of “drunkenness and luxury.” She is “a licentious young girl”, κόρη ἀκολάστος,31 who shamelessly “makes a show” (ἐμπομπεύουσα). As a result, “the virgin outshines all prostitutes” (πόρνας ἁπάσας ἀποκρύπτουσα ἡ παρθένος).32 This paradoxical statement shows that her mistake is her improper behavior. She does not behave as a worthy girl ought to: she comes in public, whereas she should stay hidden; she acts like a prostitute, though she is a virgin; she does not fear to look at death and blood, whereas she should be terrified, etc. Her behavior is therefore indecent: it is both a social and moral scandal. Starting from this portrait, John Chrysostom then exposes the spiritual dangers of dancing which partakes this kind of behavior. His exegesis becomes a pastoral exhortation: For she did not come to him privately to speak of these things, but publicly, and with her mask thrown off, with her bare face, and having got the devil as spokesman to say what she says. Because he was the one that made her be sensational by her dancing and caught Herod. For wherever there is dancing is, there is the devil. God did not give us feet for this end, but in order that we may walk orderly: not that we may be indecent, not that we may jump like female camels (for if even they are not graceful when they are dancing, this is all the more so true for women), but that we may join the choirs of angels. For if the body is ugly, making such indecencies, all the more so will be the soul. Therefore, do demons dance, so do the servants of demons amuse themselves.33

30 John Chrysostom, Homily 48 on Matthew 3, 489. Translation by the author. 31 Ibid., 491. 32 Ibid., 490: “But you look, please, how the whole theatre was satanic. For first, it was made up of drunkenness and luxury, whence nothing healthful could come. Secondly, the spectators in it were depraved, and he that gave the banquet was the worst criminal of all. Thirdly, the entertainment was foolish. Fourthly, the young girl, because of whom the marriage was illegal, who should have even been hidden, because her mother was offending her, comes making a show, and the virgin outshines all prostitutes”. Translation by the author. 33 Ibid., 491. Translation by the author.

The Indictment of Dance by Christian Authors in Late Antiquity

Theatrical vocabulary at the beginning of the passage gives a framework to depict the relationship between the dancer and the devil, the latter being the real actor, while the dancer is only a role. From this depiction of the dancer as a devil’s puppet, Chrysostom shifts to a broader disapproval of dance. Women are here the ones to be urged, because female dancing, he claims, is a shameful and dishonoring performance. Especially, leaping and jumping should be avoided.34 Jumps were already condemned by Graeco-Roman writers because it manifested uncontrolled emotions, as in Bacchic and ecstatic performances.35 The surprising comparison of women to female camels is actually commonplace to designate something particularly ridiculous. It is a reference to the fables of Aesop, a Greek writer of the 6th century BC. Some of these fables mention the dance of a camel, which is said to be the ugliest performance ever, because the camel’s gait is already ludicrous.36 In the Graeco-Roman culture, frenetic movements are signs of a depraved and unrestrained soul, whereas the virtuous soul, which can control its feelings, should be displayed by calm and gracious movements. In Chrysostom’s text, these leaping movements are associated with demons. This physical gesture is also identified with a mocking temper. Opposed to this demoniac manner is the “choir of angels”, whose practices are pleasing to God. The Greek word for choir is χόρος, which also means, “dance.”37 Therefore, there may be a kind of angelic dance, which could be opposed to an evil one.38 We can notice that the famous aphorism, “wherever there is dancing is, there is the devil”, is a rhetoric pattern used by John Chrysostom also in another text, where it does not denounce dance, but drunkenness and all that is linked to it: “for wherever there is drunkenness, intemperance and obscenity, there the devil is present, bringing it.”39 The phrase is first of all a rhetorical device and 34 Elsewhere in the same homily, Chrysostom says (ibid., 490): “Hear, you virgins, or rather you wives also, all of you who agree to commit such indignity, leaping and jumping, and offending your kind”. Translation by the author. 35 About Maenads’ jumps, see Toillon: 2017, 58–65. Plato condemned leaping movements because it was telling of an uncivilized soul, which must be educated: Laws 2.653d–653e; Phaedra 254a. 36 Fable 85 and 142; see also Proverb 86. 37 The chorus in archaic Greece is an institution which gathers people of the same sex and age and in which social and religious codes are taught through dancing and singing. Its function is close to the tribal “rite of passage”. See Calame: 1977. In classical Greek comedy and tragedy, dance was a part of the chorus’ theatrical performance. See Lawler: 1964. 38 The phrase “choir of angels” is attested 14 times in Chrysostom’s corpus. The main activity of angels is generally singing, however, dance seems to be also part of it, even in Chrysostom’s works. See for instance Homily 12 on Colossians 6 (PG 62, 389): “do not listen to satanical songs, but to spiritual songs. Do you want to see people dancing? Look at the chorus of the angels.” Being part of the choir of angels is the aim of every Christian spiritual life. See Brottier: 2005. 39 John Chrysostom, Homily 12 on Colossians 6, 389. This rhetorical construction is common in Chrysostom’s texts. For instance, it is used about the Christ and his angels: In Illud: Salutate Priscillam et Aquilam 1.3 (PG 51, 191).

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the devil is thus linked to whatever is immoral and licentious. While dancing in itself does not seem to be entirely rejected, the context in which it appears is to be condemned because it leads to immoral and impious behavior. Women are not the only one to be warned about. Men, as well, must avoid looking at dance performances. Watching dances seems as dangerous as practicing it, in Chrysostom’s text, for the main danger is to lose one’s freedom and to become slave of passion and therefore of the devil. For many banquets of this kind, still remain nowadays. Though John is not being slain, yet the members of Christ are, and in a far more serious way. Indeed, it is not a head on a platter that the dancers of our time ask, but the souls of the guests. For in making them slaves, and leading them to criminal loves, and setting before them prostitutes, they do not take off the head, but slay the soul, making them adulterers, and effeminate, and fornicators. For you will not surely tell me, that when you have drunk, and you are drunken, and looking at a woman who is dancing and uttering rough words, you do not feel anything towards her, neither that you are not led to depravity, nor overcome by your lust. Moreover, you experience this awful thing, that you “make the members of Christ members of a prostitute”. For though the daughter of Herodias is not present, yet the devil, who at that time danced through her, dances also now through those women, and departs with the souls imprisoned of those guests.40

The phrase “making the members of Christ members of a prostitute” is taken from the first letter to Corinthians (6:15). The parallel is probably made because the Greek noun πόρνη, which means “prostitute”, is also used to designate dancers and actresses (Webb: 1997, 123). By this quotation, Chrysostom spiritualizes the moral issues of the dance spectacle: he matches the physical death of John the Baptist with the spiritual death of the spectators’ souls. The Christians, servants of Christ, become servants of the devil. The devil’s figure is used in this homily to stress the spiritual danger of dance. By committing immorality, Christians can separate themselves from God. Unlike the text of Paul, the fornication is not concrete here, but the lustful gaze is regarded as an act of fornication. Chrysostom speaks with very raw words to emphasize the desire caused by dance. Here, dancing is nothing but provocation and associated with prostitution and obscenity. Thus, Chrysostom uses the dance of Herodias’ daughter as a biblical example of the general dangers of dance. His exegetical commentary gives proofs to his pastoral exhortation. In that respect, to the physical death of John the Baptist is substituted a spiritual one: that of the Christian soul, which splits itself from Christ, and becomes a slave of the devil.

40 John Chrysostom, Homily 48 on Matthew 3, 493. Translation by the author.

The Indictment of Dance by Christian Authors in Late Antiquity

5.

Conclusionary Remarks

Why did the Church of antiquity condemn dance? The answer is more complex than it seems at first sight. Yes, this condemnation is undoubtedly moral. However, as has been seen, dance is not immoral in itself. The context in which it generally appears yet is often debased, so that it necessarily influences the dance performance. Whether part of public theatre shows or part of private festive events, dance is associated with licentious behavior, mainly intoxication, obscenity, and fornication. Nevertheless, Christian criticism goes further because moral behavior has spiritual issues: Misconduct leads to sin. The dance of Herodias’ daughter is the best biblical example of this sequence. The dance occurs during a feast and causes the death of the prophet John the Baptist. That is why John Chrysostom conveys the devil’s figure, inasmuch as it represents what keeps the people away from God. Nevertheless, one must not forget how deeply rooted in Graeco-Roman legacy this moral indictment is. Indeed, as the quotations from Cicero made it clear in Ambrose’s text, dance was already condemned in the Roman society. Dancing, like acting, did not suit decent citizens and were to be practiced by people set aside from the society.41 This social exclusion did not exist in classical Athens, although dance was rejected when telling of indecency or immorality. Moreover, the controversy about dance, in Christian literature, is part of a broader controversy with paganism. Christians cannot act like pagans, so they have to get rid of pagan habits in their daily life. Dancing is one of these habits. Even in the 4th century in Antioch, paganism was still massively present and Christian bishops had to warn Christians against it (Soler: 2006). Therefore, dance raised identity stakes, not only towards paganism, but also towards Judaism, and heretic Christians. The Christian indictment of dance must therefore be qualified. Besides, the vision of dance by Christian writers is not one-sided. As we have seen mainly with Origen, two types of dance can be opposed: an unholy one and a holy one, the latter possibly suiting spiritual devotion. Indeed, despite the example of Herodias’ daughter, positive dances can be found in the biblical texts. In the psalms, there are many invitations to rejoice and glorify God by music and dancing (Ps 29:12; 30:8; 50:10; 86:7; 149:3; 150:4). Important dances are also that of the king David before the Ark (2 Sam 6:13–16), and that of Myriam, sister of Aaron, after passing through the red sea (Ex 15:20). Though they generally condemned dancing, as we have seen with the example of the dance of Herodias’ daughter, Christian authors favorably commented on these biblical positive dances.42

41 Actors and dancers are depraved of social rights, they live in infamia. See Lim: 2003. 42 On David’s dance, see Lepeigneux: 2015. Patristic commentaries on Myriam’s dance are studied in my PhD thesis, which I am currently writing.

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Bibliography Text editions Ambrose, De virginibus, in I. Cazzaniga, I/F. Gori (ed.), Verginità: e vedovanza, Sant’Ambrogio, Biblioteca Ambrosiana 14/1, Milan (1989). Athanasius of Alexandria, History of the Arians, in H.G. Opitz (ed.), Athanasius Werke II/1: Die Apologien, Berlin (1935–1941). Cicero, Pro Murena, in H. Kasten (ed.), Oratio pro L. Murena, M. Tulli Ciceronis, Scripta quae manserunt omnia 18, Leipzig: Teubner (1972). Gregory of Nazianzus, Discourse 5 against Julian, in J. Bernardi (ed.), Grégoire de Nazianze. Discours 4–5 contre Julien, Sources chrétiennes 309, Paris: Éditions du Cerf (1983). John Chrysostom, Homily 12 on Colossians, in J.-P. Migne (ed.), Patrologia Graeca 62, Paris (1860), 299–390. John Chrysostom, Homily 48 on Matthew, in J.-P. Migne (ed.), Patrologia Graeca 58, Paris (1862), 487–496. Nestle, E./Aland, B. (ed.), Novum Testamentum Graece. 28th Revised Edition, Stuttgart: Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft (2012). Origen, Against Celsus, in P. Koetschau (ed.), Origenes Werke 1, Die griechischen christlichen Schriftsteller der ersten drei Jahrhunderte 2, Leipzig: J.C. Hinrichs (1899). Origen, Commentary on Matthew, in E. Klostermann, Origenes Werke 2, Origenes Matthäuserklärung, Die griechischen christlichen Schriftsteller der ersten drei Jahrhunderte 41/1, Leipzig: J.C. Hinrichs (1941). Plato, Laws II, in M. Schofiel (ed.), T. Griffith (transl.), Plato: Laws, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press (2016).

Secondary literature Andresen, C. (1961), Altchristliche Kritik am Tanz. Ein Ausschnitt aus dem Kampf der Alten Kirche gegen heidnische Sitte, Zeitschrift für Kirchengeschichte 72, 212–272. Barnes, T.D. (1993), Athanasius and Constantius. Theology and Politics in the Constantinian Empire, Cambridge/London: Harvard University press. Bermond, C. (2001), La danza negli scritti di Filone, Clemente Alessandrino e Origene: storia e simbologia, Frankfurt: Domus Editoria Europaea. Bremmer, J. (1995), Walking, standing and sitting in ancient Greek culture, in J. Bremmer/ H. Roodenburg (ed.), A Cultural History of Gesture from Antiquity to the Present Day, Cambridge: Polity Press, 15–35. Brottier, L. (2005), L’appel des demi-chrétiens à la vie angélique. Jean Chrysostome, prédicateur entre idéal monastique et réalité mondaine, Paris: Les Éditions du Cerf.

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Calame, C. (1977), Les chœurs de jeunes filles en Grèce archaïque, Rome: Ed. dell’ Ateneo e Bizzarri. Cazzaniga, I. (1954), Colore retorico nell’episodio Ambrosiano della Cena di Erode (Ambros. De Virginibus, III, 5, 25 sgg.), Latomus 13/4, 569–576. Dilley, P. (2013), Christus Saltans as Dionysos and David: The Dance of the Savior in its Late-Antique Cultural Context, in Apocrypha 24, 237–254. Doignon, J. (1971), Hilaire de Poitiers avant l’exil. recherches sur la naissance, l’enseignement et l’épreuve d’une foi épiscopale en Gaule au milieu du IVe siècle, Paris: Études augustiniennes. Garelli-François, M.-H. (1995), Le danseur dans la cité. quelques remarques sur la danse à Rome, Revue des Études Latines 73, Paris, 29–43. Lawler, L.B. (1927), The Maenads: A Contribution to the Study of the Dance in Ancient Greece, Memoirs of the American Academy in Rome 6, 69–112. Lawler, L.B. (1964), The dance of the ancient Greek theatre, Iowa City: University of Iowa Press. Lepeigneux, C. (2015), La danse de David devant l’arche (II Règnes 6, 14–23): Traduction et Réception, Mémoire de Master 2 under the direction of S. Morlet, Paris Sorbonne. Lim, R. (2003), Converting the Un-Christianizable. The Baptism on Stage Performers in Late Antiquity, in K. Mills, Conversion in Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages. Seeing and Believing, Rochester: University of Rochester Press, 84–126. Lugaresi, L. (2008), Il Teatro di Dio. Il problema degli spettacoli nel cristianesimo antico (II–IV secolo), Brescia: Morcelliana. Mac Mullen, R. (1997), Christianity and Paganism in the fourth to eighth centuries, New Haven/London: Yale University Press. Morlet, S. (2019), Symphonia. La concorde des textes et des doctrines dans la littérature grecque jusqu’à Origène, Paris: Les Belles Lettres. Pasquato, O. (1976), Gli spettacoli in S. Giovanni Crisostomo: Paganesimo e Cristianesimo ad Antiochia e Costantinopoli nel iv secolo, Rome: Pontificium Institutum Orientalium Studiorum. Portmann, W. (2006), Zwei Schriften gegen die Arianer, Stuttgart: A. Hiersemann. Resta, M. (2015), Saltationes sceleratissimorum: la musica e la danza nei canoni conciliari e nelle epistole pontificie (IV–VII sec.), Synesis 7/1, 116–123. Schlapbach, K. (2018), La danse entre polymorphie et métaphore. L’épisode de la danse des Actes de Jean dans son contexte littéraire, in Apocrypha 29, 35–58. Soler, E. (2006), Le Sacré et le salut à Antioche au IVe siècle apr. J.-C., Pratiques festives et comportements religieux dans le processus de christianisation de la cité, Beyrouth: Institut français du Proche-Orient. Toillon, V. (2017), Danse et gestuelle des ménades: Textes et images aux Ve –IVe s. av. J.-C., Danse et Spiritualité 25/1, 55–86. Tronca, D. (2017), L’uso della danza nella costruzione cristiana dell’alterità religiosa nella Tarda Antichità, Adamantius 23, 205–214.

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Tronca, D. (2019), Spectacula turpitudinum: Christian Schemata of the Dancing Body, RIHA Journal 0227. Villanueva-Puig, M.-C. (1992), Les représentations de ménades dans la céramique attique à figures rouges de la fin de l’archaïsme, in Revue des Études anciennes 94, 125–154. Webb, R. (1997), Salome’s sisters. The Rhetoric and Realities of Dance in Late Antiquity and Byzantium, in L. James (ed.), Women, Men and Eunuchs, Gender in Byzantium, London/New York, 119–148. Webb, R. (2008), Demons and Dancers. Performance in late Antiquity, Cambridge/Oxford: Harvard University Press. Wersinger, A.G. (2011), La danse et la pudeur (Platon, Lois VI, 771e5–772a4), in M.-H. Delavaud-Roux (ed.), Musiques et danses dans l’Antiquité. Actes du colloque de Brest 29–11 septembre 2006, Rennes: Presses Universitaires de Rennes, 183–195.

Martin Leutzsch

The Dances of the Virgin Mary Second to Twenty-First Century1

1.

Preliminary Remarks

The story of imaginations and performances of a dancing Virgin Mary have not yet been told. Before beginning to summarize my findings, let me characterize my ideological stance vis-a-vis my subject: First: As a Christian theologian, I perceive my subject as an insider, member of a two-thousand year old religion. Second: As a Lutheran theologian, I am outside religious traditions and practices that privilege the Virgin Mary with special reverence, honor her with special feast days, develop special forms of spirituality and receive special experiences related to the Virgin. Most of what Mary is and signifies in, say, Roman Catholicism is virtually absent in Lutheran Christianity of the last three hundred years. Third: As we will see, the dances of Mary from the beginning of the twentieth century are connected either with the unique virginity of the Mother of God or with Mary’s exemplary virginity to be imitated by Christians. Since the Reformation, virginity is not an especially esteemed value, or privileged life style in Protestantism. Fourth: As a male, I am an outsider to female experiences connected with Mary such as pregnancy, childbearing and motherhood. Interestingly, while not all of my ancient and medieval sources can be attributed definitely to male or female authors, most of the media with identifiable gender are authored by men. Fifth: Having experienced dance as an act of domestication during my youth, I actually do not practice dancing.

2.

Antiquity to Early Middle Ages: From Solo Dance in the Temple to Choral Dance in Heaven

As we shall see, some early modern and modern authors were convinced that one or two passages in the Gospels imply a dancing Mary. Yet explicitly the New Testament is silent about this subject.

1 My thanks go to Wolfgang Braungart, Dorothee Förster, Christiane Groeben, Gabriele Jancke, Philip Knäble, Stephanie Lerke, Sophia Niepert-Rumel, Sr. Anna Elisabeth Rifeser, Stephanie Schroedter, and Harald Schroeter-Wittke. – Limits of space do not allow to present the full evidence here or to contextualize it in depth.

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The oldest source is a second-century narrative text, which was transmitted not only in Greek but in nine other languages used by Christians with a great variety of titles in antiquity. The most common title used today is Protevangelium Jacobi. The Protoevangelium claims to be written by James, who in this text is a son of Joseph from his first marriage. This authorship is fiction, as is the whole of the story told. The main theme of the text is Mary’s birth, her life in the temple of Jerusalem as a girl from three to twelve, her transference into the custody of the widower Joseph, her pregnancy and the troubles this creates, her giving birth to Jesus, the visit of the magi and the persecution by Herod. The Protoevangelium is the first text to mention the parents of Mary, naming them Joachim and Anna. It is also the first text to state that Mary was a virgin not only before she bore Christ, but also while bearing him and afterwards – an idea proclaimed as dogma much later, in 553. The text of the Protevangelium was never fixed. In some manuscripts dances of Mary are mentioned three times, in others she dances twice, in still others once, while in the Ethiopian translation Mary does not dance at all. The Protevangelium tells that three-year old Mary is transferred by her parents to the temple. There she is received by a priest and put on the third step of the altar. Most Greek and other witnesses of the text continue: “The Lord God put grace on her, and she danced down on her feet. The whole house of Israel began to love her“ (Protevangelium Jacobi 7,3). Thirteen years later, Joseph realizes that Mary is pregnant and reproaches her: “Why did she debase herself that way, having been raised in the holy of holies and nurtured by an angel (or angels)?” Some witnesses add that Mary also had danced among the angels (Protevangelium Jacobi 13,2). Shortly after, Mary is reproached by the high priest, too: “Mary, why did you do this? Why did you humiliate your soul? Did you forget the Lord God – you, who were raised in the holy of holies and received food from the hand of angels? You who heard their hymns and danced before them, why did you do this?” In some witnesses it is only one angel who feeds Mary, singing hymns and functioning as spectator of her dancing. Again, Mary’s dancing is not mentioned at all in other witnesses (Protevangelium Jacobi 15,3). The Protevangelium Jacobi aims at establishing Mary’s singularity. Her barren mother Anna receives an annunciation by an angel. After her birth she is secluded in a room of her parents’ house. She doesn’t come into contact either with impure humans or with the floor of her room that might contaminate her with dirt. Not compatible with what is known of gender regulations inside the Second Temple, as a female Mary approaches the altar and dwells inside the holy of holies for nine years – a room forbidden even for priests with the exception of the high priest who is allowed to enter it once a year on the day of atonement. There are no parallels from Jewish or pagan sources for Mary’s dancing down from the altar at age three

The Dances of the Virgin Mary

and to her dancing to hymns of angels in the holy of holies. The exceptionality of her dances is an indication that she enjoys a very special grace from God. Turning to fourth-century Latin Christianity, the theme of Mary dancing undergoes important and lasting changes. The fourth century was the formative period for Christian monasticism. Especially in the second half, male bishops and priests were eager to praise virginity and give advice for maintaining virginity in publications directed specifically toward a female audience. In these texts the Virgin Mary functions as a role model to be imitated. One author imagines Mary leading a dance in heaven. In a letter from 384, Jerome concludes his advice to Eustochium, a Roman aristocratic teenager who had decided to live as a virgin, in describing the reception she will get at her arrival in heaven. “What a beautiful day when Mary, the mother of God, will come to receive you accompanied by groups of dancing virgins (cum tibi Maria, mater domini, choris occurret comitata uirgineis)! When after crossing the Red Sea in which Pharaoh with his army were drowned she will take her timbrel and begins an antiphony: ‘Let us sing to the Lord for he has triumphed gloriously; horse and rider he has thrown into the sea’” (Hieronymus, Epistula 22,41,1). Mary and her singing companions are only the first in a long row of heavenly residents who welcome the newcomer. She is followed by a female saint, Thecla, by Christ in the role of Eustochium’s spouse, by angels, by matriarch Sarah as leader of a chorus of married women, by prophetess Anna as leader of the widows and by other inhabitants of heaven. Eustochium’s heavenly reception is a multimedia performance with a host of different actors who interact with gestures, vocal and instrumental music, spoken words and texts taken from the Bible. The Virgin Mary functions as leader of a dance, leader of a song and player of an instrument. This is achieved by blending her with the prophetess Miriam (Exod 15:20f), sister of Moses and Aaron. Actions of Miriam are transferred to Mary. Significantly, Miriam’s company of Israelite women is transformed into a group of Christian virgins. Beginning with Jerome, from late antiquity through the Middle Ages, Mary will dance in heaven. In a Greek seventh- or eighth-century greeting prayer (Grußgebet) directed to her, Mary is asked by the praying Christians: “Let us dance with you, o Virgin!” (P.Vindob. G 26 041). In a hymn ascribed to the ninth-century Byzantine poet Josephus Hymnographus that is known through the Latin translation by a Marian activist of the seventeenth century, Mary is praised as “Immaculata, with all women who bring anointments you were praised, leading dancing groups (choros ducens)” (Marraccius: 1661, 324).

3.

High and Late Middle Ages: Heavenly Choral Dances

During the reformation of the twelfth century, existing forms of monasticism were transformed, new forms of ascetic piety emerged. In the cathedral of Auxerre,

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Mary’s song, the Magnificat, was danced and sung by deacons during Christmas vespers.2 Cistercian monks in England produced rules for anchorites that drew on Jerome’s imagination of Mary singing and playing the timbrel leading the dance of the virgins in heaven. It is exclusively the virgins who can perform this dance, sing this song and enjoy this music.3 Mary leading the heavenly dance of virgins – this constellation dominates Western medieval Christian imagination. It is an imagination emerging in monastic contexts, first articulated by monastic authors for monastic audiences. Since the thirteenth century it is taken up by lay people and their audiences, too. The image of Mary the dance leader is articulated in a variety of textual genres, in Latin as well as in the vernacular, as well as in other media. The dominant medium is song. Most of these songs are devoted to the Virgin. Many are used in liturgical contexts. Since the thirteenth century Mary leads the heavenly dance of virgins in songs written by monks.4 Since the fourteenth century they are joined by lay poets using Middle High German,5 among them prominent fifteenth-century minstrels6 and a meistersinger.7 A number of these songs are handed down anonymously.8 In some cases, in addition to the texts of these songs also their melodies are still extant (Oswald von Wolkenstein, Michel Beheim). These songs articulate the wish of those who sing them to be included in the heavenly dance led by the Virgin and consequently to participate in everlasting joy.9 Another textual medium used for Mary’s dance is the exemplum genre, providing narrative material for adhortatory purposes, especially in sermons. They were used by priests and monks to address lay people. In two exempla, Mary’s heavenly dance with virgins is crucial. This everlasting dance is used to convince girls to refrain from time-limited dance on earth. The first exemplum tells of a young girl receiving a vision of the Virgin Mary and her heavenly dancing virgins. Mary announces that the girl soon will participate in the heavenly dance if she will avoid dancing now. This exemplum originated with

2 Cf. Johannes Beleth, Summa de ecclesiasticis officiis 70. 3 Cf., e.g., Aelred von Rievaulx, De institutione inclusarum 15. 4 Latin: O vernantes Christi rosae (Mone: 1855, 542–545). Middle High German: Mönch von Salzburg (Spechtler: 1972, 370 [V. 47–54]). 5 Cf., e.g., Bruder Hans (Batts: 1963, 140f [V. 3114f.3135–3148]). 6 Oswald von Wolkenstein, Wer ist, die da durchleuchtet (Klein: 1987, 40); Muskatblut, Ein junger man mit synnen (Groote: 1852, 67, l.29–42); Michel Beheim (Gille/Spriewald: 1970, 591f [No. 306]). 7 Konrad Nachtigall (d. 1484/85), edited by Cramer: 1985, 194–196. 8 Cf., e.g., Geistliches Fastnachtslied (editor’s title; Ms. Stuttgart, Landesbibliothek, cod. theol. et philos. 190, 4°, fifteenth century, Bl. 169v–170r; edited by Kalisch: 1999, 81–83). 9 Cf., e.g., Wienhäuser Liederbuch (Alpers: 1951, 60): dar uns wol na volangen mag, wat fröude is in himmelrike.

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Gregory the Great around 600 whose version doesn’t mention any dance, either on earth or in heaven. Through the centuries Gregory’s narrative was widely used and adjusted to the respective needs of the preachers. The dance theme seems to have been introduced in the first half of the thirteenth century by the Norman priest Odo de Ceritona (Cheriton).10 His Latin collection of exempla came to be translated into French, Welsh, and Spanish. The version of Gregory’s exemplum inaugurated by Odo continued to be used during the early modern period by Jesuit, Capucine and other preachers. The second exemplum tells of a Dominican priest working for the spiritual welfare of a girl from an aristocratic family who is very fond of dancing. In a conversation with the priest she is willing to refrain from earthly dancing if he can demonstrate that in heaven there is an everlasting dance. The friar adduces evidence from the Bible and liturgical songs and adds a quasi-scholastic argument. The virgin, convinced now, deposits a vow to refrain from dance in honor of God and Virgin Mary. As a lay sister she lives in her parents’ house. Eventually she contracts a fatal illness. In the hour of her death she tells the friar that she is seeing Jesus Christ and his mother arriving and receiving her into the virginal dance company. This exemplum is attested at least since the middle of the fourteenth century.11 It is retold to the middle of the eighteenth century. Apart from these exempla, the theme of Mary’s heavenly dance in medieval media is never explicitly related to abstinence from dancing on earth. In addition to song and prayer, there are further poetical texts that praise the Virgin, narrate her life or describe heavenly festivals.12 An extended description of such a feast – in this case occasioned by All Saints Day – is provided by the Old French poem La Court de Paradis. Here is a summary in Judith M. Davis’ words: God sends Saint Simon to summon all to his court; they arrive in the order of celestial hierarchy: angels, patriarchs, apostles, martyrs, confessors, virgins and holy women, reflecting a terrestrial hierarchy of dukes, counts, knights and ladies. All are arrayed, of course, as befits members of the most important court of all time. The Virgin Mary and Mary Magdalen begin a carole, inviting the courtly assemblage to join them in the dance. Impressed, Jesus leads a song while dancing with his mother and his friend Magdalen. While St. Peter has kept out the riff-raff (the souls in Purgatory) during this time, he

10 Cf. Odo of Cheriton (Hervieux ed. 1896, 311). 11 Cf. MS Wrocław, Biblioteka Uniwersytecka we Wrocławiu, I. F. 115 (Klapper: 1914, 271–273 [No. 50]). 12 Cf. „Die Lilie“ (last third of the thirteenth century, Wüst: 1909, 43 [l. 21–26]); Konrad von Würzburg (d. 1287), Die goldene Schmiede (Grimm: 1840, 8 [l. 234–241]); Philipp von Seitz, Marienleben (c. 1300; Rückert: 1853, 267 [l. 9856–9861]).

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relents at the request of the Virgin Mary; the fires of Purgatory die down and the captive souls are released to join the celebration.13

La Court de Paradis indicates that Mary’s role in the heavenly dance needs not exclusively be that of leader of a virginal dance group. Sometimes she shares the role of leader with God or is the very first person that an archangel or Jesus Christ lead into a choral dance. The imagination of Mary dancing a duet with Jesus seems to be rare. Mary dances in a late medieval drama from Thuringia, a performance of Mary’s assumption. At her arrival in heaven, Mary is greeted by her son singing a line from the Song of Songs and announcing that Mary shall dance with the angels. Two of them, Raphael and Michael, address Mary, praise her and invite her to dance. The directing instruction reads: “Et sic omnes chorizant, angeli cantant ad laudem dei.” (All begin a choral dance, the angels sing in honor of God.)14 As far as gender can be determined, most of the authors are males living in celibate or – in the case of the minstrels – in marriage. Medieval women relevant for my subject are participants in late medieval female mysticism. The textual genre in which they describe Mary’s dances is visionary report. The fourteenth-century Dominican nun Christina Ebner describes a vision she received at Corpus Christi. She sees Christ inviting all people on earth who have preserved their purity to participate in a heavenly feast led by God and the Virgin. While those who have spoiled their purity are excluded from the dance, Christina Ebner sees not only pure virgins included in it but also chaste wives and widows all of whom are honoured by Christ with a crown (Lochner: 1872, 21f). Middle English mystic Margery Kempe reports a conversation with Christ. Kempe deplores the loss of her virginity but is reassured by Christ, that you are a singular lover of God, and therefore you shall have a singular love in heaven, a singular reward and a singular honour. And because you are a maiden in your soul, I shall take you by the one hand in heaven, and my mother by the other, and so you shall dance in heaven with other holy maidens and virgins, for I may call you dearly bought and my own beloved darling. I shall say to you, my own blessed spouse, ‘Welcome to me, with every kind of joy and gladness, here to dwell with me and never to depart from me without end, but ever to dwell with me in joy and bliss, which no eye may see, nor ear

13 Judith M. Davis, ‘La Court de Paradis’ and ‘L’Advocacie Nostre Dame’: Heavenly Consistories, Earthly Structures, paper, International Courtly Literature Society, Tenth Triennial Tübingen 2001: Courtly Literature and Clerical Culture; accessed via internet, 2016–05–11 (no longer extant). Edition: Vilamo-Pentti 1953. 14 Play of Mary’s Assumption (Innsbruck, Universitäts- und Landesbibliothek, Cod. 960, date: 1391), originating from Thuringia; Mone: 1841, 86f.

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hear, nor tongue tell, nor heart think, that I have ordained for you and for all my servants who desire to love and please me as you do.’15

Margery Kempe was married but had convinced her husband to refrain from sexual union.

4.

Early Modern Era: Choral Dance in Heaven, Solo and Duet on Earth

From Jerome through the Middle Ages, Mary’s heavenly dance is a communal event. The Virgin leads choral dances with those who have followed her as a role model of virginity. These choral dances remain present in hymns directed to Mary16 and in Marian poetry (cf. Schnüffis: 1692, 225), in the medieval exempla used in the context of a variety of early modern textual genres, in theological treatises and sermons concerning Mariology (cf. Salazar: 1618, 23), monastic life (cf. Liberius a Jesu: 1754, 576) and the art of dying (cf. Tiberius von Kayserstuhl: 1722, 293). In addition to her role as leader of a heavenly choral, in early modern times Mary comes to be imagined and even produced as a dancer of solos or duets, not restricted to the realm of heaven. Around 1508 the Castilian Franciscan regular tertiary Juana de la Cruz began to receive visions and followed the heavenly order to preach. One of Juana’s seventytwo sermons is dedicated to the Nativity of Mary (September 8th). Juana describes a heavenly dance of virgins from the twelve tribes of Israel. In the course of this dance the girls are transformed into children. One of them, Mary, is singled out as the most beautiful. The other virgins receive crowns by God for their good works, virtues and love. Then the Trinity commands Mary to undress and dance naked. Mary answers with profound humility: My Lord Father and my almighty God, it pleases me to dance naked not only before all the inhabitants of heaven, but I am even disposed to obey if your majesty ordered me to go now to the earth and to walk among all people as naked as I was born. Although in accordance with my reclusion and honor and modesty it would somewhat pain me, nonetheless, my Lord God, behold me, your servant. So be it and may your holy will be accomplished and done to me.17

15 The Book of Margery Kempe I 22; I cite the translation of Windeatt: 1985, 8. 16 Cf. Granum, quod moriens ubere fructa (before 1543), Dreves: 1894, 61 (No. 72). 17 Juana de la Cruz, Sermon 50 (García de Andrés: 1999, 1150). I cite the translation of Surtz: 1995, 107.

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According to Ronald Surtz, Mary’s naked dancing points “to the unique nature of the Virgin’s sexuality”; “both nudity and youth denote innocence.” “Mary’s nudity symbolizes not only her physical perfection, but also her moral perfection” (Surtz: 1995, 118). In Mary’s speech in Juana’s sermon, allusions to the Magnificat can be detected. Mary’s speech or song from Luke 1:46–55 is a biblical text which implies dancing in the perception of late medieval and early modern theologians. Since Augustine vocal and instrumental music had been associated with Mary’s performance of the Magnificat. Especially Jean Gerson promoted the interpretation of Luke 1:47 et exultavit spiritus meus in Deo salutari meo as implying dancing and spiritual ecstasy.18 Whereas the words of the Greek original do not hint at a connection between rejoicing and dancing, the Latin version of the Magnificat allows to establish a linguistic relation between exultare and saltare. So in the Latin West, the idea of Mary dancing while singing the Magnificat, becomes prominent in a variety of early modern theological genres. It can be found in theological tracts,19 commentaries on the gospel of Luke20 and on the Magnificat,21 sermons devoted to Mary,22 devotional books,23 and in a paraphrase of the Magnificat.24 Furthermore, an understanding of Luke 1:47 in categories of dance is not limited to textual interpretation. A manuscript of dance melodies dated circa 1520 by its editor includes a dance with the title “Et exultavit spiritus meus.” 25 Claudio Monteverdi’s “Magnificat a 8 voci et due violini et quattro viole overo quattro Tromboni quali in acidente si ponno lasciare” (1640) “uses an almost dance-like measure, as it progresses to the words ‘et exultavit spiritus meus’” (Arnold: 1982, 44). Mary’s dance while singing the Magnificat is adduced as biblical justification for dancing by Jesuit dance-theoretician and promoter Claude-François Ménestrier in “Des Ballets anciens et modernes selon les regles du Theatre” (1682).26 Some twenty years later, a Franciscan recollection insists that this dance of Mary is to be understood strictly as a spiritual dance. The acknowledgement of a bodily movement of the Virgin would have spoiled the argument for his message that the spirit of devotion

18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26

Cf. Gersonius: 1706, 656. Cf., e.g., Kaspar Schatzgeyer, Scrutinium divinae scripturae (Schatzgeyer 1522, hh iv(v). Cf., e.g., Iansenius 1571: 35. Cf., e.g., Scacciotti 1589: 215f. An extensive discussion of the various meanings and implications of exultare in Luke 1:47 is provided by Benzonius: 1606, 53–80 (second pagination). Cf., e.g., Ioannes de Carthagena: 1613, 572. Cf., e.g., Spee: 1968, 447 (Goldenes Tugendbuch III 24). Cf. Khröll: 1725, 184f. Cf. Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana di Venezia, Ms. Ital. (Cl.) IV, 1227 (collocaz. 11699), f. 21v. Edited by Jeppesen: 1962, 26 (No. 39). Cf. Ménestrier 1682, 23f; the book was published anonymously.

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has to flee earthly dancing.27 Even in the 1790s, in a Methodist controversy pro and contra dancing, an opponent finds it appropriate to emphasize that in Luke 1:47 dance is not mentioned explicitly.28 This Methodist voice shows that the possibility of a dancing Mary may have been part of Protestant imagination. Indeed, Mary dancing the Magnificat had been accepted by seventeenth-century Lutheran theologians.29 It would seem that this is the only instance of a dancing Mary early modern Protestant theologians did share with their Roman Catholic counterparts. Beyond theologians, there are Lutheran composers such as Johann Pachelbel and Johann Sebastian Bach who used dance features in their musical interpretations of the Magnificat. In early modern Lutheran imaginations of heaven, heavenly dance has a place. But the idea of special dancing groups of virgins led by Mary would not be plausible for a church that had devalued virginity, discarded monastic life and introduced compulsory marriage for men who wanted to become pastors. Indeed, the shaping of Protestant spiritualities had serious effects on the place of Mary. Only three Marian feasts were retained because of their connection with biblical narrative. Practices of Marian devotion, such as the rosary or pilgrimage to Marian churches, were abandoned. No hymns praising Mary were composed. Marian iconography soon was reduced to annunciation, visitation and nativity. Late medieval debates on the question of Mary’s immaculate conception were not continued in Protestant theology. Protestant decentering Mary and Roman Catholic emphasis on the Virgin and Marian devotion provided distinct identity markers for the confessions of early modern Western Christianity. The feast of Mary’s Assumption was not celebrated in Protestant churches. So the idea that this assumption includes a dance of Mary solo or with Christ became a distinct Roman Catholic idea when articulated by seventeenth century preachers and Bible commentators.30 As for Christian art, some modern authors see Mary dancing on early modern paintings and in Baroque and Rococco statues of the Immaculata. This theme deserves further study by art historians since what can be seen in these paintings and sculptures sometimes is only in the eyes of the beholders. Such statues of the Immaculata are found not only in Europe but also in Latin America as a consequence of the Spanish Conquista: In 1734, Ecuadorian sculptor Bernardo de Legarda (c. 1700–1773) produced a statue of the Virgen Danzante for Quito (cf. Albornoz: 2009, 315 [colour illustration]). 27 28 29 30

So the title of his sermon (“Spiritus devotionis in fuga saltus“), Bischoffs: 1703, 717–723. Cf. Olivers: 1792, 19f. Cf., e.g., Arndt: 1675, 1362. Arndt’s “Postilla” was first published in 1616–1620. Cf. Lanuza: 1653, 136 (Mary dancing with threefold joy); Arcones: 1642, 312 (Christ dancing with Mary on the occasion of her assumption).

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Some practices involving a dancing Mary now were considered offensive by Catholic authorities. In Provins (Département Seine-et-Marne), a special performance took place in the church of Saint-Quiriace at Virgin’s Nativity. A girl selected by the vicar from his parish was placed in white clothes on a distinguished seat of the choir. The vicar greeted her with the Ave Maria said in French, took her hand and led her through the church to the entrance. Outside he began a dance with her. Our source concludes this description with the information, that in 1710 the Chapter abolished this performance in order to avoid a scandal.31 Although no interpretation is given for this dance, it seems plausible to understand it as a duet between Mary and Christ, the latter represented by the male priest. In the early 1760s, the Holy Virgin could be seen dancing fandango with the Holy Spirit in the streets of Madrid in the Annunciation scene of an auto sacramental, a mystery play. The Lutheran ambassador of the King of Denmark whose memoirs contain this information wonders why the church tolerated such spectacles he himself can only call ridiculous. He was informed by a high church functionary that these mystery plays are a source of edification for the people much more efficient than sermons (cf. Gleichen: 1847, 37–39). The ambassador was one of the last spectators encountering this fandango. In 1765, the Spanish monarch Carlos III. abolished the performance of auto sacramentales.

5.

Nineteenth Century: Dance in Heaven – A Case of Folklore

With the nineteenth century, the theme of Mary’s dances undergoes several changes. These concern the role and status of the authors, who articulate this subject, the media they use as well as the structures and functions of the imaginations of a dancing Mary. Up to the middle of the eighteenth century, most of the authors were priests, monks or nuns. Since the nineteenth century, nearly all participants are laypersons. When Lutheran pastor Ludwig Gotthard Kosegarten re-uses the medieval exempla mentioned above (Kosegarten: 1810, 118–120.126f; Kosegarten: 1812, 61–65), he does so not as a preacher in an adhortatory sermon, but as a poet recreating a legendary medieval atmosphere. The idea of a heavenly dance including Mary, is now seldom evoked by priests. It is mostly amateur ethnologists and folklorists, who take notice of Mary’s dances. During the nineteenth century, collections of folk songs were undertaken by poets, pastors, literary historians, teachers, composers and others. These collections included different versions of a song, in which Mary confronts a young woman that

31 Cf. Opoix: 1823, 437.

The Dances of the Virgin Mary

seeks to be admitted to heaven.32 Contrary to her traditional role as the advocate for sinners, in this folk song Mary is an agent of exclusion. She argues that the supplicant has lost her virginity (and in some versions as well murdered her child) and therefore has forsaken the right to enter heaven. In some variants the sinner’s subsequent reception in hell is described. Sometimes her hope is articulated that despite Mary’s refusal, she eventually may be pardoned by God. Mary is introduced as leading a choral dance of little children or with her own little child or with little angels.

6.

Twentieth Century to 1945: Solo on Earth – Writers, Dancers, Works of Art

In the first half of the twentieth century, dancing Marys are imagined in literary texts and impersonated in modern dance. Intermediality with works of art is often constitutive. Protestant and catholic authors in Germany, Switzerland, Austria, and Belgium use a variety of literary genres for speaking about a dancing Mary: novel, legend, novella, poem, mystery play, epos. Reinhard Johannes Sorge compares the dancing Mary, he envisions with King David dancing before the ark33 and lets Mary interpret the Magnificat as the dance of her soul in God’s salvation.34 Victor Hardung creates a legendary scene in hell: A gypsy girl had healed people in her life, including an abbott, with her dancing. After her death and reception in heaven, she is allowed to visit hell. She is not able to redeem the devils and the damned. However, she tries to facilitate their fate by inviting them to dance. Even the Virgin Mary, who had arrived to bring the gypsy girl back to heaven is moved to move her feet to the rhythm of the dance (cf. Hardung: 1912). In his modern rewriting of a famous medieval legend (“The Monk and the Bird”), Konrad Falke incorporates a visionary scene, in which a monk raptured to paradise sees Mary, still a girl, dancing for herself on a lake.35 In Felix Timmermans’ transposition of the traditional story of Christ’s birth and childhood to the rural milieu of modern Flanders, Mary joins

32 Cf. the following variants, the titles of which are supplied by the respective editors: a) Arnim/Brentano: 1808, 215f (Unerschöpfliche Gnade); b) Hawpt/Smoler: 1841, 281 (No. CCLXXXVI: Přadła je Marja kudźełku); c) Christophorus: 1853, 207f; divided into two pieces by Erk/Böhme: 1894 (Nos. 2067, 2071); d) Erk/Böhme: 1894, 763 Nos. 2070 (Unerschöpfliche Gnade), 2071 (Unerschöpfliche Gnade), 764 No. 2072 (Unerschöpfliche Gnade). 33 Cf. Sorge: 1917, 46 (ibid., 25, Mary is compared to a female dancer). 34 Cf. Sorge: 1915, 18. See the early modern interpretations of the Magnificat as being performed in dance, mentioned before. 35 Cf. Falke: 1926, 70–73.

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the dance of school children around her young son after the return from Egypt (cf. Timmermans: n.d., 189). In Anselma Heine’s novella, set in early modern France, Mary’s chaste dancing is adduced as contrast to the lascivious dancing attributed to a figure of the plot (cf. Heine: 1915, 109f). In some of these literary texts, dances are attributed not directly to Mary, but to representations of Mary in art. A statue of Mary on the Marienkapelle, Würzburg/ Germany, is called “Dancing Madonna (Tanzende Madonna)” (cf. Conrad: 1904, 142). The Virgin from a painting in Santa Maria dei Miracoli, Venezia/Italy, leaves the church and dances at the carnival of Venezia.36 As for modern dance, a memoir of Russian choreographer and ballet dancer Leonid Mjasin/Léonide Massine is significant. Young Massine followed the advice of Sergei Pavlovich Diaghilev to study late medieval and early modern paintings for choreographic inspirations. Staying in Florence in 1914 or 1915, Massine remembers: One afternoon in the Uffizi, while I was looking up at Fra Filippo Lippi’s Madonna and Child, Diaghilev said to me: “Do you think you could compose a ballet?” “No,” I answered without thinking, “I’m sure I never could.” Then, as we passed on into another room, I was suddenly aware of the luminous colours of Simone Martini’s Annunciation. As I looked at the delicate postures of Gabriel and the Virgin Mary, I felt as if everything I had seen in Florence had finally culminated in this painting. It seemed to be offering me the key of an unknown world, beckoning me along a path which I knew I must follow to the end. “Yes,” I said to Diaghilev, “I think I can create a ballet. Not only one, but a hundred, I promise you” (Massine: 1968, 70).

What Massine felt he could do, female choreographers and dancers did. Since 1914, Isadora Duncan impersonated Mary in her performance of “Ave Maria” (Franz Schubert, Op. 52 no. 6).37 In an Episcopal church in New York, St. Mark’s Church in-the-Bowery, from 1920 to 1924 Bird Larson choreographed a ritual dance in front of a copy of Andrea Della Robbia’s sculpture of the Annunciation (cf. Wenger: 2006, 227–230). At least since 1921, Charlotte Bara impersonated Mary over a long time in performances as “Mary in Pain” (1921/22), “Madonna” (1924; music: César Franck), “Flight into Egypt” (1936 and 1955), “Scènes de la vie de la Vierge (La fuite en Egypte, Maria in Schmerzen)” (1951).38 In 1926 or 1927, Swiss dancer Berthe Trümpy drew inspiration from gothic sculptures and paintings of the old

36 Cf. le Fort: 1975. 37 See Roseman: 2004, xxii.51–55.60–65.67–69.76. 38 Cf. Schütze: 2000, 37 (Mary in Pain). 52 (Madonna; Flight into Egypt). 59 (Scènes de la vie de la Vierge). Charlotte Bara, born Jewish, converted to Roman Catholicism in 1928.

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masters for her choreography of a Christmas play in which she impersonated Mary.39 In 1926, Martha Graham choreographed the ballet “From a XII Century Tapestry”, later retitled as “A Florentine Madonna”, as “Renaissance” (part 1) and as “Madonna”; the music was from Sergei Rachmaninoff. Five years later, Graham performed Mary in “Primitive Mysteries” (cf. Kirk: 1993, 147, and ibid., 140 [fig. 30]). In “El Penitente” (1940), Graham assumes the roles of a peasant madonna, a Magdalen, a Mater Dolorosa (or Veronica) (cf. Jowitt: 1989, 207; for a photo, ibid., 208). Rosalia Chladek impersonated Mary in “Annunciation” (Verkündigung, music: Arthur Honegger, 1929), “Mary’s Life” (Marienleben; music: Arthur Kleiner, 1934) and “Small Passion” (Kleine Passion; music: Heinrich Ignaz Franz Biber, 1948).40 Graham’s teacher, Ruth St. Denis, joined the Marys of modern dance from 1934 onward. As Kimerer LaMothe has demonstrated, St. Denis’ Mary is decidedly an Anti-Virgin.41 During the “Deutsche Tanzfestspiele” in Berlin, 1935, “Mary’s Life” (Marienleben; music: Johann Sebastian Bach) was choreographed by Helga Svedlund and danced by her and Almut Winckelmann.42 Especially the performances of Duncan, Graham and St. Denis evoked an atmosphere where the dancing women themselves could (and perhaps should) be perceived as divine themselves. Here the cultural construction of the Diva could be taken quite literally.

7.

1945 to the Present: Group Dance and Solo on Earth

Comparable to the wide range of media used for articulation a dancing Mary in the Middle Ages, in the last seventy years a variety of media and genres, film not excluded, have been used for this purpose. Mary dances in an etching by Gertrud Escher43 , in a picture created in 1931 (presumably no longer extant) by Teresa, the then four year old daughter of Catholic activist Dorothy Day (cf. Day: 2016, 6), and in a painting by Korean artist JaeIm Kim (mentioned in Coffey: 2009, 55). Apart from these three female artists, contemporary art in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries seem not to have been attracted much by the motif of a dancing Mary.

39 Cf. Lämmel 1928, 172f. Raised in a Calvinist family, Trümpy converted to Roman Catholicism in 1940. 40 Cf. Oberzaucher-Schüller/Giel: 2002, 105–107.161.162.167. 41 Cf. LaMothe: 1998. 42 Cf. Müller/Stöckemann: 1993, 162. 43 Escher’s etching of a girl performing a veil dance is the frontispiece of Falke 1926. It can be related to Falke’s transformation of the medieval legend of the monk with the bird.

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Literary descriptions and dance performances in the first half of the twentieth century interacted with medieval and early modern Marian iconography. After World War II, works of art lose their importance as a reference medium for our subject. An exception is Anastáz Opasek’s poem “Jaro v Rohru”, where Egid Quirin Asam’s Rococo statue of the Assumption of Mary in Rohr Abbey is said to dance towards heaven all the year.44 Dances of Mary are present in the poetry of Giorgos Seferis and Charles Bukowski45 , in a short story by Samuel Blazer, in a novella by Robert Völkl46 and in a Jesus novel by Derrick Patrick (cf. Patrick: 2013, 17). A few esoteric texts containing a dancing Mary have been published: The rewritten Bible, included in the Urantia Book (1955), lets Mary dance at the marriage at Cana.47 Hans Lyngsgaard describes in his book “Teachings of Mary” his spiritual journey through half of Europe. He is accompanied by Mary who reveals him esoteric knowledge. Climbing a mountain in Alsace, Lyngsgaard tells: Mary almost bubbles. I have so far sensed only her face somewhere near my head, but I now sense that she has both body and feet. She is dancing about in happy expectation. Something big is about to happen. I tease her, saying that she must be going to meet her lover. ‘That is right,’ she says. ‘We are lovers – in the way that all God’s angels are lovers’ (Lyngsgaard: 2012, 38).

Mary dances in drama and opera. In David Calcutt’s (born 1950) play “Mary” (2001, part of the cycle “Heaven and Earth”), pregnant Mary declares that she is not ashamed of what has happened to her: This life is something sacred and special, something pure, something holy, and it makes me want to laugh and cry out, to shout and dance, I want to stamp my feet hard on the ground, and raise my face to the sky, and sing some song of joy and praise … (Calcutt: 2001, 54).

44 Cf. Opasek 1974, 29. 45 Cf. Seferis: 2011, 70–75 (Engomi; the poem ascribes Mary a “motionless dance” [choros akinetos]); Bukowski: 2003, 140–142 (first published in 1968). 46 Cf. Blazer: 1960, 86 (“Jesus danced with Mary”); Völkl: 1973, 80–84 (in the context of a heavenly dance performance). 47 Cf. Urantia Book 137:4.10 (Internet version; www.urantia.org/urantia-book-standardized/paper137-tarrying-time-in-galilee; 2020–10–31): “Mary was dancing with glee.”

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In 2004, Jeff Goode’s play “The Portrait of the Virgin Mary Feeding the Dinosaurs” was produced. Near the end, dancers enter. Jesus joins their dance. After he has left the stage, “Mary rises from her posture of mourning and dances a solo” (Goode: 2013, 115). Mary dances on the screen. In Fabrizio Costa’s (born 1954) film “Maria, figlia del suo figlio” (2000), young Mary dances together with other girls in the temple.48 Mark Dornford-May’s (born 1955) “Son of Man” (2006) sets the story of Jesus in contemporary Africa. Mary is not present at Jesus’s death, but she becomes a “mother of the disappeared” who refuses to be cowed. Joining the followers of Jesus, she goes to the authorities and bangs on the window, holing up a picture of her son in a quest for answers about his fate. When Mary learns the location of her son’s grave, she visits the burial site and begins to dig with her bare hands to reach the body. The followers hang Jesus’s corpse upon a cross (with red cloths to indicate the blood flow) in plain view of the authorities. Jesus’s initial “resurrection” is a symbol of defiance, as his supporters join together at the foot of the cross, dancing and singing “The land is covered in darkness.” When the military try to disperse the people, Mary continues dancing with her back to the soldiers. As shots are fired, she has to fling herself to the ground. But then she stands up, faces the gunmen, and continues her defiant song and dance. Other people come to join her (O’Brien: 2011, 153).

In Catherine Hardwicke’s (born 1955) “The Nativity Story” (2006), Mary and the angel perform a dance in the annunciation scene (cf. O’Brien: 2011, 50f). The most prominent medium used after 1945 for the idea of a dancing Mary, is dance. In Spanish-speaking communities all over the world, dances with the virgin are frequent. Often they are performed every year by Roman Catholic men with a girl clothed as the virgin. These dances are known from Spain (Atienza, Logroño), Mexico, Panama (Panama City), Peru (Puerto Maldonado), Brazil (Rio de Janeiro, São Paulo), the Philippines, California (Los Angeles) and elsewhere. Dance ethnographer Deidre Sklar, writing on a fiesta in Tortugas, New Mexico, explains: The Virgin’s story made it clear that she called on each person, individually and personally, to serve her. In exchange for that devotion, each would receive her blessing. […] perhaps Rico spoke for the others when he said, “When you’re dancing it’s the same as dancing with the virgin. It’s something like if I were talking to her, expressing our gratitude for

48 Cf. O’Brien: 2011, 73f.

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what she had done. […] Every time we’re dancing there, it’s like we were saying thank you and just talking to her, giving her our thanks” (Sklar: 1999, 27f).

Since the late 1960s Roman Catholic priests belonging to the Jesuits and the Society of the Divine Word initiated and performed dances of the Virgin Mary in India. Especially the dances of Francis Barboza have attracted international attention. Barboza, then priest and member of the SVD (Societas Verbi Divini (SVD), i.e. Steyler Missionaries, was educated in the Indian dance form Bharata Natyam. For Bharata Natyam to convey the Christian message, Barboza had to expand the repertory of gestures of this Hindu dance form. In his doctoral dissertation on “Christianity in Indian Dance Forms”49 , he mentions also further dances including a Virgin dancing at the Annunciation from Kerala and from Thailand.50 Father Saju George SJ impersonated Mary in the dance form Bharata Natyam during the conference “Dance with God or the Devil?” in Neuendettelsau, March 5, 2020. Moving to Europe, in 1975 the Virgin appeared in “Schwarze Vögel” (Black Birds), a ballet commemorating the German peasants’ war 1525, in the Komische Oper Berlin/GDR, choreographed by Tom Schilling.51 1979, in London, Mary and the angel Gabriel danced in Robert North’s “The Annunciation.” In the early 1990s, London saw cross-dresser Lindsay Kemp impersonating Isadora Duncan, Lady Macbeth, Loïe Fuller, and the Virgin Mary, in his production “Onnagata” (cf. Ferris: 1993, 5). Among the achievements of the movement of liturgical, meditative and sacred dance in Germany since the 1970s are numerous performances, workshops and even workbooks. In some of these books dances involving Mary are conceived and designed in detail.52 Most of these dances refer to hymns directed to or associated with Mary. This they share with two patterns of the dances of Mary prominent in the last decades: performances of the Stabat Mater and the Magnificat. At least since 1975, more than twenty choreographies of the medieval song Stabat Mater were performed in London (1975), Den Haag (1999), Paris (2016), Amsterdam (2019), New York (1986 and 1998), Montréal (2017) and Seattle (2019), in Zürich (2009) and in numerous cities in Germany.53 Most of these Stabat Mater

49 Cf. Barboza: 1990 (ibid., 197–213 for Barboza’s own dances). 50 Kerala: Barboza: 1990, 79 (“Gabriel”). Thailand: ibid., 22 (Annunciation; Christian Communications Institute). 51 Cf. Rebling 1980, 371–375, esp. 372. Music: Georg Katzer. 52 Cf. Lander: 1983, 179–188 (a dance to the Hymnos Akathistos); Soltmann: 1989, 112f (Annunciation). 116f (Ave Maria). 118f (“Maria durch ein Dornwald ging”). 125f (Hymn to Mary). 136 (Stabat Mater). 53 Stuttgart 1984 and 2000, Nürnberg 1996, Bonn 2003, München ca. 2006 and 2013, Berlin 2012, Magdeburg 2015, Ludwigsburg 2016, Bielefeld 2016, ca. 2006 and 2013, Berlin 2012, Magdeburg 2015, Ludwigsburg 2016, Bielefeld 2016, Offenburg 2016, Krefeld 2019, Leipzig 2019.

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ballets are done to the setting of Pergolesi, but also the settings of Palestrina, Vivaldi, Rossini and Penderecki are used. Almost all the choreographers are men. In addition to the Stabat Mater ballets, there are more than a dozen choreographies of the Magnificat since 2004. Most of my evidence comes from Germany.54 While the Stabat Mater performances take place in operas, theaters, concert halls, the Magnificat performances (often to the setting of Johann Sebastian Bach) are not restricted to the spheres of art. Danced Magnificats can also be experienced in conferences of Christian groups, even one as important as the Tenth Assembly of the World Council of Churches at Busan, Korea, in 2013, in church, primary school and kindergarten. Despite these different settings and functions, the Stabat Mater and the Magnificat dances have one thing in common. It is not the exceptional, singular Virgin and Mother of God that is evoked but the woman, the human being experiencing and expressing great joy or grief – a person with whom I can identify. This seems to be a difference from the Marys of Duncan, Graham, St Denis and other divas in the first half of the twentieth century who impersonated the divine woman to be adored. The Stabat Mater and the Magnificat dances some decades later focus more on fundamental emotions each person can experience. Collective experiences correspond with collective articulations: Most of these dances are done by groups. This emphasis on common experiences can also perceived in the dance play “El otro apóstol” (2005) choreographed by Álvaro Restrepo and Marie France Delieuvin with the Compania de el Colegio del Cuerpo, Columbia. Here any distinctiveness attributed to the figure of Mary is deconstructed in that there is not one but six Marys (and Mary Magdalenes) that dance from biblical scenes to contemporary concentration camps, wars and other disasters. Mary’s dances are also invoked in programmatic books. Iris Stewart’s “Sacred Woman, Sacred Dance” is a plea for female self-development and self-awareness as a sacred person through dance. Mary’s dance in the temple as told by the Protoevangelium Jacobi is taken as historical information and as evidence that Mary was a dancing temple priestess.55 Jungian analyst Brigitte Romankiewicz interprets the dancing Mary as a symbol of autonomy, joy, personal growth, and emancipation (cf. Romankiewicz: 2019, 92–98). Stephen Bevans and Roger Schroeder, in their redesign of Roman Catholic missionary theology suggest an understanding of mission as “Invitation to the Dance” (so the subtitle of their book “Prophetic Dialogue”). The conclusion of their work recalls the dance metaphor and revives the image of a choral dance:

54 Stuttgart 2004, Sulzbach-Rosenberg 2011, Dortmund 2012, Erfurt 2012, Bremerhaven 2012, Mainz 2015, Osnabrück 2017, Dülmen 2018, Nürnberg 2018, Leipzig 2019, Finsterwalde 2019. 55 Cf. Stewart 2013, 17.

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The dance begins in God’s very self, and then spills forth generously, joyfully into all of creation, like a great “conga line.” The Spirit leads the dance. She inspires the Lord of the Dance, and the dancers make up that “great cloud of witnesses” (Heb 12:1), among whom are Abraham and Sarah, Moses and Miriam, Deborah, Isaiah, Mary of Nazareth, Peter, Paul, Mary Magdalen, Justin, Patrick and Bridget, Alopen, Leoba, Francis and Clare, Xavier and Ricci, Marie de l’Incarnation, Samuel Crowther, Katharine Drexel, Pandita Ramabai, Charles de Foucauld, and Dorothy Day. They have danced through history, and they are inspirations for the people who are dancing now. The name of the dance might be called “prophetic dialogue” (Bevans/Schroeder: 2011, 156).

Furthermore, in texts produced for meditation Mary is imagined dancing, too, so in Kay Horner’s retelling of salvation history in dance metaphors in the annunciation and visitation scenes (cf. Horner: 2015, 60–66) or in Andrea Schwarz’s paraphrase of the Magnificat (cf. Schwarz: 2017, 76–84, esp. 84). In modern times, the theme of virginity connected with Mary and with Mary’s dances is exposed to transformation and opposition. This is often connected to the wish to understand Mary as a fully human being not set apart by an immaculate conception, a virgin birth and perpetual virginity. This could be demonstrated by an analysis of the historical novels on Mary published since the late nineteenth century. Dancing is not a common motif in most of these novels. It is prominent in Patricia Pfeiffer’s “Above All Women” (1997) and in Gail Sidonie Sobat’s “The Book of Mary” (2006). Pfeiffer’s religious affiliation is Baptist; she was active as Bible teacher. “Above All Women” follows the Bible in that Jesus is born of a virgin. The other children Mary bears are the fruit of communion with her husband. At age eleven Mary participates in communal dances with other girls at the Feast of Booths and has an encounter with Joseph who is a few years older (cf. Pfeiffer: 1997, 47–50). Later she dances with young Jesus when the news of Herod’s death allow the return from exile (cf. Pfeiffer: 1997, 192). In contrast, Sobat declares to be an unbeliever in the preface of her counter-gospel. In a deliberate mix of first-century Middle East and modern multicultural western society, Sobat’s Mary begins to write down her experiences at the age of fourteen. The only relief I get is when I hang around the temple doors waiting for the boys after shul. Oh, and I get to dance. My sister Deborah and me take lessons. From Judith who teaches all the nice young Jewish girls to dance. There is another kind of dancing I do. Not for nice young Jewish girls. At Jezebel’s. On weekends, if I can slip out. Jez taught me and my best friend, Adi. I’d never tell my mother. She’d kill me. So would my father. Literally (Sobat: 2006, 9).

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This erotic solo dance Mary had been taught by the prostitute is the means to impress a young man. Jeremiah, some years older than Mary, a married drug dealer, is attracted to Mary when she performs her erotic dance in front of him. An erotic relationship emerges the result of which is Jesus. Sobat’s Mary will dance and have sex with Jeremiah also in her later life, after her marriage to Joseph – a marriage motivated by necessity, not by love as in Pfeiffer’s novel. Almost all the dances Mary performs since 1945 are set on earth, before (Annunciation) or during (Magnificat) her pregnancy or at the death of her son (Stabat Mater). It is on earth, not in heaven where counter-narratives such as that of Sobat take place. And at the beginning of the new millennium, such counter-narratives seem to gain attraction: In 2014, “The Birth of Jesus Foretold”, performed in the Life Community Baptist Church, showed Mary’s usual agreement with Gabriel’s annunciation. But four years earlier, 7 Stages Theatre, Atlanta, saw an “Annunciation” choreographed by Celeste Miller in which Mary says “No” to Gabriel, thus evoking a spiritual crisis for the archangel.

8.

Conclusionary Remarks

My narrative of the dances of the Virgin Mary is based on more than 230 sources from almost two thousand years. In the first millennium only few sources are extant. But the Protoevangelium Jacobi and Hieronymus’ letter to Eustochium were widely read in the centuries after their publication. Nevertheless, my evidence is limited. I have not checked possible sources in Orthodox and non-Chalcedonensian Christianities, in Africa or East Asia. Since I tried to give an overview, contextualization and interpretation of the individual sources in depth was not possible. I did not explore systematically the connections between dance, vocal and instrumental music that are important in many of my sources. The conclusions I present are preliminary. The dancing Mary is articulated and performed in a variety of media, several genres of texts, songs, drama, sculpture and perhaps painting, especially in the last hundred years dance performances. There is a great deal of interaction between these media. Up to the eighteenth century, most of the persons who used these media were religious functionaries and men. Scholars are rare among them, the dancing Mary is a theme of monastic theology, not of scholastic theology. In the last two centuries, most authors or performers are lay persons but the gender proportions have not much changed. Gender-specific forms of spirituality related to Mary seem to have not yet been investigated. Further discussion is needed. From late antiquity to early modern times, many of my sources address virgins, nuns and monks. Their participation in the Mary-led heavenly dance can be seen

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as a form of initiation – a function pre-modern European dances often had. Lay persons are included in liturgical contexts and as audience of sermons. Since the sixteenth century there is no emphasis on monastic recipients. In pre-modern times, Mary’s dances were primarily evoked in monastic, liturgical or congregational settings. For modern dancing Marys, other spaces and settings can be used as well. Where she is danced in churches, her dances are not expressed in words used in songs and sermons but in embodiments through human dancers. As for space and time, Mary is imagined dancing either on earth or in heaven, in the past (e.g. as child or in pregnancy), at present and in the future. She can be perceived as incomparable and singular, as role model to be imitated, as a being to be adored or one to be identified with. These different statuses seem to correlate with dance constellations: Singularity is often expressed in solo dances, exemplarity in choral and other forms of group dances. Mary is imagined in a variety of dance constellations: solo; in a duet with Christ, God Father, an angel or a human impostor, the Count of Saint-Germain; as leader of a choral dance with virgins, chaste women, children, angels; as part of a group of temple virgins. Where specified, the dances Mary performs from antiquity to early modern times are often choral dances (chorea), sometimes tripudia. Since the end of the sixteenth century contemporary dances are attributed to her: branle, folia, fandango, menuet, even a tango, and breakdance. In the history of the motif two phases of major changes can be perceived, one during the sixteenth century, another since the beginning of the twentieth century. Since the Reformation, Mary’s role in Protestant Christianities is marginal. So Mary’s early modern dances are imagined predominantly in Roman Catholic spheres. Mary begins to participate in the respective contemporary dance forms. In the twentieth century no more choral dances are evoked. In central Europe and Northern America, the links of the motif with organized religion are severed, producers as well as recipients need not have a special religious affiliation. The connection of Mary’s dance with virginity is contested since early modern times. In sixteenth-century Protestant Christianities virginity is decentered for religious reasons. Since the end of the nineteenth century, virginity is stigmatized as pathological in medical, psychiatric and psychological discourses. So some Mary’s dancing in the last one hundred years are decidedly anti-virginal figures. Since the eighteenth century theocentric expectations and imaginations of the Christian heaven are superseded by anthropocentric ideas. The imagination of an eternal heavenly feast with liturgy and dance in which the individual is placed in rank and order is not attractive for a bourgeois mentality that appreciates equality and longs for a hereafter with family and friends. Despite the quantity of sources the idea of the Virgin Mary dancing is not common knowledge. In 1987, feminist philosopher Ida Magli contended that Mary is

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definitely excluded from dance by men; they would connect dance with sexuality and Mary’s counterpart Eve.56 Apparently a dancing Mary is present only in segments of society. It was a Roman Catholic bishop, Antonio Bello, who in reaction to Magli presented Mary as the “Woman Who Dances” (cf. Bello: 2000, 114–117). This will become more clear when the idea of Mary dancing is compared to the imagination of her dancing son. In modern Western culture, Jesus is still a major cultural hero to be invested with whatever cultural values. Mary is not. The dancing Jesus is part of pop culture (see Sidney Carter’s “Lord of the Dance” and Jesus’s dances in film), attracts esoteric aspirations (see the many modern receptions of Christ’s dance in the Acts of John) and is an aspect of trinitarian speculations of modern university theology (see the construction of perichoresis as dance since 1972). Despite of these differences, Mary continues to dance in the present.

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Lanuza, H.B. de (1660), Medulla Cedri Libani sive Conceptus praedicabiles super festa totius anni. Ex Homiliis Quadragesimalibus. Tomus II, Coloniae Agrippinae: Apud Ioannem Busaeum Bibliopolam. le Fort, G. von (1975), Unsere liebe Frau vom Karneval. Eine venezianische Legende, Zürich: Verlag der Arche. Liberius a Jesu (1754), Controversiarum scholastico-polemico-historico-criticarum […] tomus septimus […], Mediolani: Ex Typographia Petri Francisci Malarestae. Lochner, G.W.K. (ed.) (1872), Leben und Gesichte der Christina Ebnerin, Klosterfrau zu Engelthal, Nürnberg: Aug. Recknagel’s Buchhandlung. Lyngsgaard, H. (2012), Teachings of Mary: The pilgrimage route of the Virgin Mary, Winchester/Washington: John Hunt Publishing. Magli, I. (1990), Die Madonna. Die Entstehung des weiblichen Idols aus der männlichen Phantasie, München/Zürich: Piper. Marraccius, H. (ed.) (1661), S. Iosephi Hymnographi, Siculi, Syracusani, Ord. D. Basilij Monachi Mariale Quo eiusdem S. Iosephi de Augustissima Coeli Terraeque Regina Deipara Virgine Maria Opera omnia Quae reperiri potuerunt, […]: Typis Ignatii de Lazaris. Massine, L. (1968), My Life in Ballet, London: Macmillan/St. Martin’s Press. [Ménestrier, C.-F.] (1682), Des Ballets anciens et modernes selon les regles du Theatre, Paris: Chez R. Guignard. Mone, F.J. (ed.) (1854), Hymni Latini Medii Aevi. E codd. mss. edidit et adnotationibus illustravit. Tomus secundus. Hymni ad B.V. Mariam, Friburgi Brisgoviae: Sumptibus Herder. Mone, F.J. (ed.) (1841), Altteutsche Schauspiele, Quedlinburg/Leipzig: Gottfr. Basse. Müller, H./Stöckemann, P. (1993), “Jeder Mensch ist ein Tänzer.” Ausdruckstanz in Deutschland zwischen 1900 und 1945, Gießen: Anabas. Oberzaucher-Schüller, G./Giel, I. (2002), Rosalia Chladek. Klassikerin des bewegten Ausdrucks, München: K. Kieser Verlag. O’Brien, C. (2011), The Celluloid Madonna: From Scripture to Screen, New York/Chichester: Colombia University Press. Olivers, T. (1792), An Answer to Mr. Mark Davis: Thoughts on Dancing. To which are added Serious Considerations to dissuade Christian-Parents from teaching their Children to Dance, London: Charles Paramore. Opasek, A. (1974), Obrazy, Řím: Křest’anská Akad. Opoix, [C.] (1823), Histoire et Description de Provins, Paris/Provins: Chez Raynal/Lebeau. Patrick, D. (2013), Jesus: The Rise of the Nazarene, Bloomington: iUniverse. Pfeiffer, P. (1997), Above All Women: The Story of the Virgin Mary, Mukilteo: Wine Pr Pub. Rebling, E. (4 1980), Ballett A–Z, Berlin: Wilhelmshaven/Heinrichshofen’s Verlag. Romankiewicz, B. (2019), Ohne Maria kein Christus: Maria als Symbol spiritueller Erfahrung und Raum der Individuatio, Stuttgart: opus magnum.

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Roseman, J.L. (2004), Dance was her Religion: The Spiritual Choreography of Isadora Duncan, Ruth St. Denis, and Martha Graham, Prescott: Hohm Press. Rückert, H. (ed.) (1853), Bruder Philipps des Carthäusers Marienleben. Zum ersten Male herausgegeben, Bibliothek der deutschen National-Literatur 34, Quedlinburg/Leipzig: Druck und Verlag von Gottfr. Basse. Salazar, F.Q. de (1618), Pro Immaculata Deiparae Virginis Conceptione Defensio, Compluti: Ex Officina Ioannis Gratiani. Scacciotti, R. (1589), Corona della Madonna […], nella quale in ventisette Lettioni con varij, & alti concetti esponendosi la Salutatione angelica, vi s’interpone con bellissima occasione l’Espositione della Magnificat, delle altre parole della vergine, et della Salve Regina: & si confutano anche molte Heresie, Napoli: Appresso Horatio Saluiani. [Schatzgeyer, K.] (1522), Scrutinium divinae scripturae, pro conciliatione dissidentium dogmatum circa subscriptas materias. […]. [München]: Grieninger. Schnüffis, L. von (1692), Mirantische Mayen-Pfeiff. Oder Marianische Lob-Verfassung/ Jn Welcher Clorus/ein hirt/der Großmächtigsten Himmels-Königin/und Mutter Gottes Mariae unvergleichliche Schön- Hoch- und Vermögenheit anmüthig besingt. Geist- und Weltlichen/auch Predigern/sehr nutzlich/und annehmlich zu lesen, Dillingen: Bencard. Schütze, K.-R. (2000), Charlotte Bara 1901–1986, Brüssel/Worpswede/Berlin/Ascona: Verlag Karl-Robert Schütze. Schwarz, A. (2 2017), Eigentlich ist Maria ganz anders. Freiburg im Breisgau et al.: Herder (first published 2016). Seferis, G. (2011), Logbuch III – Zypern, wohin mich das Orakel wies … Aus dem Griechischen von Evtichios Vamvas, Frauenfeld: Waldgut Verlag. Sklar, D. (1999), All the dances have a meaning to that apparition: Felt knowledge and the Danzantes of Tortugas, New Mexico, Dance Research Journal 31 (2), 14–33. Sobat, G.S. (2006), The Book of Mary, Toronto: Sumach Press. Soltmann, M.-L. (1989), Im Kreis um die kosmische Mitte. Meditatives Tanzen, Freiburg im Breisgau: Bauer Hermann Verlag. Spechtler, F.V. (ed.) (1972), Die geistlichen Lieder des Mönchs von Salzburg, Quellen und Forschungen zur Sprach- und Kulturgeschichte der germanischen Völker Neue Folge 51, Berlin/New York: De Gruyter. Spee, F. (1968), Güldenes Tugend-Buch. Herausgegeben von Theo G.M. van Oorschot (Sämtliche Schriften 2), München: Francke Verlag. Stewart, I.J. (2013), Sacred Woman, Sacred Dance: Awakening Spirituality Through Movement and Ritual, Rochester/Toronto: Inner Traditions (first published 2000). Surtz, R.E. (1995), Writing Women in Late Medieval and Early Modern Spain. The Mothers of Saint Teresa of Avila, Philadelphia: Pennsylvania University Press. Tiberius von Kayserstuhl (1722), Fragmenta evangelica dominicalica de pane verbi Dei majora et minora in sex cophinos collecta […], Costantz. Timmermans, F. (no date), Het kindeken Jezus in Vlaanderen, Amsterdam.

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Tracy, R. (1996), Goddess: Martha Graham’s Dancers Remember, New York: Limelight Editions. Vilamo-Pentti, E. (1953), La Court de Paradis. Pòème anonyme du XIIIe siècle. Édition critique d’après tous les manuscrits connus, Annales Academiae Scientiarum Fennicae B 79 (1), Helsinki. Völkl, R. (1973), Himmlisches Tagebuch, Krems/Wien: Heimatland-Verlag. Wenger, T.J. (2006), The Practice of Dance for the Future of Christianity: “Eurythmic Worship” in New York’s Roaring Twenties, in L.F. Maffly-Kipp et al. (ed.), Practicing Protestants: Histories of Christian Life in America, 1630–1965, Lived Religions, Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 222–249.335–342. Windeatt, B.A. (ed.) (1985), The Book of Margery Kempe, London: Penguin Classics. Wüst, P. (ed.) (1909), Die Lilie, eine mittelfränkische Dichtung in Reimprosa, und andere Gedichte aus der Wiesbadener Handschrift, Deutsche Texte des Mittelalters 15, Berlin: Weidmann.

Philip Knäble

Canons & Choreographies The Myth of the Medieval Church adverse to Dancing

1.

‘Everything was Better Before’. The Retrospection of a 70-year old French Canon (1589)

Anyone who is concerned with the reconstruction of dances from the Renaissance and the early modern era should not miss this one book: The Orchésographie of Thoinot Arbeau (cf. Viard: 1989; Kendall: 2013; Huschka: 2020, 118–124). The Orchésographie was published in Langres, France, in 1589. It allows the scholar to better approximate the reconstruction of these dances, due to Arbeau’s unique system of dance descriptions, in which he combines the musical notation with the pattern of dance steps. The advantage is that in the Orchésographie much more about the type of steps and the movements is revealed than in the older French and Italian manuals, which often assumed the steps to be known by the reader. The Orchésographie is written in dialogue form and is aimed at young middle class students. In the book, the law student Capriol addresses his former teacher, and dance master Arbeau, complaining that he has never learned how to dance. Now he realizes that although his skills in fencing or playing ball may help him to gain social recognition among young men, he lacks the good dance skills that are also expected, especially by women. This is a major problem for Capriol as he is looking for a suitable partner to marry. Arbeau is happy to help his former student and teach him the most important dances. The author of the Orchésographie, Thoinot Arbeau, is a 70-year old French canon. The name Thoinot Arbeau is the anagrammatic pen name of Jehan Tabourot. Jehan looks back with a nostalgic feeling at his youth and the dances of that time. True to the motto ‘Everything was better before’, he describes his favorite dances, especially the Basse Danse and the Pavane, and reminisces about his youth (cf. Kirchner: 1991, 13–41; Saftien: 1994, 139–156). Now, 50 years later, the people practice new dances that he does not always approve of:

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Je le veulx bien pour le desir que j’ay que telles dances honnestes soient remises au dessus, en lieu de des dances lascives & deshontees que l’on à introduict en leur place au regret des sages seigneurs & des dames & matrones de bon & pudique jugement.

I shall do so willingly, in the hope that such honorable dances are reinstated and replace the lascivious, shameless ones introduced in their stead to the regret of wise lords and ladies and matrons of sound and chaste judgment.

(Arbeau: 1589, fol. 29v)

(Arbeau: 2011, 59)

However, this critique does not prevent him from also describing these dances in detail: the Gaillarde, so loved by Queen Elizabeth of England (cf. Braun/Gugerli: 1993, 20ff), the Volta or the countless Branles, which are danced to open the balls. At the beginning of his book, Arbeau gives an apologia for dance and, as a Catholic himself, describes the dances that take place in the church:

En l’eglise primitive la coustume continuée iusques en nostre temps, a esté de chanter les hymnes de nostre eglise en dançant & ballant, & y est encor en plusieurs lieux observée.

In the primitive church there was a custom, which has survived into our own times, of dancing and swaying while chanting the hymns of our faith, and it may still be seen in several places.

(Arbeau: 1589, fol. 3r/v)

(Arbeau: 2011, 13)

Arbeau connects the dance practices of the early church right up to the sixteenth century and sees a link between the singing of hymns and dancing. He views these dances, which could still be observed in some places in his time, not as a sign of a moral decline, but as part of a long Christian tradition. As with the older secular dances, he also regrets that the church dances have not been in use for some time:

Nous practiquõs telles resiouissances aux iours de la celebration des nopces, & ez solemnités des festes de nostre Eglise, encor que les reformez abhorrent telles choses mais ilz meriteroient d’y estre traictez de quelque gigot de bouc mis en paste sans lard.

We take part in such rejoicing to celebrate wedding days and in the rites of our religious festivals, in spite of the abhorrence of reformers, which latter deserve to be fed upon goat’s meat cooked in a pie without bacon.

(Arbeau: 1589, fol. 3v)

(Arbeau: 2011, 13)

Arbeau illustrates that dancing was part of marriages and church feasts. He considers dancing to be a legitimate form of devotion and regrets the gradual disappearance of dances in an ecclesiastical context. He holds the Calvinists responsible for this decline, as they prohibited all forms of dancing during their church feasts for which, according to Arbeau, they deserve to be punished. Unfortunately, Arbeau does not mention what kind of dances were performed during the church festivals. In

Canons & Choreographies

the Orchésographie he describes a Hermit-branle (branle des hermites), but it was more a parody of the Hermitian movements than an ecclesiastical dance:

[…] le branle des hermites, lequel a esté ainsi nommé, parce que l’on y faict des gestes semblables à ceulx qu’ont accoustumé de faire les hermites […]. Mais je ne vous conseilleray point de porter tels habits en masque, ny de contrefaire les contenances des Religieux, car il fault honorer & leurs habits & leurs personnes.

[…] so called because it contains gestures resembling those made by hermits in greeting, among the mimed branles. […] But I do not advise you to wear such habits for fancy dress, not to mimic the behavior of a Religious Order, because one should respect both their cloth and their persons.

(Arbeau: 1589, fol. 85r)

(Arbeau: 2011, 159)

If we follow the pointers in the Orchésographie, we can identify quite a few dances that take place in an ecclesiastical context, and which were known in late Medieval France. These dances were often danced by clerics at major church festivals, as I will demonstrate later with the Pelotte of Auxerre, maybe the best-known ecclesiastical dance of the Later Middle Ages. These dances were not pagan relics or acts of rebellion by the laity or younger clerics, which many researchers have concluded, but were, in fact, connected to the liturgy. Before we start to discuss the Pelotte of Auxerre, we have to address the myth that the church was hostile to dance.

2.

The Myth of a Church Adverse to Dancing

The medieval church is still characterized as an institution that is adverse to dancing, although a number of studies in recent years have raised considerable objections to this one-sided view (cf. Rohmann: 2013, 180–188; Leutzsch: 2017, 178–181; Koal: 2019b, 343, 359). Research on the dances of clerics in the Later Middle Ages focused broadly on the prohibition of dance and interprets them as evidence of a church hostile to dance and, more generally, hostile to the body since late antiquity. The dances in the churches were often misinterpreted as bizarre rituals of a popular counter-culture or as a dance revolution against a feudal system, hostile to the body and suppressing human instincts (cf. Klein: 1992, 68). I would like to make two objections against this one-sided view. First, I want to demonstrate that the medieval councils did not decree strict prohibitions on dance, but rather imposed some regulations on dance. Secondly, I would like to draw attention to the manifold dance motifs and dance practices of clergymen that were not seen as deviant but received broader social support.

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An example often cited in studies as evidence of the strict prohibition of dancing in medieval times is the decree by the Council of Basel, passed by the council clerics in 1435:

Turpem etiam illum abusum in quibusdam frequentatum Ecclesiis, quo certis anni celebritatibus nonnullis cum mitra, baculo, ac vestibus pontificalibus more episcoporum benedicunt, alii ut reges ac duces induti quod festum Fatuorum, vel Innocentum seu Puerorum in quibusdam regionibus nuncupatur, alii larvales et theatrales iocos, alii choeras et tripudia marium ac mulierum facientes homines ad spectacula et cachinnationes movent. Alii comessationes et convivia ibidem praeparant.

In some churches, during certain celebrations of the year, various scandalous practices take place. Some people with Mitre, crozier and pontifical vestments give blessings in the manner of bishops. Others are robed like kings and dukes; in some regions this is called the Feast of Fools, or Innocents, or children. Some put on masked and theatrical comedies, others organize dances for men and women, attracting people to acts of amusement and buffoonery.

(Wohlmuth: 2000, 492)

(Tanner: 1990, 492)

The council indeed passed a prohibition against dance, but it is important to point out here that it was not a blanket prohibition. In fact, it only applies to dances that take place during the Feast of Fools or the Boy-Bishops Feast (Harris: 2011, 208–217). There is no mention of other religious feasts. The Feast of the Holy Innocents is celebrated on December 28th to remember the children murdered by King Herod. On this day or other days between St. Nicholas and Epiphany an election of a boy bishop or a boy abbot took place in many churches and cloisters in France, England and the Holy Roman Empire (cf. Dahhaoui: 2006; Skambraks: 2014, 25–33). The Feast of Fools was another liturgical feast at the end of December. When we look at regulations of the council of Basel it is not certain whether they condemn all dances during these feasts. The main critique seems to be, that if men and women dance together, this could lead to sin. The dance prohibitions of the other councils show that there is a focus on certain types of dances, certain groups of dancers or certain places (cf. Knäble: 2015, 25–29). Besides the critique of the Feast of Fools the regulations of the councils mainly address two points. Firstly, the councils wanted to avoid the profanation of churches. The regional council of Soissons in France in 1456 is a good example for this kind of argumentation. In Soissons, the bishop declared that parades, theater games, dancing, trading, gathering and other activities which might damage the reputation of the church or the divine service should not be tolerated. Dance is listed alongside other secular activities such as trading or assembly, which meant that lay people were not supposed to do these things in or near the church. Often these regulations specify that jesters and minstrels should not play dance music in churches.

Canons & Choreographies

The second main critique is that clerics should abstain from secular activities. These dance prohibitions are mainly aimed at clerics, and especially nuns, who were accused of maintaining an aristocratic court culture in the cloister (cf. Knäble: 2016, 170f). In this context, the Council of Vienne mandates for the visitation of nunneries in 1312:

Visitatores autem huiusmodi sollicitudinis studium diligenter impendant, ut moniales ipsae […], pannis sericis, variorum foderaturis, sandalitiis, comatis et cornutis crinibus, scacatis et virgatis caputiolis non utantur, non choreas, non festa saecularium prosequantur, non die noctuve per vicos et plateas incedant, aut voluptuosam alias vitam ducant […].

The visitors are to be very careful that the nuns – some of whom, to our sorrow, we have heard are transgressors – do not wear silk, various furs or sandals; do not wear their hair long in a horn-shaped style, nor make use of striped and multicoloured caps, do not attend dances and the banquets of seculars, do not go walking through the streets and towns by day or night; and do not lead a luxurious life in other ways.

(Wohlmuth: 2000, 373)

(Tanner: 1990, 373)

The council reproaches the nuns for displaying an aristocratic class conceit, but, in particular, condemns their expensive clothing and vain hairstyles, which are signs, according to them, of the sin of luxury. These regulations were in place throughout the late Middle Ages. The Council of Trent were still criticizing clerics in the middle of the sixteenth century:

Vestitu insuper decenti, tam in ecclesia, quam extra, assiduo utantur, ab illicitisque venationibus, aucupiis, choreis, tabernis lusibusque abstineant. atque ea morum integritate polleant, ut merito Ecclesiae Senatus dici possit.

They shall, moreover, at all times wear a becoming dress, both in and out of church; shall abstain from unlawful hunting, hawking, dancing, taverns, and games; and be distinguished for such integrity of manners, as that they may with justice be called the senate of the Church.

Wohlmuth: 2002, 767

(Tanner: 1990, 373)

Here again we find profane activities of noblemen, like dancing, hunting and gaming, which are forbidden for clerics. These are a few examples of the resolutions of the councils. The councils did not decree a complete interdiction of dancing, but imposed selective regulations (cf. Rohmann: 2013, 180–188, Koal: 2019a, 123–125). Besides the three main criticisms, the Feast of Fools, profane dancing in the church or the participation of clerics in secular dances outside the church, there was a legitimate field, or at least a twilight zone, for the dances of clergymen in the church. This brings me to the second objection against the myth of the church’s adversary to dancing: the widespread dance motifs and dance practices in the Late Middle Ages. The Bible contains, with the idolatrous dance in front of the golden calf and the dance of Salome, that led to the death of John the Baptist, some strikingly

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negative depictions of dancing. By contrast, the dance of Moses’ sister Mary after the escape through the Red Sea and the dance of David in front of the ark of the covenant, were passages where the Bible depicts dancing in a positive light. Monks like the Cistercian Bernhard of Clairvaux used the dance of David as a way to illustrate the meaning of monastic life. The Cistercians are, as Bernhard explains, like minstrels and dancers who, like David, stood upside-down, because it symbolized the transformation of worldly values into their opposite within the cloister’s walls. Just as society reacted with incomprehension to the minstrels’ dance, they also would not understand the differently ordered world of the monasteries and the way of life of the monks. Many critics of monastic life were like Michal, David’s wife, who did not understand the humility of his dance and mocked him (cf. Zimmermann: 2007, 289–336; Sonntag: 2018, 268; Dickason: 2020). Beside humility as motivation for dancing, innocence offers another positive reference. There are a few images of the Franciscan order, the ioculatores Domini (jugglers of God) (cf. Sonntag: 2013, 67f., 75f), where they dance together like innocent children for the Festival of the Holy Innocents. Much more frequent are representations of dancing angels, the dancing David, and Christ as a dancer (cf. Leutzsch: 2017, 155–157; Sonntag: 2018, 275). The image of a dancing Christ is frequent in the Late Medieval Bride of Christ, when Jesus as chorus leader asks the soul for a dance. Who but Christ should reach the perfection of the heavenly dance master? In the examples mentioned so far, it is completely unclear whether dance was used solely as a metaphor, if the dance took place in the spirit without motion of the body, or was also performed physically. However, we can tell from source documents that clerics did dance in reality. Even the dancing Jesus could, as Martin Leutzsch has pointed out, be embodied in performances (cf. Leutzsch: 2017, 153–159). As the sources show, clerics danced during mystery plays, the initiation of clerics or processions. In particular, the French cathedral chapters integrated dances into the organization of important church feasts, whereby the choreography of dances, their connection to liturgy and theological legitimization differed from chapter to chapter. In the cathedral of Le Puy-en-Velay, a well-known pilgrimage town in the French Massif Central, 150 kilometers from Lyon, a dance of the choir boys at the feast of circumcision took place, 8 days after Christmas, during the late Middle Ages. While the choir sang “Clericuli tripudiant” in unison, the young clerics had to dance. Then, two choir boys sang the “Benediciamus”, and the canons went in procession to the chapel of the Holy Cross, where choir boys had to dance again. Finally the chapter of le Puy went from the chapel to the shrine of John the Baptist, where the choir boys now “tripudiant firmiter”, that means danced constantly (cf. Knäble: 2016, 195f).

Canons & Choreographies

While in Le Puy-en-Velay only the choir boys danced, there is evidence of dancing canons in France. Until the eighteenth century, the clergy of the Episcopal see of Besancon performed religious dances. A liturgical book of the church Sainte-MarieMadeleine from 1582 describes a “chorea in claustro” (Mercure de France: 1742, 1939), a round dance taking place in the cloister. According to this, on the evening of Easter day, a dance was held in the cloister with canons and chaplains, and could be relocated to the nave in bad weather. The movements of the clerics, who were holding hands, were accompanied by songs from the Processional of the church (cf. Knäble: 2016, 196f). Also at Easter there was a dance in the Cathedral of Sens, where the Archbishop of Sens, the metropolitan of France, resided. All members of the cathedral chapter came together, after dinner, to dance the Cazzole, as the dance was called. They danced solemnly in pairs processing from the nave to a fountain at the forecourt of the church (cf. Knäble: 2016, 324– 330). Hence, the dance of Auxerre, called the Pelotte, is not a unique example, but part of a broader religious dance culture in France.

3.

The Pelotte of Auxerre

In the cathedral of Chartres there is still a labyrinth in the western part of the nave. Similar labyrinths have existed since the thirteenth century in other cathedrals of the same ecclesiastical province, in Sens, seat of the Archbishop, and Auxerre. In the seventeenth and eighteenth century, these labyrinths were destroyed during the renovation of the church floor. There exists a drawing of the labyrinth in Sens from the eighteenth century, shortly made after the destruction of the labyrinth. As we know from a canon of Auxerre, writing an article about the Pelotte in 1726, that the labyrinth in Auxerre had the same form as the one in Sens, we can assume that the labyrinth in Auxerre would have looked like this (cf. Lebeuf: 1726, 923; Wright: 2001, 47). Approximately 50 canons of the chapter danced on this labyrinth on Easter Sundays in the afternoon. A manuscript from the sixteenth century gives a description of the ritual:

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Acceptâ pilotâ à proselyto seu tirone Canonico, Decanus, aut alter pro eo olim gestans in capite almutiam ceterique pariter, aptam diei Festo Paschae Prosam antiphonabat quae incipit Victimae Paschali laudes: tum laevâ pilotam apprehendens, ad Prosae decantatae numerosos sonos tripudium agebat, ceteris manu prehensis choream circa daedalum ducentibus, dum interim per alternas vices pilota singulis aut pluribus ex choribaudis à Decano serti in speciem tradebatur aut jaciebatur.

Having received the pilota [a leather ball] from the newest canon, the dean, or someone in his place, and in former times wearing an Amice as did the rest of the clergy, began antiphonally the sequence appropriate for the feast of Easter, Victimae paschali laudes. Then taking the ball in his left hand, he danced to the meter of the sequence as it was sung, while the others linked hand in hand did the dance around the maze (circa Daedalum). And all the while the pilota was delivered or thrown by the ringed dean alternately to each and every one of the dancers whenever they whirled into view.

Lebeuf: 1726, 921f.

English translation based on Wright: 2001, 139–140.

While the canons danced in a circle through or around the maze while singing the Easter Hymn “Victimae Paschali Laudes”, the dean performed a different dance in the center of the maze and threw a big ball to the canons. Dance and ballgames are part of a complex ritual, where a canon literally is initiated in the circle of the canons. The name Pelotte or pila is used both for the ball and the whole ritual by the canons. The Pelotte consists of musical, architectural, terpsichorean and ludic elements, which I cannot elaborate on here due to lack of space (cf. Wright: 2001, 138–145). I would like to focus on three issues. First: Why did they dance on Easter? Secondly: Why did they dance around the maze? Thirdly: Why did they play with a ball while dancing? The dance on Easter day is not a particularity of the Pelotte of Auxerre, but was also the occasion for the dances in Bensançon and Sens. Most of the liturgists of the twelfth and thirteenth century report on dances, ball games or a mixture of dances and ball games performed by clerics. As these dances and games happened in particular at Easter and were performed by the canons of the great cathedral chapters in France, they seem to be the model for the Pelotte of Auxerre, starting not later than the fourteenth century (cf. Mews: 2009, 515; Knäble: 2015, 27f). As one of the first to report on dances, the French liturgist Jean Beleth (died after 1165) describes these games in the middle of the twelfth century:

Sunt enim quedam ecclesie, ubi in claustris etiam ipsi episcopi vel archiepiscopi cum suis clericis ludunt, ut etiam descendant usque ad ludum pile. […] Tamen non ludere laudabilius esse videtur.

Thus it is that in the cloisters of certain churches even bishops enjoy the December freedom with their clerics, even to descending to the game of the circular dance or ball – although it seems more praiseworthy not to play.

(Jean Beleth: 1976, 223)

(Mews: 2009, 513)

Canons & Choreographies

Jean Beleth describes a game called pila, which was very widespread in the French cathedral churches. Although even bishops and archbishops participate in these games, he advises against this, but leaves the reasons for his judgment in the dark. Nor does he report anything about the form or sequence of the dance. The Italian bishop Sicard of Cremona (died 1215) also composed a book about the liturgy of the church festivities over the course of a year around 1200. In clear reference to Jean Beleth, he also reports on practices of play by clergymen on Easter Day. Sicard gives a similar description, though he specifies that the game should be primarily understood as a dance game. He repeats Jean Beleth’s normative conclusion, that it seems more praiseworthy not to play, but gives at the same time an insight into the arguments of the supporters:

Et attende, quod gentilitas as plausum idolorum choreas instituit, ut deos suos et voce laudarent et eis toto corpore servirent, volentes etiam in eis aliquid more suo figurare misterii. Nam per circuitionem intelligebant firmamenti revolutionem, per manuum complexionem elementorum connexionem, per melodias cantantium harmonias planetarum, per corporum gesticulationes signorum vel planetarum motiones; per plausum manuum et strepitum pedum crepitationes tonitruorum. Sed quod illi suis idolis exhibuerunt, cultores unius Dei ad ipsius praeconia converterunt. Nam populus de mari Rubro egresses, choream duxisse, et Maria cum tympano legitur praecinuisse, et David ante arcam totis viribus saltavit […].

And note that the gentiles established circular dances to honor idols, so that they might praise their gods by voice and serve them with their whole body, wanting to foreshadow in them in their own way something of the mystery. For through the circling, they understood the revolution of the firmament; through the joining of hands, the interconnection of the elements, through the gestures of bodies, the motions of the signs or planets; through the melodies of singers, the harmonies of the planets; through the clapping of hands and the stamping of feet, the sounding of thunder; but what those people showed to their idols, the worshipers of the one God converted to his praise. For the people who crossed from the Red Sea are said to have led a circular dance, Mary is reported to have sung with the tambourine; and David danced before the ark […].

(Sicard of Cremona: 2008, 546)

(Mews: 2009, 513)

Sicard describes the dance as a successful transfer of a pagan ritual into Christianity. The references to the circular movement of the celestial bodies and the harmonic movements of the planets testify to a connection to the neoplatonic tradition of the harmony of the spheres, which was an accepted tradition at the cathedral schools at the time, particularly in Chartres. In addition, the dances are legitimized by being embedded in a Christian tradition. Its supporters can rely on biblical examples, where these kinds of dances are performed to the divine glorification. The interpretation of Sicard is supported by a manuscript of the “Summa de officiis ecclesiasticis” by William of Auxerre (died 1231) from the early thirteenth century that mentions dances on Easter day, too. The manuscript of Cambrai only refers to a dance, but not to a ball game. The text does not mention a Christianization of older pagan rituals, but connects the dances directly to the positive examples of

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the Old Testament. It contains no criticism of the dances, so it legitimizes them as respectable and devout practices on Easter day. The place of origin of the Cambrai version is assumed to be the Ile-de-France, whose dioceses belonged to the same church province as Auxerre (cf. Knäble: 2016, 284–287). With the writings of Sicard of Cremona and William of Auxerre we have two liturgical books at the beginning of the thirteenth century that do not criticize the dances but legitimate them theologically. Hence, the dances represent the harmony of creation, and Easter seems to be the perfect date to perform them. On the one hand, the resurrection of Christ restores the disturbed harmony; on the other hand Easter is the beginning of a new year in medieval France, a second connection to the creation. That is why I believe these dances were performed on Easter. However, the question remains open as to why the labyrinth was chosen as the location for the dance in Auxerre. The mythological sources of Antiquity already drew a link between dancing and the maze in the myth of Theseus. Since the beginning of Christianization the church fathers comment on this myth, passed down by Ovid, Virgil and Plutarch. Sedulius, a Christian poet of the fifth century, already characterizes Christ as the new Theseus, who steps down into the maze, a symbol of hell, to bring salvation. Sedulius links the descent to hell to the Easter date. During the Middle Ages, the ancient pagan myth of Theseus’ fight against the Minotaur is transformed into a Christian context. The interpretation of the French Benedictine monk Petrus Berchorius (died 1362) can be seen as an example of this transformation. Berchorius intertwines in his allegory different aspects of the myth, dealing with questions of ecclesiology, theology and salvific history. Just as Theseus, the son of king Aegeus, was sent to fight the Minotaur and returned victorious, Jesus, the Son sent by God, defeated the devil. The children, held captive by the Minotaur in the maze, can equally be transformed into the catholic children of God in this interpretation, who are redeemed by the victory of Christ over the devil (cf. Eisenberg: 2009; Knäble: 2016, 298–302). In the cathedral of Auxerre, the canons combined the dances already practiced at Easter with Theseus’ dance in the thirteenth or fourteenth century. The victory of Christ over Satan, celebrated at Easter, and the restored harmony of creation was performed by the canons in a dance on the maze in the nave. This was also intended to facilitate the initiation of a new canon in the cathedral chapter. However, why did they pass a ball during the dance? The ball, which the dean passed to the other canons during the dance on the maze, has always had an association with a ball game. The canon Jean Lebeuf of Auxerre, who gathered the sources of the Pelotte in the eighteenth century, compared the ritual to the jeu de paume. This comparison appears justified, because the jeu de paume was an early form of tennis and a common sport in the Late Middle Ages. In

Canons & Choreographies

addition, there were some French cathedral chapters, which practiced a kind of jeu de paume at Easter, as Ulrike Zellmann has pointed out (cf. Zellmann: 2007, 60–64). Nevertheless, in Auxerre this seems not to be the case, at least there are no sources indicating the game. Unlike the canon Lebeuf who tried to classify the pelotte of Auxerre as a kind of jeu de paume, thereby eluding any symbolic interpretation of the ball, I would like to discuss its symbolism. In the older research literature, there are hints to understand the ball as a symbol of the rising sun. Backman has shown that this was in no way a pagan residuum, as was still emphasized above all by German folklore, but that Christ was already equated with the sun by the fathers of the church. They described Christ as sol justitiae and sol resurrectionis, hence the ball symbolizing Christ as the sun of justice (cf. Rohmann: 2013, 263–276; Leutzsch: 2017, 166–168). Since the transfer of the ball took place on the labyrinth, which is strongly connected with the myth of Theseus, a connection to the two balls given to Theseus by Ariadne before he entered the labyrinth, is also obvious. A number of notes on Ovid’s Metamorphoses from the eleventh century onwards indicate that Theseus had two balls: one ball made out of yarn, the famous Ariadne’s thread, to find his way back out of the labyrinth; the other one made of clay, with which he was supposed to defeat the Minotaur by throwing it into the creature’s mouth. In the Christian interpretation, where the death and resurrection of Jesus replace the fight with the Minotaur, the ball of mud is a symbol of the human nature, the ball of yarn is a symbol of the divine nature. Only the two together make the victory over the beast possible (cf. Wright: 2001, 142). In addition, handing over the ball can be construed as a feudal act of submission. A person of lower rank, the candidate, gives the ball to a person of higher rank who has the right to commence the game. Thereby, the novice submits to the authority of the chapter represented by the dean. The transmission of the ball starts the liminal phase of a rite of passage. The creation of liminality in the ritual is not only achieved through dance, but also through the paraliturgical connection to Easter. Following the interpretation of the cultural anthropologist Victor Turner, all three phases of the rite of passage were present: the death of Christ, the separation, his three-day journey to hell, the transition, and the resurrection as well as the reincorporation. By dancing and tossing the ball, not only the new canon but also all canons performed the state of indeterminacy and the remoteness of salvation that Christ experienced during his journey to hell. By the act of dancing and passing the ball along the maze, the candidate was received as a new canon, the devil was defeated, and the world was created. The Pelotte ensured the legality of the initiation by linking it to salvific history and cosmic harmony. The Pelotte did not only celebrate the Creation of the World, the death and the resurrection of Jesus but simultaneously the creation and rebirth

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of the cathedral chapter thus bringing together three periods of time. By closing the circle every year, the community of canons continued to exist until the end of time (cf. Knäble: 2016, 320–324).

4.

Perspectives

Let me conclude with a few words about the changes in religious dance in the sixteenth century. The canon and dance master Arbeau was right when he criticized the Protestants as adversaries of dance. However, this was especially true for the French Calvinists, but not of the Lutherans in the Holy Roman Empire (cf. Mourey: 2016, 97–102; Ruel: 2006, 131–137). The medieval dance motifs persisted in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries among Catholics and Protestants alike, but not the ecclesiastical dance practices. However, even the Lutheran clergy had to acknowledge how popular secular dances were and how well known the dance melodies were. At the same time as Arbeau wrote his dance manual, the protestant pastor Cyriakus Schneegaß published a collection of church songs with the title “Geistliche Lieder und Psalmen Für Einfeltige frome Hertzen zugerichtet” (Sacred songs and psalms for simple and pious hearts). For one of his songs he used the melody of a Gaillarde, which was published a few years earlier in an Italian collection of dance music (cf. Saftien/Saftien: 1988, 8; Harrasowitz: 2001, 279). The Gaillarde was a quick dance with high jumps, which Queen Elisabeth I. loved to dance. Schneegaß wrote the text for the hymn “In dir ist Freude …” (In thee is gladness) to the music of the Gaillarde, which is recorded today as hymn no. 398 in the German Protestant hymnbook (Evangelisch-Lutherische Landeskirche Hannover: 2019, no. 398). In the middle of the sixteenth century, the Protestant dramatist Voigt Valten had already had the opposite idea. In the “Geistliche Ringeltentze/Aus der Heiligen Schrifft/Vor die Jugend” (Sacred carols / From the holy scriptures / For the youth), published in 1550, he made up choreographies for popular protestant hymns, so that young people could memorize the uplifting songs while dancing:

Canons & Choreographies

[…] habe ich auff etlicher bit der Jugent diese Christliche Ringeltentze oder Ringelreihen zusammen gebracht / und un Trugk geben / damit doch ein kleines Füncklein / vom deutschen gesange durch die kinder wo nicht in den kirchen / doch uff den gassen un in heusern zu erhalten / und der höchste Artikel unseres heiligen Glaubens (daruff diese Ringeltentze eigentlich dringen) nicht gantz und gar möge gedempfft werden/Amen.

[…] due to the request of the youth I have collected and printed these Christian caroles or round dances. Thereby the children retain a small spark of German chant, if not in the churches, but in the streets and houses that the highest principles of our holy faith (that is the actual idea of these round dances) may not disappear completely/Amen.

(Vogt: 1550, 3r–3v, after Brunner: 1994, 32; translation by the author).

The link between dancing and religion persisted albeit under different circumstances in the Early modern period. It was not until the Era of Enlightenment that a separation of both fields happened (cf. LaMothe: 2006). The famous quote of Friedrich Nietzsche “Ich würde nur an einen Gott glauben, der zu tanzen verstünde” (Nietzsche: 1883, 54) (“I would only believe in a god who could dance” (Nietzsche: 1954, 153)), would have been a much less of a provocation in the Late Middle Ages than it was in the nineteenth century.

Bibliography Text Editions Anonymous (1742), Lettre écrite de Besançon sur un terme de la basse Latinité, Mercure de France, Septembre, 1930–1955. Arbeau, T. (1589), Orchésographie et traicté en forme de dialogue, Langres: Jehan des Preyz, Orchesography, 16th -Century French Dance from Court to Countryside, M. Stewart Evans (²2011) (transl.), Mineola, New York: Dover Publications. Beleth, Jean (1976), Summa de ecclesiasticis officiis, H. Douteil (ed.), Turnhout: Brepols. Lebeuf, J. (1726), Explication d’un terme de la basse Latinité, Mercure de France, Mai, 911–925. Sicard of Cremona (2008), Mitralis de officiis, G. Sarbak/L. Weinrich (ed.), Turnhout: Brepols. Tanner, N. (ed.) (1990), Decrees of the Ecumenical Councils, vol. 1, (transl.) London: Sheed & Ward. Vogt, V. (1550), Geistliche Ringeltentze, Magdeburg: Hans Walther. Wohlmuth, J. (2000–2002), Dekrete der ökumenischen Konzilien, vol. 2/3, Paderborn: Schönigh.

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Secondary Literature Arcangeli, A. (2000), Davide o Salomè? Il dibattito europeo sulla danza nella prima età moderna, Rom: Viella. Braun, R./Gugerli, D. (1993), Macht des Tanzes – Tanz der Mächtigen. Hoffeste und Herrschaftszeremoniell 1550–1914, München: Beck. Brunner, W. (1994), Geistliche Ringeltänze als Religionspädagogik der Renaissance, Chorea. Zeitschrift für Tanz, Bewegung und Leiblichkeit in Liturgie und Spiritualität 1, 31–39. Dahhaoui, Y. (2006), Voyages d’un prélat festif. Un “évêque des Innocents” dans son évêché, Revue Historique 308 (639), 677–694. Dickason, K. (2020), ‘King David in the Medieval Archives. Toward an Archaic Future for Dance Studies’, in S. Manning/J. Ross/R. Schneider (ed.), Futures of Dance Studies, Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 36–55. Eisenberg, M. (2009), Performing the Passion: Music, Ritual, and the Eastertide Labyrinth, Revista Transcultural de Música/Transcultural Music Review 13. Evangelisch-Lutherische Landeskirche Hannover (2019), Evangelisches Gesangbuch. Ausgabe für die Evangelisch-Lutherische Kirche in Niedersachsen und für die Bremische Kirche, Göttingen: Vandenhoeck& Ruprecht. Harrassowitz, H. (2001), „Schneegaß, Cyriakus“, in: W. Herbst (ed.), Wer ist wer im Gesangbuch?, Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 279. Harris, M. (2011), Sacred Folly. A New History of the Feast of Fools, Ithaca: Cornell University Press. Huschka, S. (2020), Choreographierte Körper im Theatron. Auftritte und Theoria ästhetischen Wissens, München: Epodium Verlag. Kendall, G. (2013), Music of Arbeau’s Orchesographie, Hillsdale/New York: Pendragon Press. Kirchner, C. (1991), ‘Systematische Darstellung der Orchésographie von Arbeau’, in: R. Busch-Hofer (ed.), Zur Orchésographie von T. Arbeau, 1588, Remscheid: Deutscher Bundesverband Tanz, 13–41. Klein, G. (1992), FrauenKörperTanz. Eine Zivilisationsgeschichte des Tanzes, Weinheim: Beltz/Quadriga. Knäble, P. (2015), ‘Jenseits der Norm? Ambivalente Ansichten zum Tanz in der Kathedrale von Auxerre im Spätmittelalter’, in: A. Karsten/H. Thiessen (ed.), Normenkonkurrenz in historischer Perspektive, Berlin: Duncker & Humblot, 21–38. Knäble, P. (2016), Eine tanzende Kirche. Initiation, Ritual und Liturgie im spätmittelalterlichen Frankreich, Köln/Weimar/Wien: Böhlau. Koal, V. (2019a), ‘Was schaden tanzen bringt’. Zur kirchlichen Tanzpolemik in der Zeit des Großen Abendländisches Schismas, Francia. Forschungen zur Westeuropäischen Geschichte 46, 121–146.

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Koal, V. (2019b), ‘Ego libenter currebam ad tripudia’. Die Predigten des Johannes von Capestrano im Kontext der spätmittelalterlichen Tanzdebatte, Frate Francesco – Rivista di cultura francescana 85 (Nuova Serie), 331–361. LaMothe, K.L. (2006), Nietzsche’s Dancers. Isadora Duncan, Martha Graham, and the Revaluation of Christian Values, New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Leutzsch, M. (2017), Christus als Tänzer – Stationen eines Motivs von der Antike bis heute, in: A. Morich (ed), Kosmischer Tanz. ERANOS 2015 und 2016, Basel: Schwabe, 140–219. Mews, C. (2009), Liturgists and Dance in the Twelfth Century. The Witness of John Beleth and Sicard of Cremona, Church History 78:3, 512–548. Mourey, M.-T. (2016), ‘Reformation und Tanz’, in: M. Klaper (ed.), Luther im Kontext. Reformbestrebungen und Musik in der ersten Hälfte des 16. Jahrhunderts, Hildesheim: Olms, 97–116. Nietzsche, F. (1883), Also sprach Zarathustra, vol. 1, Chemnitz: engl. Translation, Nietzsche, F. (1954), The Portable Nietzsche, (ed.) W. Kaufmann, New York: Penguin. Rohmann, G. (2013), Tanzwut. Kosmos, Kirche und Mensch in der Bedeutungsgeschichte eines spätmittelalterlichen Krankheitskonzepts, Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht. Ruel, M. (2006), Les Chrétiens et la Danse dans la France Moderne: XVI–XVIII siècle, Paris: Honoré Champion. Saftien, G./Saftien, V. (1988), Cantate et saltate. Kirchenlieder neu erlebt als Tänze der Renaissance, München: Strube-Verl. Skambraks, T. (2014), Das Kinderbischofsfest im Mittelalter, Firenze: Sismel, (ed.) del Galluzzo. Sonntag, J. (2013), ‘Vita religiosa als Spiel. Kurze Erwägungen zu einem komplexen Phänomen’, in: J. Sonntag (ed.), Religiosus ludens. Das Spiel als kulturelles Phänomen in mittelalterlichen Klöstern und Orden, Berlin: de Gruyter, 63–79. Sonntag, J. (2018), Die Wirkmacht der Nachahmung. Tanzende Heilige und tanzende Klosterleute im hohen und späten Mittelalter, Das Mittelalter (23) 2, 258–280. Viard, G. (ed.) (1989), Jean Tabourot et son Temps, Langres: G. Guéniot. Wright, C. (2001), The Maze and the Warrior: Symbols in Architecture, Theology and Music, Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Zellmann, U. (2007), ‘Lusus erat’. Tanz und Spiel auf dem Labyrinth in der Kathedrale von Auxerre, in: H.R. Brittnacher/R.P. Janz (ed.), Labyrinth und Spiel, Göttingen: Wallstein, 36–74. Zimmermann, J. (2007), Teufelsreigen – Engelstänze. Kontinuität und Wandel in mittelalterlichen Tanzdarstellungen, Frankfurt a.M.: Peter Lang.

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Dance and Gender in Churches in Germany since the 20th Century Insights and Conclusions for Church Dance Today

1.

Dancing Women: Experiences and Questions

I like to dance. For a long time, I did not dedicate a lot of space to dancing. Currently dancing is an integral part of my life and I cannot imagine stopping. Is it because I am a woman? As a dancer, I dream of more space for dancing in Christian spirituality. As an Evangelical-Lutheran in Germany, a minister and scholar, I endeavor to understand the changing role of dance in the spirituality within my church. In this contribution, specifically, I would like to focus on the issue of gender in church dance (Kirchentanz).1 For the purpose of this practical theological reflection, I shall present a historical overview of the relevant developments in church dance during the 20th century and the last 20 years of the 21st century. First, I ask what the roles of spirituality, body and dance are in 20th century theology. Then I trace the origins of spiritual dance in Northern America, and consequently draw attention to its emergence as church dance in Germany precisely in the era in which gender sensitive perspectives in theology were topical. To conclude I will discuss gender in church dance today (and in terms of the future). As a practical example, I will present the case of dancing the Argentinian tango in the church. The present situation in the Lutheran Church in Germany can be characterized as follows: The traditional separation between dance and religion is about to cede.2 Perspectives of gender and changed attitudes have dramatically hastened the deconstruction of essentialist views. A multitude of different approaches to dance has inspired movements of spiritual search, and these approaches have influenced actual forms of church dance, including gender concepts therein.3 1 The term Kirchentanz is used in several circles of dancers. Kirchentanz encompasses a wide range of dancing styles and methodologies. It refers to movement and dance in liturgy and Christian spirituality (cf. https://www.christliche-ag-tanz.org [2020–08–21]). 2 For more insights on the dichotomy of religion and dance cf. LaMothe: 2004/2006/2018. 3 The presented reflections are based on an interdisciplinary approach, elaborated in Schnütgen: 2019. This monograph clarifies the relationship between aesthetic concepts in Practical Theology and provides a deeper understanding of the impact of dancing on spirituality in churches in Germany. It examines a practice that is still marginalized. Interviews with dance participants provide insights into

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This contribution raises specific questions: Why are women the majority within ecclesiastical dance scenes? What could the church offer women and men, irrespective of sexual orientations, who are searching open spaces for their spirituality and dance? What does dance offer the church? The answers will be preliminary and open to debate.

2.

The Neglect of Spirituality and Dance in 20th Century Theology

This section characterizes the philosophical and theological climate in which the modern movement of dance has emerged in spirituality within Western Christianity. Concepts of spirituality differ depending on their function. In the past, Germanspeaking Protestantism (16th to first half of 20th century) used the term piety (Frömmigkeit) instead of spirituality. Comparatively, the term spiritualité was employed in French monasteries and convents. Spiritualité refers to Christian spirituality in prayer and daily work, worship, lectio divina, and in silence. The Anglo-Saxon tradition uses the word for religious practices in general. Today the concept is widespread and is often overused. Spirituality may even appear as a commercially promoted product. This has become a major industry for people who feel disenfranchised from ‘traditional’ religious practices. Usually the term is understood as a conglomerate of exercises, practices or experiences, which create a distance from daily life-issues and help to overcome the dominance of the material dimension of the world. The Cambridge Dictionary defines spirituality as “the quality that involves deep feelings and beliefs of a religious nature, rather than the physical parts of life”.4 Within the scope of Practical Theology, I see spirituality as a form of experimental, individual practice that brings someone into contact with his or her search for ‘soul food’. This is where the role of a dancing church that offers dance, body prayer, movement and encounter could become significant. However, this possibility is not well known. The two parties, the church and seekers, appear to move past each other – but why? First, those seeking a deeper state of spirituality do not trust church-programs. Second, the church mistrusts those people. Spirituality that is related to individual bodily experience is rarely cultivated in churches and such spiritual practices are given little room in churches (cf. Zimmerling: 2003, 284). Since the field of spirituality has been evolving extensively outside of traditional

a special form of spirituality and its characteristic opportunities. The interviewees belong to German ‘mainstream churches’. Pentecostal churches are not considered. 4 Definition of spirituality from the Cambridge Advanced Learner’s Dictionary & Thesaurus © Cambridge University Press: https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/spirituality [2021/01/ 27].

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church life, churchgoers and church personnel are reluctant to become involved. Spirituality is less popular in the church, perhaps because of its free style and its being considered too esoteric, too mystical, or too emotional. As a protestant theologian, I am especially intrigued by the extent that spirituality has been neglected in my tradition. Publications of the Lutheran church board (VELKD) are wary of any form of spirituality that is not linked in some way to Lutheran doctrine (cf. Möller: 2005). The traditional protestant message is paramount: human beings have no active part in becoming holy (Heiligung) – it is all God’s work. God makes us right and sanctifies us. No exercise is needed. Dance is both a spiritual exercise and art. Nevertheless, culture and art are seen as distractions from the word of God. Even though theologians of the 18th century reflected on aesthetics or aesthesis, theologians of the early 20th century theology dismissed art and culture as dimensions of the human relationship with eternity. Emotions and senses were qualified as an unknown and uncertain terrain, and apparently for good reasons. Neither the emotional faith of Pietism or Schleiermacher’s theology, nor the cultural Protestantism could save the people from the atrocities of World War II, the crimes in the name of Germany and the alienation of the many from the church and Christian faith. On the one hand, theologians practicing dialectical theology oriented the PostWar-Thinking on the confession of one Lord, one Scripture, one Revelation in Christ.5 The church rejected emotions, particularly incited by mass-events, music, dance and any body-oriented aesthetics. It was reasoned that all these factors had brought about the catastrophe. Karl Barth, the renowned theologian, took a strong stance against dance and even ridiculed the early experiments with church dance.6 There was no room or space for religious feelings linked to art. On the other hand, Paul Tillich’s theology of culture was open to the work of the Holy Spirit through artistic expression. Following Tillich, theology itself is the result of “a creative act of the circle in which the individual moves” (Tillich: 1969, 155). Church spirituality and dance grew together at a very slow pace. Nevertheless, dance was never officially recognized in the realm of a modern Christian lifestyle. Changes came through ecumenical theology, the new protestant communities (Kommunitäten), encounters with Catholic monastic traditions and with churches from abroad. The World Council of Churches (WCC) recommended to its member

5 „Im vergangenen Jh. kam es durch die dialektische Theologie jahrzehntelang zu einer radikalen Abwertung der Erfahrungsseite des Glaubens“ (Zimmerling: 2015, 211). Translation by the author: In the last century, the Dialectical Theology happened to discard radically the aspect of experience in faith. 6 „Was soll man davon halten, wenn man ernste Männer unter Zurückgehen noch hinter den Katholizismus sogar die Einführung des kirchlichen Tanzes ernsthaft in Erwägung ziehen hört?“ (Barth, K. in Fermor: 2001, 650). Translation by the author: How is it to be considered when serious men are heard to think seriously about introducing church dance and thus going back even behind Catholicism?

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churches in its Nairobi declaration of 1975: “we urge the churches to […] provide the means for teaching a spirituality for life” (WCC: 1976, 96).7 The climate favored an awareness of spirituality. While it is true that spaces in which people can move and dance have been created in the church, some special liturgies have been developed, and dance is welcome at big gatherings like the “Deutscher Evangelischer Kirchentag” (German Protestant Church Feast) or the “Katholikentag”8 (Catholics’ Feast), a recognizable infrastructure for professionalizing the activities of church dancers is still lacking. There is respect and room for church music, but not for church dance. Compared to the situation in the German churches, there are numerous positive references to dance in Judaism as well as in other Christian traditions. Significantly, examples of dancing are found in the Bible, Church History, and Christianity in Oriental and African cultures that make the impression that dance in religion is normal. This is seen in various situations (joy, healing, harvest, worship, triumph over oppressors, the commemoration of martyrs, and Easter …). Biblically speaking the human body is considered a divine creation and the individual is a temple of the Holy Spirit (1 Cor 6:19). Several reasons have hindered the acceptance of dance in German churches, similarly in other western European countries, like France, Switzerland, the Netherlands and England. Throughout the centuries dance has been banned repeatedly by ecclesial authorities, even as there have been exceptions of which we should take note.9 Negative attitudes towards the human body, especially women’s bodies, have been a strong hindrance.

3.

Why Women Dance – Spiritual Motifs in Dance History of Northern America and Germany

Early modern dancers of Northern America at the beginning 20th century were independent and emancipated women. They stood up against a tradition of dance that casts the ballerina as the star on the stage and forces her into a set of artificial body postures. They strove to revive religion but in a way that was not known before. The

7 The WCC paper mentions also dance in spirituality: “Participation in the Spirituality Workshop along with advisers such as Fred Kaan and Doreen Potter and Shona Mactavish led to the development during the life of the Assembly and from among the participants of a dance group, the writing of a new song used in the closing Service, and the setting to music by Peter Janssens of the litany ‘Break down the walls that separate us and unite us in a single body’” (World Council of Churches: 1975, 31). 8 Deutscher Evangelischer Kirchentag https://www.kirchentag.de/english/about_kirchentag/overview/ [2020–03–01]. Katholikentag https://www.katholikentag.de/herzlich-willkommen [2020–08–24]. 9 Concerning positive functions of dance in the history of the church, especially between the fourteenth and sixteenth century cf. Knäble: 2016.

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credo of their spirituality held the human physical form as sacred. At a time when men dominated in society as well as religion and relegated women, these dancers demonstrated especially the divinity of women’s bodies. They conceptualized their bodies as temples of the divine. The result was that dance movements in churches in Northern America and consequently Europe were stimulated on the long term. Born in 1877, Isadora Duncan opposed the silenced existence of women her whole life. She studied literature, music and Greek sculpture art. Through her dance, she aimed at making divine forces visible. She replaced ballet techniques with simple and natural movements: “running, skipping, leaping and walking” (Roseman: 2004, 73). Her observations of nature inspired her flow of dance in waveform (cf. LaMothe: 2006, 138). She rooted movements in the solar plexus, the muscles of the diaphragm-controlled breath by expanding and contracting, leading to a co-ordination of breathing, movement and rhythm. Her arm movements and hand gestures were expressive. LaMothe considers Duncan’s work “The Blue Danube” as theopraxis, a combination of theology and practice, for “it stirs in audiences a sense of their power and responsibility for bringing into being their experience of (their relation to) what is” (LaMothe: 2006, 139). Duncan made a considerable impact on many artists of her time. She established dance schools for girls through which she spread her feminist and spiritual philosophy. Dance was her religion, because to her dance was a holy state (cf. Roseman: 2004). She understood dancing as an act of prayer that includes the artist (the dancer) and the public (the audience) which transforms the consciousness of both (cf. Roseman: 2004, 35). The figure of the Virgin Mary inspired her dance entitled “Ave Maria”, choreographed to the music of Schubert. Her final appearance on stage was in a production of “Ave Maria” in Paris 1927, at the age of fifty, shortly before her fatal accident. She characterized spiritual dance as following: Imagine a dancer who, after long study, prayer and inspiration, has attained such a degree of understanding that his body is simply the luminous manifestation of his soul; whose body dances in accordance with a music heard inwardly, in an expression of something out of another, a profounder world. This is the truly creative dancer, natural, but not imitative, speaking in movement out of himself and out of something greater than all selves (Duncan: 1928, 52).

It is therefore clear that it was not the question whether dance, for example, was substantiated by biblical passages that determined the spirituality of Duncan’s movement. Her concept of dance was “movement flowing from an awakened soul. To dance, as Duncan envisioned it, is to participate in the revaluation of Christian values toward (female) bodies” (LaMothe 2006: 128).

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Such dances, in other words, revalue the ascetic ideal. They represent an overcoming of the physiological contradiction of being Christian and anti-Christian for in them the ascetic ideal has value as a guide to honoring and perfecting the god-making potency of bodily becoming. And this action of dance making, for Duncan, differs only in degree from what any person does in living every day (LaMothe 2006: 138).

Her devotion to Nietzsche’s writing led her to a “triple vision, her commitment to renewing religion through dance in ways that liberate women” (LaMothe 2006: 127). Women were seen as powerful humans who develop their images of beauty independently of society’s expectations. Concerning Duncan’s ideal of woman, some passages lead scholars to determine that Duncan’s notion of the woman’s body followed a biological essentialism.10 LaMothe presents an alternative assessment: Duncan’s apparently inconsistent statements concerning ‘woman’ represent how she engages and critically advances Nietzsche’s project along the trajectory of her engagement with him. In assessing the stakes of her vision for dance, Duncan is clear: although the liberating effects of dancing pertain to both men and women, those who identify themselves within the Christian West as women have more to gain. In so far as ‘woman’ has been identified with ‘the body’ in opposition to the man with the mind, then the faith in the body that dancing expresses promises to act directly on the ways in which women learn to conceive of themselves, conduct themselves, and relate to their bodily selves (LaMothe: 2006,144).

Therefore, Duncan neither wanted women to conform to male norms of behavior nor did she accept biological essentialism. “The ‘essence’ of ‘woman’ for her is to participate in the inherent creativity of a body as it generates the meaning of its sex” (LaMothe: 2006, 147). Ruth St. Denis also stood for free-spirited femininity that challenges the rigidity of the institutionalized church. She practiced a fusion of dance and spirituality. Born in 1879, she grew up on a farm and was educated in a Protestant family with stories from the Bible. Several of her works integrated spiritual and physical aspects of dance. For example, her famous solo “Radha”11 was inspired by her studies of Hindu and Buddhist literature. She also drew inspiration from religious ceremonies such as the cult of Isis as well as from her Christian roots. Like Duncan she portrayed 10 Cf. the debate over Duncan’s feminism in LaMothe: 2003, Giving Birth to a Dancing Star: Reading Nietzsche’s Maternal Rhetoric via Isadora Duncan’s Dance, Soundings (86) 3–4. Fall/Winter, 501–523 and LaMothe: 2006, 144–147. 11 The name comes from the Hinduist deity Radha-Krishna. Through a personage called Radha the human feminine component is unified with the god Krishna, the masculine part and thus she is deified as a goddess.

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the image of Saint Mary in her dance. In 1934, she formed the “Rhythmic Choir” in order to perform choreographies in churches. St. Denis describes her initial experience of dancing in church as follows: When I gave a ritual of Masque of Mary, with the rhythmic choir, at Riverside Church in New York, here, perhaps the first time in a Christian temple, was my initial gesture toward the production of a Christian Temple dance. I had the consciousness that the audience understood the symbolism of the pageant, in the same way as an audience attending a Noh drama understands the symbolism of its Buddhistic faith (St. Denis: 1939, 365).

Lynn Roseman states: “In fact, St. Denis initiated the use of dance in modern day churches, and the liturgical dance movement owes her a great debt” (Roseman: 2004, 89). Her work gave birth to the Society of Spiritual Arts (Church) in California, founded in 1934. Based on her vision, the foundation of Sacred Dance Guild, which is still active, was established in 1958. With this, she is one of the first modern protagonists to fuse dance and religion in Western Christianity. Furthermore, she founded a dance school in collaboration with the dancer Ted Shawn and has influenced numerous modern dancers. At the age of 85, St. Denis compared herself with a prophet, being aware of her accomplishments. In order to express her selfimage as a dancer she cites from Abraham Heschel’s definition of a prophet: The prophet is a watchman, a servant, a messenger of God, an assayer and tester of the people’s ways. The prophet’s eye is directed to the contemporary scene; the society and its conduct are the main theme. Yet his ear is inclined to God. As a witness, the prophet is more than a messenger. As a messenger, his task is to deliver the word [of God]12 as a witness, he must bear testimony that the word is divine […] in his words the invisible God becomes audible (St. Denis in Roseman: 2004, 89).13

Martha Graham supported a non-dogmatic Christian faith and spirituality, and was critical of Puritanism. Her dance was rooted in American culture, but she found a large following in Europe because of her technique and energy. Graham was born in 1894 and brought up in a Presbyterian family. This was a milieu in which all forms of dance were forbidden, not only in churches. Her father, a psychiatrist, taught her to look closely at human behavior. She learned to interpret movements

12 Addition by Duncan. 13 St. Denis took the quote from a book of a Jewish theologian: Abraham J. Heschel (1962), The Prophets: An Introduction. Vol I, New York: Harper Collins, 9. Roseman does not give the source of the quote which is maybe: Ruth St. Denis Files, Courtesy of Jerome Robbins Dance Collection, Dance Clipping Files, New York City Library of Performing Arts.

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as traces of psychological phenomena. Her ideal body in dance was honest and clear, without theatricality or pretense. She said: “Dance is the hidden language of the soul” (Graham: 1985). She considered the pelvic girdle to be the seat of emotion, a kernel concept in her dance technique. In the body, the Above and the Below – Heaven and Earth come together (cf. Roseman: 2004, 133). Graham was not afraid to show her emotions. It was not necessary for dance to be pretty. Her students learned “to not only listen to their bodies, but to honor them” (Roseman: 2004, 134). Sometimes she referred to her students as “athletes of God” and “servants of the soul” (Roseman: 2004, 148). On stage, she confronted the audience with taboo and uncomfortable emotions and topics like grief. Graham studied the Scriptures and religious science under authors like Joseph Campbell and Mircea Eliade (cf. Roseman: 2004, 135). Her dances explore figures of goddesses, saints, angels and frequently include a Madonna. She considered the body to be a sacred instrument. Working with breathing techniques, common to many traditions such as Yoga, she fueled her dance with vital energy: My technique is based on breathing. I have based everything that I have done on the pulsation of life, which is, to me, the pulsation of breath. Every time you breathe life in or expel it, it is a release or a contraction. It is that basic to the body. You are born with these two movements and you keep both until you die. But you begin to use them consciously so that they are beneficial to the dance dramatically. You must animate that energy within yourself. Energy is the thing that sustains the world and the universe. It animates the world and everything in it. I recognized early in my life that there was this kind of energy, some animating spark, or whatever you choose to call it. It can be Buddha, it can be anything, it can be everything. It begins with breath (Graham: 1991, 46).

Isadora Duncan, Ruth St. Denis and Martha Graham dismissed the then prevalent aesthetics of ballet and created their own way of dancing, born from within the psyche. Within their concepts, the natural body and dance were considered holy: dance can turn into a prayer. Religion and dance can enter a union. The female body figures at the center of all their choreographies. A feminist impulse was embedded in their approaches to dance and religion, even before the word existed. In the 1920s and 1930s, the ‘New German Dance’ was created under the impact of American modern dance. Several choreographers, men and women, were dedicated to this expressionist style. One example is Mary Wigman from Dresden. Like the American modern dancers, she claimed to view the body holistically. She portrayed the body as a cosmic instrument (cf. Huschka: 2012, 72). However, I agree with Klein that her concept of the body seemed in fact to establish a new hierarchy of the human parts with the soul in a leading role. She considered bodies in an essentialist way as reservoirs of nature and did not take note of their capacity to contain cultural

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and social techniques of disciplining (cf. Klein: 1992, 184).14 Klein attributes the openness of Wigman and other German dancers to the political changes after 1933 to her supposed uncritical thinking. Wigman subjected herself to the political authorities; she collaborated with the regime of Hitler (for example in the ceremony of the Summer Olympics in Berlin, 1936). Within this hierarchical rationality, in terms of a gender-theory, she fostered a concept of natural femininity. Dance had become a women’s profession because dance corresponds with the essence of being a woman (Wesen der Frau), she wrote in 1929 (cf. Wigman in Klein: 1992, 203). The urge to return to nature and the desire to free the nature of women can be interpreted as a counter movement against the increasing power of industrial capitalism of that time (cf. Klein: 1992, 204). Tragically, women withdrew from political participation and emancipatory struggles, being led to believe that the natural essence of being a woman excluded such engagements. Post-War society with its climate of reactionism and conservatism limited women from expressing themselves again for quite a long time.

4.

(Protestant) Theology on the Way to Gender Sensitive Perspectives

Protestantism in the 20th century not only had a problem with women who broke out from their natural essence, but also with dance in Christian spirituality. Nevertheless, new concepts of the body emerged in theological reflections. Development in liturgical studies and a “liturgical movement” (Liturgische Bewegung) contributed greatly to dance and movement being introduced to churches in the second half of the 20th century, albeit on a very small scale. Following Romano Guardini and Wilhelm Stählin, Lutheran liturgy came to be understood in terms of a participative process in which humans respond actively in all dimensions of their being. The Roman Catholic priest Romano Guardini (1885–1968) emphasized elementary gestures in worship. The body of Christ (Leib Christi) is composed of the members of a congregation and is active in the celebration, which includes their bodies. The Holy Spirit works powerfully in their midst. The body is a natural expression of the soul; involuntary movement is the image of a psychic process

14 Wigman was influenced by the German movement of “Körperkultur” [body culture, translation by the author] in which it was popular to describe movement in terms of the female nature. In 1906, Bess Mensendieck published “Körperkultur des Weibes” [body culture of the woman, translation by the author], and in 1923 “Funktionelles Frauenturnen” [functional physical training for women, translation by the author] (cf. Huschka: 2012, 119 n. 5). In comparison, Waldenfels states that bodies could „weder eindeutig der Kultur noch eindeutig der Natur zugeordnet werden“ which is demonstrated by dance. Translation by the author: “not clearly assigned to either culture or nature” (cf. Waldenfels: 2001, 105).

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(cf. Guardini: 1918, 53). However, concerning the elementary gestures, the plainly subjective approach is enhanced by a semiotic interpretation. The gestures are signs. Symbols in the church serve a meaning, but they can be experienced by understanding them as extensions of natural movements. The hand reaches out to offer someone something: the presence of the paten in the hand strengthens the gesture through its substance and form. Celebrating mass means much more “to be” than “to do” (cf. Guardini: 1918, 86). God is acting. The material, the body, and the gestures create a performative act through which celebrating humans are seized. Wilhelm Stählin, a Lutheran theologian in the liturgical movement, studied the celebration of the sacraments, in particular the Lord’s Supper (Abendmahl). Sacraments are to be taken as mysteries, not just administered (cf. Stählin: 1970, 13–14). In the mystery lies power to reform the church. The ritual is fueled by powers. Because the church is built up by real corporal humans and interpreted as the body of Christ, there is a strong connection between humans and the church. In worship, this becomes reality. People respond by living their lives in their bodies. In the 1970s, the practical theologian Manfred Josuttis published his phenomenology of liturgy (cf. Josuttis: 1991). According to Josuttis, liturgy is a form of behavior. Liturgy consists of body movements that transport experiences conditioned by sociological, cultural, psychological and physiological aspects. Guardini, Stählin, Josuttis and others have contributed towards an increased awareness of the body in the context of Christian worship and spirituality. However, they did not consider the topic of gender, nor did they recognize the possibility of creating or allowing space for dance in worship. Not before the 1990s did nonessentialist approaches to theology demonstrate the impact of cultural gender constructions on practices involving the body in Christian spirituality. Andrea Bieler bases her liturgical insights on ritual studies (cf. Bieler: 2002; 2006 etc.). She describes liturgies in terms of performance and ritual. In liturgy, bodies interact and act something out. In rituals, humans make contact with powers like God and the Holy Spirit. Bieler points out that the ritual itself contains aspects of human power, too. It illuminates the dominance of one race over another, one gender over another and the rich over the poor. The body of Christ is composed from “real bodies” standing around the altar. This cognition effects on daily life of humans in their material reality (cf. Bieler/Schottroff: 2007). Therefore, spirituality cannot be limited to the situation of worship. Spirituality is realized in daily life, when encountering problems and joy. Human bodies are no longer defined in an essentialist manner. Who someone is, underlies fluid configurations. Women and men are no longer limited by traditional images. Gender bias can be countered through stimulating activities during church services. Stimulating impulses could include women or men acting contrary to prejudice.

Dance and Gender in Churches in Germany since the 20th Century

Simultaneous to non-essentialist liturgical studies influencing changed perceptions of the body in Practical Theology, a movement of women that is effectively involved in liturgical practices emerged within traditional churches. These women placed dance at the center of the celebration. Brigitte Enzner-Probst is the first and only theologian to examine scientifically the contribution of dance in women’s liturgies (Frauengottesdienste) in Germany (cf. Enzner-Probst: 2008). She speaks of the “corporeality” of liturgies. Women compose their liturgies using experiential and physical (corporal) elements such as singing, shouting, gestures, dancing, stamping or clapping. Recognizing the body in Lutheran theology has led to real changes in the landscape of worship. Nevertheless, have these forms contributed towards the deconstruction of traditional gender roles or have they ultimately fostered essentialist views of the female body? Enzner-Probst interprets the motifs of dancing women as a sort of agreement with the laws of nature. The dancing women seem to reinforce those forces by their movements and dance (cf. Enzner-Probst: 2008, 227).15 Similar motifs of the spiritual dance movement at the beginning of the 20th century in America and Germany reappear in the 1970s, particularly harmony and nature. Referring to the positions of Duncan and Graham, who do not interpret these terms in the same sense as the essentialist gender-concept, and following the studies of LaMothe, we can assume that women groups of the 1990s maintained a similar understanding of the terms. Even if evidence in empirical science at present does not sufficiently support the claim that being in harmony with the laws of nature was an emancipatory strategy, we know from personal experience that the liturgies of the women groups have indeed empowered women. They have given them selfconfidence, a sense of pride, and they have provided support to the emancipatory movement. While my own research does not focus principally on this topic, I have made several remarkable observations. During structured interviews with women on aesthetics and spirituality in dance (cf. Schnütgen: 2019) interviewees spoke freely about natural movement, femininity, dance and beauty in their search for emancipation and freedom. Some interviewees seemed to yearn for an approach to life like in the preindustrial era, for intense rituals and a deeper emotional involvement in their religion. The vocabulary and how terms are used in sacred dance circles are certainly ambivalent. However, this ambivalence should not be ascribed to these sacred dance circles and their spirituality, but to feminist approaches in general. Typically, feminist research lays the emphasis on either the equality of women and men

15 Interpretation by the author. Original: „Die tanzenden Frauen wissen sich in Übereinstimmung mit den Gesetzen der Natur und verstärken diese umgekehrt durch ihre Bewegungen, durch ihren Tanz.“

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regarding their rights, abilities, and talents, or on women, being humans with special qualities giving them pride and power. Therefore, an encompassing gender theory is needed that accommodates the impact of dance in Christian spirituality in terms of gender.

5.

Dance Spirituality in Churches on their Way into the 21st Century

How can dance become a spiritual experience in western Christianity? The majority of Christian spiritual activities center round texts. There are texts for prayer, singing, bible study, and liturgy. Throughout the Church’s history, theologians have made textual references that are spiritual in nature. Even as several theologians have tried to emphasize the performative character of worship, on the whole exercising spirituality has remained an activity of reading and writing. Therefore, the semiotic paradigm has produced, for example, the interpretation of worship as a text.16 Dancing in religion has a completely different orientation and its foundations lie elsewhere. It emerges from a kinesthetic experience, a form of aesthetic experience. My study demonstrates that the basis of spiritual practice is aesthetic experience (cf. Schnütgen: 2019, 405–532). Since the late 20th and early 21st century, aesthetics has been considered increasingly by scholars when they reflect on what moves people in the church, in terms of both motion and emotion. Research in Practical Theology has started conceptualizing liturgy, religious education, and bible study as processes with aesthetical qualities. Christian life is interpreted under the heading of performativity. Spirituality includes performative acts that have transforming powers. Aesthetic experience in dance is based on the experience of movement.17 The kinesthetic sense informs the individual, that something is happening. Erika FischerLichte has reflected on dancing on stage as an aesthetic experience.18 She provides a clearer insight into what is happening when people dance. Dancers explore room and space, relationships, emotions, as well as states like freedom or restriction and lightness or heaviness. Similarly, dance spirituality is based on specific aesthetic

16 Whereas Neijenhuis (2007) speaks of worship as text, using the semiotic paradigm, Plüss (2007) interprets worship in terms of the performative paradigm. 17 Scholars also use the notion aesthetic experience for something by which artwork is explored (Deines/Liptow/Seel: 2013). Dance is art and needs reception. Art is coming into being by the reception of people (“aesthetics of reception” or in literary theory “reader-response-criticism”). It does not exist “objectively”. 18 Cf. Fischer-Lichte: 2001.

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experiences. Aesthetic experience is always specific.19 For example: the aesthetic experience within a closed circle of dancers making meditative and mindful movements is different from the experience of watching a professional Argentinian tango from the pews in a church. It is necessary to differentiate between participating actively and observing from a distance. In addition, the act of meditation in a closed circle and performing in front of a congregation are distinct, as are the aesthetic experiences they generate. Significantly, too, gender constructions in dance may differ. To conclude: any abstract statements on what kind of aesthetic experience dance is providing is too short. Empirical research is listening to dancers and is learning how to differentiate between spiritual experiences in terms of aesthetic experience. Dance concepts differ. Dance spirituality in the church also needs to take the needs of non-professional dancers into consideration. Such a concept of dance linked to spirituality is grounded on the pioneering work of Duncan, St. Denis, Graham, as well as Rudolf von Laban in Germany and Anna Halprin in the USA. Following the philosophy of modern dance, the living body and its sensitivity are honored, even held holy. The credo of modern dance is: “Everybody is a dancer.” Whereas ballet or ballroom dancing demands professional training aimed at presenting a product that looks good, modern dance is open to individual forms of dances and improvisation. The essence is the individual experience. Female participants in actual church dances often express their gratitude that they do not have to fulfill standards of an ideal body (cf. Schnütgen: 2019, 306–307.336–337.567). Some are aware of their inability to follow patterns perfectly, or of their lack of creativity while improvising; however, most accept imperfection. Dancers estimate that they feel free from the pressure to do well when participating in spiritual dance. Women acknowledge that they do not always have dance partners, but in the church, they can dance in a group. They mostly feel well integrated in their groups. Some dancers appreciate the possibility to dance in church today, because in their youth dancing was banned by the church. At present, their desire to dance is fulfilled. They have the opportunity to build positive relationships with their bodies. Feelings of lightness, freedom, affinity and other positive emotions contribute to the body-friendly, spiritual practice. Nevertheless, why is it that women are in the greater majority when it comes to church dance? Do they perhaps, more than men, need a healing approach to their bodily self? Provocatively asking: Are unions with divine powers and the practice of ancient rituals more suitable to women?

19 Concepts of aesthetic experience should be pluralistic. If not, marginalized experience (like dance in church) could be unwillingly excluded (cf. Deines: 2013, 246).

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6.

Church Dance: Feminine Domain or Open Space for Individuals?

Since the 1950s and 1960s, several church dance groups have been active in Germany. They define themselves as ecumenical and international. During the 1990s, dance transported an innovative spirit into the church. It represented the hope to transform and reform church life. Until the present time, the movement has been supported predominantly by women. On estimate, between 80–90% of the dance groups consist of women. When involved, men are prone to take leadership positions, for example as teachers. Styles vary. A number of dance meetings offer circle dances called “Sacred Dance” or “Meditation of the Dance” (following e. g. a Findhorn tradition, Bernhard Wosien and others). Attendants are rarely younger than 40, corresponding in general to most church meetings in Germany. Some groups train in dance and theater techniques and create performances with biblical references for church services. Some dancers lead groups in bible study. They combine reading and conversing with dance improvisations in the groups in order to demonstrate a message or make the experience of the text more intimate (Bibliotanz ®20 /bibliodans21 ). Forms of classical Indian dance, dance improvisation in nature or meditative improvisation meetings, are also popular (5Rhythms® , Soul motionTM , Contact Improvisation). Space for dance has been made in liturgies. Sometimes prayers are danced in these occasions. Meditations after a text-reading or a sermon might be danced; a sermon could be replaced or complemented by a dance performance. Sometimes hymns and dance are combined. In the last decade, special dance services have been introduced. Some of these special liturgies incorporate elements that are derived from the Argentinian tango. For example, they make uncomplicated overtures to what is known as “queer tango,”22 significant because traditional gender roles are obsolete. However, since the institutional church was unwilling to change its patriarchal structures, some women became more attracted to alternative forms of spirituality. Amongst others, they were drawn to the Sumerian religion and various goddesses. They published extensively, particularly in the 1990s (cf. e.g. Hämmerling 1990). Although their activities and interests led them to leave the official churches, some continued to inspire those women still dancing in the church. This movement finally separated completely from the church and formed its own spiritual dancing circles.

20 For further study cf. Thiele-Petersen: 2018. 21 For further study cf. Beurmanjer: 2019. 22 Although “queer Tango” is a term used in secular Tango to denote same-gender dancing, the term is not used as such in worship. However, it is not unusual that men dance with men and women with women in worship. Cf. Hartmann: 2008, 53ff and http://gendertango.wordpress.com [2020–02–28].

Dance and Gender in Churches in Germany since the 20th Century

There are various reasons why more women than men attend spiritual and church dance meetings. Theological, historical, sociological and gender bias reasons can be distinguished. Gender bias in culture is a principal concern. In Germany dance is an activity attributed primarily to women (cf. Klein: 1992). Dance is feminine. However, historically dancing has not always been ‘just a women’s thing’, nor was the gender role of women always fixed in a secondary role as it is often assumed today. The contemporary attitude towards gender has its roots in the cultural situation of the 18th century. Certain binary concepts of sex and gender across Europe in the late 18th century, particularly propagated by ecclesial powers, contributed to the division of distinct spheres of activities for women and men, first in the middle-class, later for everyone. Women were confined to do housework and educate children. This division was ideologically motivated and ascribed to the biological essence of women being distinct from men. Women were said to be more natural, emotional and sensitive than men. In short: woman ‘is’ body, man ‘is’ mind or spirit, woman ‘is’ nature, man ‘is’ culture or science. These deducted archetypes that inform gender stereotypes and the suppression of women are covertly still passed on, even today. The situation in the church today is ambivalent, especially concerning the circle dances (sacred dance; meditation of dance; folklore). Sometimes female dancers themselves speak of their emotions, their love for nature, the pleasure of touching the earth with their bare feet, their joy of being touched and holding hands. Some women praise the ‘authentic’ choreographies of ancient cultures. The expression of these desires reflects a yearning for the roots, a wish to revive experiences that have been lost, first in the industrialized world and today in the digital era (there is a new objectification of the female body). Can we assume that these women are pursuing a romantic concept of exotic cultures that are supposed to have preserved a natural relationship with the body, sexuality and peace of mind? Certainly, in the time of the modern dancers of the early 20th century, the female body was prioritized and proclaimed holy. Deities from remote times served as matrix. However, the pioneering modern dancers, Duncan, St. Denis and Graham, are held in high regard for promoting women’s dignity and the freedom to self-express as well as their nonessentialist conception of dance. It is curious that the interviewees in my study do not identify with the German expressionist dancers, perhaps due to their biological essentialism. Indeed, the contemporary church dance groups seem to reject gender bias. As it is, Wigman was never referenced in the interviews as a role model. A further reason for the higher concentration of women in church dance is that women are more active in the church in general. This tendency can be traced back very far. Theological arguments were introduced in the 20th century supposedly to fix the binary difference between men and women. The then actual divisions of power, competences, and social position of women were justified theologically.

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She was the B, he was the A, according to Karl Barth.23 The ordination of women as priests or ministers was refused based on so-called theological arguments. The church was late compared to secular society in granting women the same rights as men. But voluntary church work, especially the creation of dance groups, has provided women with self-organized space, without male dominance. Up to our time, gender concepts have developed decisively. One of the strongest roots of the church dance movement is clearly found in feminist theology and the women’s liturgies. Typically, women who were involved in circle dances (among other dance types) were more prone to be feminists. Currently, it is frustrating to hear some female dancers say that dancing is typically feminine (in accordance to the 19th century stereotype) and that they believe that women are more capable of practicing a dance-spirituality. While we do not know why this ambivalence persists, it is certain that different ideas about dance and gender, essentialist and non-essentialist, are adopted and profoundly accommodated by participants in church dance. Empirical research has not yet been able to explain sufficiently this ambivalent picture. The case is different with Argentinian tango in worship. Because tango is a regular topic in secular dance research, often for its sociological aspects, ample empiric material and theories are available (Launhardt/Schuster: 1998; Berger: 2006; Hartmann: 2008; Reichardt: 1984; Villa: 2002; Saikin: 2004). A comparison of the adaptation of tango in the church with its secular roots sheds light on the potential that church dance possesses to create open spaces for all genders (cf. Schnütgen: 2019, 442–450). Empirical research substantiates the common notion that secular Argentine Tango portrays fixed gender roles and transports the aura of an exotic culture of passion and emotion. The experiences of tango in worship are completely different. The celebrant dancers participate in an atmosphere of equality. In a church context, the tango loses its exotic character or erotic clichés. Spiritual tango dancers speak in terms of the following and the leading functions and not of the leading man and the following woman. Essentialist constructions of gender are diminished. Tango as it is danced in churches inspires images of human dignity and gives strength to resist the violation of human rights (cf. Walz: 2012). Dancing in community creates a special bond between dancers, notably an intercorporeité (Merleau-Ponty) or “Zwischenleiblichkeit” (Waldenfels: 2007, 19f.), which in the church, opens up a Third Space (Bhabha) with liberty and no fixed roles. Liturgical dances in Germany cover a wide range of styles. There are professional performances with the dance vocabulary of Contemporary Dance or Expressionist Dance. There are meditative circle dances with simple patterns where everybody is

23 Cf. Schroer-Staubli: 2005, 11.

Dance and Gender in Churches in Germany since the 20th Century

invited to participate. There are prayers made of gestures, repeated many times like a mantra. Church music and hymns inspire unique dance choreographies. Gender and leadership in the liturgy must be mentioned. Women who lead dances in worship participate in a longstanding masculine domain. One legacy of feminist liturgical practice is that women who are not ordained now have the courage to lead in a liturgy. Men who dance in the church effectively disturb the image of dance as a feminine art form, for the better. Dancing deals creatively with bodies irrespective of gender. Dance in churches recognizes all people in terms of their physical being, spirituality and humanity. People are given the chance to interact and participate intensely in Christian worship.

7.

Perspectives for Dance in Christian Spirituality

Not every dance space is an open space in terms of gender sensitivity. Dance invites a wide range of movements, small and large, in time to music, or not. It may be focused on technique or not. It may portray harmony or express dysfunction. It may be theatrical or emotional. It may idealize a harmonious relationship between men and women, or it may caricature the dysfunction of gender bias. Some dances try to overcome gender bias by undoing gender, like in the experimental tango liturgies. The liturgical and spiritual dance movements in Germany need dialogue and the formation of criteria.24 These criteria go hand in hand with the criteria for Christian spirituality: “No authentic spirituality serves simply one’s own satisfaction” (World Council of Churches: 1975, 311). It is necessary “to find a spirituality for engagement rather than for escape” (Ibid., 254). In my experience, the spiritual dance scenes that are active in German churches are open to everyone irrespective of gender orientation, apart from particular therapeutic meetings designed specifically for women or men in isolation. From a personal point of view, gender bias decreases where the space that dance provides allows individual experience and expression. In Contact Improvisation, I often find such openness; similarly in dance theatre (Tanztheater) and in other forms of improvisation including tango. Choreographed dances that have been derived from folklore usually provide open spaces for women and men. No genderorientated movements are prescribed, and patterns provide professional and nonprofessional dancers the opportunity to participate as equals. Powerful dances and

24 One important hub of debates about criteria is located e.g. in the “Christian Association of Dance in Liturgy and Spirituality” (Christliche Arbeitsgemeinschaft Tanz in Liturgie und Spiritulität e.V.) (cf. www.christliche-ag-tanz.de).

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patterns of stillness constitute the different kinesthetic experiences in the circle. No bodily perfection is demanded. Open spaces tend to be as inclusive as possible, also for physically and mentally handicapped people. When looking at dance from a scientific perspective, interdisciplinary approaches are needed. In German theology, publications focus mostly on the legitimation of dancing in the church from a theological perspective. Such works tend to concentrate only on one style and context of dancing and do not engage with empirical research. In sociological dance research, empirical studies are published at an increasing rate. However, the notion that dancing is a spiritual practice and the fact that it is currently part of German church life are phenomena that are neglected in scientific studies. In religious science, dance has been omitted for a long time (cf. LaMothe: 2018). Methods that prefer text analysis are not sufficient for understanding dance in the church appropriately and have to be enhanced by empirical studies. Dance research may foster ecumenical exchanges and vice versa. Intercultural encounter between dancing churches and non-dancing churches may stimulate discussion. In dance, certainly, lie undiscovered possibilities for the cultural dimension of Christian spirituality. In addition, Argentinian tango may be a wonderful topic for further research on doing and undoing gender in spiritual dance spaces.

Bibliography Berger, C. (2006), „… es ist ‘ne reine Gespürsache“. Zur körperlich-leiblichen Verständigung im Tango Argentino, in: M. Bischof/C. Feest/C. Rosiny (ed.), e-motion, Jahrbuch Tanz 16, Münster: LIT Verlag, 35–51. Beurmanjer, R. (2019), Tango met God? Een theoretische verheldering van bibliodans als methode voor spirituele vorming, quaestiones infinitae 120, Theologische Uitgeverij Narratio, Gorinchem. Bieler, A. (2002), “You Never Look into a Person’s Eyes When Passing the Peace.” Hybridität und Ritualisation als Kategorien einer kritischen Liturgiewissenschaft im multikulturellen Kontext, in: E. Hauschildt/U. Schwab (ed.), Praktische Theologie für das 21. Jahrhundert, Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 9–21. Bieler, A. (2006), Real Bodies at the Meal, in: J. Bach/M. Weinrich/M. Frettlöh/H.-M. Gutmann/J. Ebach (ed.), “Dies ist mein Leib”. Leibliches, Leibeigenes und Leibhaftiges bei Gott und den Menschen, Jabboq 6, Gütersloh: Gütersloher Verlagshaus, 127–140. Bieler, A./Schottroff, L. (2007), Das Abendmahl. Essen, um zu leben, Gütersloh: Gütersloher Verlagshaus. Cambridge Advanced Learner’s Dictionary, “Spirituality”, Cambridge University Press, https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/spirituality [2020–09–20].

Dance and Gender in Churches in Germany since the 20th Century

Duncan, I. (1903), Der Tanz der Zukunft (The Dance of the Future). Eine Vorlesung. Translated from the English original by K. Federn/E. Diederichs, Leipzig: Eugen Diederichs. Duncan, I. (1928), The Art of the Dance, Edited, with an introduction by Sheldon Cheney, Theatre Art Books, New York 1969. Fermor, G. (2001), Tanz II, Praktisch-Theologisch, in: Theologische Realenzyklopädie 32, Berlin: De Gruyter, 647–655. Fischer-Lichte, E. (2001), Ästhetische Erfahrung. Das Semiotische und das Performative, Tübingen/Basel: Francke. Graham, M. (1985), Martha Graham Reflects on Her Art and a Life in Dance, New York Times, March 31, http://www.nytimes.com/library/arts/033185graham.html (2015–05–15). Graham, M. (1991), Blood Memory. An Autobiography, Doubleday, New York. Hämmerling, E. (1990), Mondgöttin Inanna. Ein weiblicher Weg zur Ganzheit. Neu mit Tanz, Meditation und Imagination [revised edition 1995], Zürich: Kreuz-Verlag. Hartmann, A. (2008), Tango – ein Spiel mit geschlechtlichen Dichotomien, in: M. Oster/W. Ernst/M. Gerards (ed.), Performativität und Performance. Geschlecht in Musik Theater und Medienkunst, Focus Gender 8, Münster: Lit Verlag, 48–57. Josuttis, M. (1991), Der Weg in das Leben. Eine Einführung in den Gottesdienst auf verhaltenswissenschaftlicher Grundlage, Munich: Chr. Kaiser. Klein, G. (1992), FrauenKörperTanz. Eine Zivilisationsgeschichte des Tanzes, Weinheim/ Berlin: Beltz Quadriga. Knäble, P. (2016), Eine tanzende Kirche. Initiation, Ritual und Liturgie im spätmittelalterlichen Frankreich, Köln/Weimar/Wien: Böhlau Verlag. Launhardt, Y./Schuster, M. (1998): Tango Argentino. Faszination und Widersprüche, in: U. Bechdolf (ed.), Tanzlust. Empirische Untersuchungen zu Formen alltäglichen Tanzvergnügens, Projektgruppe “Tanzen“ am Ludwig-Uhland-Institut für Empirische Kulturwissenschaft der Universität Tübingen, Tübingen: TVV Verlag, 101–111. LaMothe, K.L. (2004), Between Dancing and Writing. The Practice of Religious Studies, New York: Fordham University Press. LaMothe, K.L. (2006), Nietzsche’s Dancers. Isadora Duncan, Martha Graham, and the Revaluation of Christian Values, New York: Palgrave Macmillan. LaMothe, K.L. (2018), A History of Theory and Method in the Study of Religion and Dance. Past, Present and Future, Brill Research Perspectives in Religion and the Arts, 2.1, Leiden/Boston: Brill. Möller, C. (2005), Lutherische Spiritualität – Reformatorische Wurzeln und geschichtliche Ausprägungen, in: H. Krech/O. Hahn (ed.), Lutherische Spiritualität – Lebendiger Glaube im Alltag, Hannover: Lutherisches Kirchenamt, 15–37. Neijenhuis, J. (2007), Gottesdienst als Text. Eine Untersuchung in semiotischer Perspektive zum Glauben als Gegenstand der Liturgiewissenschaft, Leipzig: Evangelische Verlagsanstalt.

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Plüss, D. (2007), Gottesdienst als Textinszenierung. Perspektiven einer performativen Ästhetik des Gottesdienstes, Christentum und Kultur 7, Zürich: Theologischer Verlag. Reichardt, D. (1984), Tango. Verweigerung und Trauer. Kontexte und Texte, Frankfurt a.M.: Suhrkamp. Roseman, J.L. (2004), Dance was her Religion. The Spiritual Choreography of Isadora Duncan, Ruth St Denis and Martha Graham, Prescott: Hohm Press. Saikin, M. (2004), Tango und Gender. Identitäten und Geschlechterrollen im Argentinischen Tango, Stuttgart: Abrazos Books. Schnütgen, T.K. (2019), Tanz zwischen Ästhetik und Spiritualität. Theoretische und empirische Annäherungen, Research in Contemporary Religion (26), Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht. Stählin, W. (1970), Mysterium. Vom Geheimnis Gottes, Johannes Stauda, Kassel. St Denis, R. (1939), An Unfinished Life, Harper and Bros., New York. Schroer, S./Staubli, T. (2005), Die Körpersymbolik der Bibel, 2nd ed., Darmstadt: wbg Academic. Thiele-Petersen, A. (2018), Bibliotanz. Biblische Texte im Tanz erleben. Das Praxisbuch, Neukirchen-Vluyn. Tillich, P. (1969), The Struggle for a new Theonomy. On the Idea of a Theology of Culture, in What is Religion?, edited and with an Introduction by James Luther Adams, New York: Harper & Row, 155–181. Villa, P.-I. (2002), Exotic Gender (E)motion, Zur westeuropäischen Verschränkung von Körper und Leib im argentinischen Tango, in: K. Hahn/M. Meuser (ed.), Soziale Repräsentationen des Körpers – Körperliche Repräsentationen des Sozialen. Beiträge zu einer Soziologie des Körpers, Konstanz: UVK Verlagsgesellschaft, 179–206. Waldenfels, B. (2001), Verfremdung der Moderne. Phänomenologische Grenzgänge, Essener Kulturwissenschaftliche Vorträge 10, Göttingen: Wallstein. Waldenfels, B. (2007), Sichbewegen, in: G. Brandstetter/C. Wulf (ed.), Tanz als Anthropologie, München: Wilhelm Fink, 14–30. Walz, H. (2012), Le tango argentin comme langage spiritual transcultural: rêve d’une vie meilleure en situations de migration et d’ambigüités de genre. Translated from the Spanish by M. Bolli (2015), original title: El tango argentino como lenguaje espiritual transcultural: sueňo de una vida mejor en situaciones de migración y de ambigüedades de género, https:// sites.google.com/site/lisiere2/home/theologie-et-cultures/ [2015–09–04]. World Council of Churches (1976), Breaking barriers, Nairobi 1975, in D. Macdonald Paton (ed.), The Official Report of the Fifth Assembly of the World Council of Churches, Nairobi, 23 November–10 December [1975, S.P.C.K. Edition, London]; Grand Rapids: W.B. Eerdmans; digitized version 2019: https://archive.org/details/wcca17 [2020–08–27]. Zimmerling, P. (2003), Evangelische Spiritualität. Wurzeln und Zugänge, Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht. Zimmerling, P. (2015), Evangelische Mystik, Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht.

Nkosinathi Sithole

The Sacred Dance as a Miraculous Practice in Ibandla lamaNazaretha1

Ibandla lamaNazaretha, also called ‘The Nazarite Church’ or ‘Nazareth Baptist Church’, is one of the largest churches initiated in Africa and is based in South Africa. It was founded in 1910 by Isaiah Shembe (1870–1935). The growing membership of Ibandla lamaNazaretha happens in tandem with the increasing popularity of the sacred dance – both in terms of performers and spectators. Today, a number of dance regiments or groups have been established to make it possible for all the participants to get the opportunity to dance. This growing popularity of the sacred dance, post-apartheid, challenges scholars who posit that the sacred dance (as well as other Nazaretha expressive forms) were a response to the racial state. One of these, Muller, maintains, Isaiah Shembe built a religious empire whose cultural truth facilitated a notion of power in opposition to the repressive and debilitating force of the state. For Isaiah’s membership, power was induced as a creative force, enabling women and men to foster notions of hope, and thereby to survive the devastation and violation of their communities (1999, 20).

In a similar vein, Brown has argued that, The performance of the hymns constituted a ritual of empowerment for Shembe’s followers, almost all of whom had been politically and economically marginalised (1999, 211).

This chapter explores the place and function of the sacred dance in Ibandla lamaNazaretha. It argues that the views expressed by scholars like Muller and Brown above regarding the significance of the sacred dance are unfounded. The key to understanding the sacred dance in Ibandla lamaNazaretha lies in the Nazaretha members’ belief that the sacred dance is performed on behalf of the ancestors and it happens both in heaven and on earth simultaneously. In other words, I argue that the sacred dance is an example of a popular culture “that is more than sub- or trans-national, [that] is trans-worldly and trans-global” (Hofmeyr: 2004, 9).

1 This contribution reuses materials originally published in Sithole: 2016, 3–5; 18; 35; 64–77; 86 and reproduced here, with slight changes, by permission of Brill.

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Ibandla lamaNazaretha was founded by Isaiah Shembe in what is now KwaZuluNatal, a province on the east coast of South Africa. Even though a number of scholars have emphasised Zulu specificity in writing about the church (See Brown: 1998; Hexham: 1994; Vilakazi/Mthethwa/Mpanza: 1986; Mpanza: 1999), there is evidence to suggest that from the very beginning the Nazaretha following was not limited to the Zulu. For instance, Ndwedwe magistrate, Mckenzie, wrote in January 1923: It must be remembered that [Shembe] is the head of a large following of mixed natives, and there is always a danger, whatever Tshembe’s present attitude may be, of his organisation, being in the future, made use of by agitators for political purposes (Papini: 1999, 250, emphasis in the original, addition in brackets in the original).

The church is rapidly growing in numbers. Thousands and thousands of people are baptized every Sunday in July and in January, the two biggest annual meetings of the church. While there are no accurate numbers, the members of Ibandla lamaNazaretha are estimated at a few millions. This is a very significant growth, because when Isaiah Shembe passed away in 1935, the church was estimated at about forty thousand members. Although the church has split many times over the years (and comprises now five groups) all but one led by Isaiah Shembe’s descendants, it is the eBuhleni group which far exceeds others in number. In addition, the research presented in this chapter was obtained in the eBuhleni group. The church’s growth, plus its “success in creating a religious presence which is distinctively African”, causes Gunner to see it as a “force to be reckoned with in social, religious and political terms” (2002, 1). However, for many years this distinctively African identity has had a negative impact on the broader social perceptions of the church. Until fairly recently, Ibandla lamaNazaretha has been regarded by many to be the church of backward, uneducated and rural people. While this attitude is changing, a thorny issue, which still remains, is the accusation that amaNazaretha2 worship Shembe who is an ordinary human being like them. Linked to this is a myth, (some accuse John Dube of starting this but there is no proof) that Isaiah Shembe died in an accident in which he had created artificial wings and attempted to fly from the mountain Nhlangakazi (imitating Jesus) and did not make it. In creating his Ibandla lamaNazaretha, Isaiah Shembe mixed and blended Christian and African forms, many of the latter being downgraded and prohibited in mainstream churches. His theology clashed with that of the nonconformist missionaries, whose intention it was, as John and Jean Comaroff have noted,

2 Ibandla lamaNazaretha refers to the Church of Nazarites or Nazaretha Church while amaNazaretha refers to the members of the church.

The Sacred Dance as a Miraculous Practice in Ibandla lamaNazaretha

to ‘civilise’ the native by remaking his person and his context; by reconstructing his habit and habitus; by taking back the savage mind from Satan, who had emptied it of all traces of spirituality and reason (1992, 238).

Some of the main issues of conflict were African song and dance, polygamy, lobola (bride price) and recognition of the ancestors. One of the most significant expressive forms in Ibandla lamaNazaretha is umgidi (the sacred dance) in which the performers’ dress includes loinskins, headties and other attire made from animal hides. The sacred dance itself involves the beating of cowhide drums and the singing of hymns composed by Isaiah Shembe. It is arguably an improvisation on the dances that took place in pre-colonial society, which the missionaries labelled ‘uncivilised’ and ‘anti-Christian’.3 Isaiah Shembe himself was very creative and innovative, and in spite of his lack of formal education, he created and composed a number of his own original hymns for himself and his members to sing in worship and when performing the sacred dance. He did this when other African churches were relying on translations of the English hymns from orthodox churches. Bengt Sundkler has voiced his disappointment at this tendency: One of the most striking – and disconcerting – examples of the White man’s dominance even in his spiritual matters over his Zulu co-religionists is this fact that Zulu Christians have not felt led to express their new faith in the composing of songs and hymns of their own, whereas this is quite common in certain Mission Churches in East Africa (Sundkler: 1948, 193).

Ibandla lamaNazaretha, with the hymns and the sacred dance, is one of the religious groups that, in the words of Robert Young, “have taken on the political identity of providing alternative value systems to those of the west” (2001, 337). While Young’s religions that “provide alternative value systems to those of the west” are only Islam and Hinduism, Brown points to the “abundant evidence of other religions, including various forms of indigenized Christianity, expressing ‘subaltern concerns’” (2008, 3–4). In saying this, Brown has – among others – Ibandla lamaNazaretha in mind. Oral testimony of dreams and miracles suggests that members of Ibandla lamaNazaretha, who take part in the sacred dance, do so primarily because of the imagined relationship between the individual and divine power. As Mbembe states,

3 For studies on the missionaries in South Africa see Richard Elphick, 2012, The Equality of Believers: Protestant Missionaries and the Racial Politics of South Africa. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press; John and Jean Comaroff, 1992, Ethnography and the Historical Imagination, California: Avalon Publishing.

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“it is the subject’s relation to divine sovereignty that serves as the main provider of meanings for most people” (Mbembe: 2002, 270). I argue that Nazarite members take part in the sacred dance mainly as an attempt to: manage the ‘real world’ on the basis of the conviction that all symbolization refers primarily to a system of the invisible, of a magical universe, the present belonging above all to a sequence that opens onto something different (ibid.).

In her paper “Figures of Colonial Resistance” (1989), Jenny Sharpe deals with an important issue of articulating resistance to colonialism. “Are the colonised indeed passive actors of a Western script?” she asks. In response to her question she suggests tentatively that, It might well be argued that studies expounding the domination of dominant discourses merely add to their totalizing effects, for they show colonizers to have the power that even they were incapable of enforcing (1989, 138).

However, she also warns, in a way more relevant for my argument here, that “the correction of such readings with the simple presentation of native voices can equally impose a Western authority upon non-Western texts” (ibid.). My contention here is along those lines: that in trying to find resistance to colonialism by simply equating events like the sacred dance with resistance or response to colonialism, without examining if these performances are indeed connected to colonialism in the way they are said to be, such postulations end up offering undue power to colonialism itself. At the same time, their tendency deprives people of their agency as actors in their own history, since all they do can only be reactive. So much has been said about the importance of context in social sciences. Bauman and Briggs maintain that, Attempts to identify the meaning of texts, performances, or entire genres in terms of purely symbolic, context-free content disregard the multiplicity of indexical connections that enable verbal art to transform, not simply reflect, social life (1990, 69).

I am not arguing against a consideration of context in ethnographic studies. What I am strongly against are formulations like the ones stated above that tend to restrict their investigations to the surfaces, not going deep enough to find out exactly why people do what they do. Or to demonstrate, beyond reasonable doubt, that such connections as they are making do exist. In other words, my worry is that their methodology, which allows them to study the historical context on its own and then use their findings to explain events that

The Sacred Dance as a Miraculous Practice in Ibandla lamaNazaretha

take place in other contexts, offers them an easy way out. If they know that people engaged in a particular event are oppressed, then it follows that their participation in that event is in response to their circumstances. This is done without asking what people would have done if those circumstances did not exist. The demonstrations and strikes, that were the order of the day during the years of apartheid, decreased significantly after the end of apartheid. So, one would expect the same to happen to the sacred dance if its overriding function had been as response to the socioeconomic and political problems of the people who performed it. Moreover, while I do acknowledge that the economic conditions of many South Africans still remain unchanged, it would be opportunistic to say that these performances are now a response to those economic challenges. What I am trying to demonstrate in this chapter is that there are particular motivations for people to take part in the sacred dance performances. It is through searching for and exploring the motivations that we can begin to understand the role and meaning of these performances for the people involved. Here I look at oral narratives of dreams and miracles about the importance of umgidi in this world and in ‘heaven’. Oral testimony, relating to the sacred dance, shows that in the imagination of many Nazarite members who take part in the dance, the main audience is God, Shembe and the ancestors. I argue that, while the sacred dance is meant to be a form of worship, and members take part in order to appease their ancestors as well as Shembe on the one side, it is also (in actuality) a form of entertainment. It provides performers with the space in which they can define their individual and collective identities on the other side. As a result, the presence of the living audience has an impact on the way in which the performers dance. However, in dealing with these narratives, I am not interested in their “truth claims” (Brown: 1999, 199). Instead, I treat these narratives as sources that have the capacity to reveal the forms of consciousness that would otherwise be hidden (Bozzoli: 1991). The further chapter looks at these stories about the sacred dance and the discrepancy between how the sacred dance should be performed and how it is actually performed.

1.

The Sacred Dance as a Miraculous Practice

In one of the testimonies in Hexham and Oosthuizen (1996, 110), Qambelabantu Ngidi tells of his arrival at eKuphakameni. Like many people, he came to eKuphakameni because he was sick. It is not stated in the testimony, but I suspect that (from listening to and reading other stories and testimonies) he had tried a number of traditional and Western doctors without success. However, interesting for this chapter is, what he saw when he reached eKuphakameni:

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When I arrived there, I looked at the dancing. There I saw in the midst of the dancers my late brother coming up. I saw him in daylight. I was not asleep. Then I remembered what people had said that there is Malay magic in this place. Now my brother was there before my eyes and laughed at me. I pinched myself to see if I was still alive. Then I ran away from the dancing ground, and I ran as far as Durban. On another day, I met one of my brothers from home and told him what I had seen at eKuphakameni. My brother was perplexed and said: “Hau, they had fetched this brother from McCord Hospital, where he had been a patient, to bring him home. They had pulled the seats in the car flat and laid him on them. When they were at Vokwe, he said to them: “Tell me, when we shall come to the fork, where the way branches off to eKuphakameni.” However, when they got there, they forgot to tell him. When they had already passed that place, he said the same request again. […] Then he said to them, “When I shall be better, I shall go there to the hills of eKuphakameni.” They were astonished, how he could speak of his recovery, since he was so sick. This was my brother, whom I had seen at eKuphakameni, who had said these words. He had come home and passed there away. Then I began to see the events at eKuphakameni in another way (Hexham/Oosthuizen: 1996, 110).

In another story, an Indian man travelled to eKuphakameni in the 1940s to tell the congregation that Isaiah Shembe had come to him in a dream. Shembe told the man to come to eKuphakameni to tell amaNazaretha that they were no longer dancing the dance of heaven. He said men were dancing to attract women, not to worship God. The Indian man told amaNazaretha that when Shembe came to him while in India, sending him to South Africa, he (the Indian man) told Shembe that he had no money to go to South Africa. Shembe then told him to go fish in the sea, and that the first fish he would catch would have enough money inside it for him to travel to South Africa and back. When he went to fish the following day, he caught a fish and as promised he found the money inside the fish, and he used it to come to eKuphakameni. His story was recorded by the then secretary and archivist of the Church, Petros Dhlomo, but was lost in the fire after the split in the Church in 1977 (Minister Khumalo, personal communication, 10 January 2009). This story echoes a biblical narrative in Matthew 17:24–27 where the temple-tax collectors find Jesus with Peter in Capernaum. Jesus urges Peter to go and cast a line in the lake. He tells him that if he opens the mouth of the first fish he catches, he will find a silver coin and give it to the tax collectors for both of them. Both stories are representative of the narrative culture that characterizes Ibandla lamaNazaretha. They are part of the Church’s cultural capital that circulates in sermons, tape and video records, and in conversations. These two in particular testify to the importance of the sacred dance as a ritual practiced in the church by and for both the living and the dead. As stated earlier, the sacred dance is imagined to bridge the gap between the physical and the spiritual worlds.

The Sacred Dance as a Miraculous Practice in Ibandla lamaNazaretha

In Ibandla lamaNazaretha the sacred dance is not just taken to be a physical act that an onlooker would perceive it to be. It is considered to be a means of worship, and even the audiences themselves, by watching the sacred dance, are involved in worship. Thus when amaNazaretha go to watch the sacred dance, they wear their prayer gowns (iminazaretha) and are urged to sit down when they watch. In addition, when the performance is finishing for the day, Shembe4 blesses the dancers and when this happens, all the dancers and the audience kneel to accept the blessing by uttering “Amen”, even though the person giving the blessing would be facing those who had been dancing. Both watching and participating in the sacred dance are believed to have healing powers. It is reported that J. G. Shembe has sent people, who had come to him sick, to watch the sacred dance. One man by the name of Mbambo was very infuriated when he was told to go and watch the sacred dance when coming to eKuphakameni because of his sickness. He kept complaining “I’m so sick, but he (J.G. Shembe) says I should sit here?” However, when the dance was completed and Shembe said “Inkosi inibusise” (God bless you) Mbambo claims he felt as though a burden was being lifted from his shoulders and his illness ended (Bheki Mchunu, personal communication, 15 Nov. 2008). In a similar story, a white girl from England had a dream in which Shembe told her to come to eKuphakameni to be healed. The family left England for South Africa when they had been told that the man who came to their daughter in a dream could be in Africa. In Cape Town they continued their enquiry and they heard about the presence of Shembe in Durban. When they arrived at eKuphakameni J.G. Shembe told the girl to take part in the sacred dance with virgin girls: She danced for a while. Shembe said, “Hawu, have you ever seen a white person dance? Bring her back here.” And so the Lord Shembe said to the parents, “Take her away, she is healed.” Therefore, they took the girl to Durban and booked a place in one of the hotels. They wanted to see the truth of what the God’s prophet had said without even praying for, or laying hands on, the girl (Muller: 1999, 160).

The girl’s menstrual problem ended after three months. Her parents went to eKuphakameni to find out how much they could pay for the help they had received, but Shembe told them “God’s gift is not to be bought by money”. He told them to go back to their country and tell other white people there that the saviour had arrived and he was at eKuphakameni. When they were overseas, the white couple sent gifts

4 This used to be done by a virgin girls’ leader on week day performances and Shembe would do it in the weekends. Now it is rear that the present leader choses a virgin girls leader to bless the sacred dance.

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to Shembe in the form of a flag, a watch and a bell. In the letter accompanying the gifts, they wrote: Remember us when the bell rings, the clock will tell the time for the beginning of the service. May the Lord remember us, when he calls the people into church. With the flag, I am saying that Africa has triumphed […] The nations of the world have been waiting for the Lord. Now they have heard that he is at eKuphakameni (Muller: 1999, 160).

Predictably, in her interpretation of this narrative, Muller emphasises the fact that it was the dance of the virgin girls which the white girl was urged to join: A provocative narrative, Mrs Ntuli’s telling of this Nazarite cultural treasure powerfully links together Isaiah Shembe’s ability to heal with the ritual purity of the dancing bodies of virgin girls. He did not even lay hands on her. All she had to do was participate in the sacred dance of virgin girls, and wait for her body to heal (ibid., emphasis added by the author).

As Mbambo’s story, and many others, show, it is not so much the purity of the bodies of virgin girls that is emphasised in this story, but the sacred dance itself. In other words, a sick person could have been a man and he would have been told to join the sacred dance of men, or simply to watch it. There are stories told in the church in which a person merely watches the sacred dance without having been instructed to do so and is healed in the process. An example is that of a woman who used to live near the George Koch Hostel. This woman is said to have gone to watch the Nazaretha men doing ‘practice’ there and as she watched, she claimed she saw lightning coming out of the amashoba5 as the men were dancing. When she left, she realised that her bleeding sickness had stopped. She went the following weekend to tell the dancers, what had happened (Bhekinkosi Mhlongo, personal communication, Dec. 2008). In another story, J.G. Shembe was watching the sacred dance of the virgin girls. After some time, he sent someone to tell one girl “God bless her, she may stop dancing”. The girl, like everyone else who saw what happened, was astonished by what Shembe had done. In the following service, Shembe asked the congregation if they knew why he had urged that girl to stop dancing. The congregation said they did not, and he said her dancing was too close to that of heaven. She was dancing with heavenly spirits and if he had let her continue, she could have died. This story echoes the story of Mthethwa’s aunt, MaTembe Nzuza. Mthethwa says

5 A stick decorated with the skin from the tail of a cow, leaving the furred end of the tail at the point of the stick (singular Ishoba).

The Sacred Dance as a Miraculous Practice in Ibandla lamaNazaretha

he had reproached her for taking part in both the morning and afternoon sacred dance performances while her health was not good due to her old age; She replied that she had actually hoped to die during that ukusina [sacred dance] event. She claimed that while she was dancing she had reached the gates of heaven, and was sorely disappointed at having been returned to the earth (quoted in Muller: 1996, 8; addition in brackets by the author).

2.

The Sacred Dance and the Journey to Heaven in the Hymns

Two of Isaiah Shembe’s hymns, Hymn No. 124 “Ngiyahamba weGuqabadele” [I am Travelling, oh Guqabadele] and Hymn No. 135 “Baba Ngikulolu hambo” [Father I am in this Journey], talk about a journey to heaven, and touch on perhaps the most important function of the sacred dance in the imagination of the Nazaretha members. The sacred dance is viewed as playing an important role in the journey to heaven. The heavenly spirits who come to fetch the soul of a dying person come beating the drums and singing dance hymns. Bongani Mthethwa tells the story of a member of Ibandla lamaNazaretha who had died and encountered demons on his way to heaven. The demons said the man belonged to them: But, it was pointed out to the demons that the good deeds of that man far outweighed his sins. Then the angels, who were dressed in full ukusina (sacred dance) regalia, arrived, singing and playing the drums, to rescue this man’s spirit from the demons. When the demons heard the sounds of the approaching drums, they vanished in great fear! (Mthethwa 1996: 8)

One of the common teachings of the overnight meetings of u-14, u-23and u-256 is that a person needs to be able to dance, sing dance songs and ‘play’ the sacred dance instruments like beating the drum and blowing the imbomu (kudu horn trumpet) because the heavenly spirits who fetch one’s soul are believed to sometimes ask the person they have come to fetch to do either of these things as a test of whether that person is worthy of travelling with them. Hymn No. 124 points to the obstacles one encounters on the journey to heaven. The journey to heaven is a dangerous one, and anyone taking it should dedicate him- or herself to serving God; and in

6 On the evenings of the 13th and the 14th of every month women members of the church attend an overnight service of sacred dancing, prayer and preaching which is called u-14. For men this happens on the 22nd and 23rd and it is called u-23, and for virgin girls it happens on the 24th and 25th and is called u-25.

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return God will stretch out His arms and protect the person from the dangers to be encountered on the way. If the person is proven to be a true Nazaretha, having dedicated him- or herself to singing and dancing for Jehovah here on earth, then that person will do the same on the way to heaven, thus pleasing those who have come to fetch him/her, and it is the same singing and dancing which will open the gates to heaven for that person: Basinda ngokuphephisa Abahamba engozini Baphunyuzwa wukuzidela Balithande elizayo.

It is only by chance that they escape Those who travel in danger Respite for them is through dedication And loving the world to come.

Chorus: Ngiyahamba weGuqabadele Ngalolu hambo lwakho Yelula isandla sakho Ulubusise uhambo lwami.

  I am travelling, Oh Guqabadele In this journey of yours Spread out your hand And bless my journey.

Ngesifingo sokusa Ngiyongena eKuphakameni Amasango ayovuleka Ngokungena kwami.

At the dawn of the morning I will enter eKuphakameni The gates will open Upon my entrance.

Chorus: Ngohlabelela ngentokozo Emzini oyingcwele Bajabule abahlangabezi bami Ngokungena kwami.

  I will sing with happiness In the holy village Those fetching my soul will rejoice Upon my entrance.

Chorus: Ngomsinela obongekayo Ngingasenanhloni Phakamani masango Phakamani singene.

  I will dance for the praiseworthy one Having no shyness Rise up you gates Rise up so we can enter.

In a similar vein, the greater part of hymn No. 135 talks about the difficulty of the way to heaven. In the first part of the hymn the words “sorrow”, “tears”, “death”, and “fear” abound. The journey is said to be of sorrow and tears, and the speaker begs God, the Beautiful One, to keep him or her company in ‘this’ wilderness which is a journey to heaven. The speaker is overwhelmed by fear and wishes God may give him/her strength to stand the suffering one encounters in the valley of sorrow.

The Sacred Dance as a Miraculous Practice in Ibandla lamaNazaretha

It is in this valley that those who did not do well on earth will stay and suffer till judgement day which itself is likely to bring more sorrow and suffering: Ukwesaba kungembethe Kepha ngawe mangingesabi Thela kimi umoya wamandla Ngiyakwedlula esigodini sosizi.

Fear has engulfed me But with you let me not fear Pour me the spirit of strength So I will pass the valley of sorrow.

Lapho abaningi bemisiwe Esigodini sosizi lokufa Balindele umhla wokuphela Ukukhala nokugedla amazinyo.

Where multitudes are stopped In the valley of sorrow of death They await judgement day The crying and the disappointment.

The hymn concludes on a positive note where the triumphant ones enter heaven. These ones become heirs of heaven and enter the gates dancing. This dance is both a celebration of victory over the earth and its whims and is proof that this person worshipped God on earth and is worthy to enter heaven: Izindlamafa zonke zimenyiwe Ziyongena ngokusina emasangweni Makabongwe uJehova Inkosi enamandla.

All the heirs are invited They will enter the gates dancing May Jehovah be praised The Lord with strength.

While these hymns and miraculous stories relating to the sacred dance are important in understanding what the sacred dance is in Ibandla lamaNazaretha, and they inform people’s decisions about taking part in the sacred dance and the way they dance the sacred dance, an examination of the sacred dance as practised shows that there are other motivations for Nazaretha members to take part in the sacred dance and there are other factors that influence the way they perform. In his study of gender and performance in Swahili, Ntarangwi points to the discrepancy between what is stated as ideal and what actually happens in practice: “That lived experiences and practices form the crux of a culture, and not the expressed ideals that are constantly negotiated through practice, is now a truism in the social sciences” (2003: 105). The ideal with respect to the sacred dance is that since it is not just for the performers but for their dead relatives as well, and also because it is meant to integrate this earth and heaven, the sacred dance is supposed to be performed similarly by everyone and everywhere. But what actually happens is not always what is ideally expected. As Ntarangwi goes on to say: “it is by looking at Swahili life as practised rather than as stated that I have been able to understand the social contradictions and contingencies reflected in Swahili musical expression” (2003: 105). I argue the same for the Nazaretha and the sacred dance. The rest of this

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chapter looks at the discrepancy between what the sacred dance should be and how it is practised.

3.

The Sacred Dance as a Ticket to ‘Hell’

Ideally, since the sacred dance is meant to be primarily for worshiping God, it has to be performed in the same way every time. In other words, if members dance for the same song, they should do the same thing, so that even someone who comes from a far-away area would be able to participate if he or she knew how to dance for that particular song. To achieve this similarity, it is important that the dance is kept unchanged. It should be done the way Isaiah Shembe taught it. However, there are many people and groups who improvise on the standard dance styles to create their own vernaculars, so that anyone who does not ‘practise’ with them would be unable to dance with them. In most cases it is the younger members, mostly young men, but young women as well, who meet on some days to teach each other the sacred dance, and it is they who tend to improvise on the standard dance style. Many older members of the church are against this improvisation, although one can tell from the story of the Indian man (mentioned above) that this tendency to improvise the sacred dance started many years ago. Many older members in higher positions in the church criticize this ‘alteration’ of the sacred dance. The title for this section comes from the speech given by one of the most influential intellectual leaders of the church, Evangelist M. Mpanza7 , in the workshop organised by the Nazaretha Tertiary Student’s Association (NATESA) on the Pietermaritzburg campus of the University of KwaZulu-Natal on the 14th September 2008: Ukusina kwethu lapha ku 23 naku 14 naku 25 akunginamisi mina. Because siyasina nje. The way okusinwa ngayo ayingitshengisi ukuthi sifundisiwe ukuthi ukusina kuyini. You have to be taught firstly about i-religious significance yokusina. That’s why ukusina kwethu. […] Mvangeli baningi abantu abayongena esihogweni ngokusina. Kunabantu abayongena esihongweni bengeniswa wukusina. Bahambe baye emgidini besina zonke izinsuku bese bengena esihogweni bengenela lokho kusina kwabo. Because they have no idea ukuthi ukusina kuyini. Ukusina bacabanga ukuthi yinto eyenzelwa abantu. Immediately uthatha ukusina ukuthi yinto yakho okufanele ubukwe ngabantu, you are gone. That’s why kukhona […] lento eniyenzayo, ikakhulukazi intsha […] ukube kusekhona ubaba iLanga, thina saphila ngaphansi kwababa iLanga. Ukusina akushintshwa. Njengamanje njena sekuthiwa kukhona isikotshi; lapho uthola ukuthi ngisho ukuhlabelela akusahlatshelelwa

7 Mpanza has since left eBuhleni to form his own New Nazareth Baptist Church. He was still a member of eBuhleni when this event took place.

The Sacred Dance as a Miraculous Practice in Ibandla lamaNazaretha

ngale ndlela lena uma kuthiwa kuhlatshelelwa isikotshi. Isigubhu asisa […] ayikho leyonto. Ukusina kukodwa, akudingi ukuthi kuthiwe kukhona ukusina kwensizwa kukhona ukusina kwabantu abadala. Ukusina kunesitep esisodwa. Uma sisina kufanele sikwenze ukusina kube yinto yasezulwini. Uma siko23 sifundisane ukusina. Our dancing here in twenty-three, fourteen and twenty-five meetings does not make me happy. Because we just dance. The way the sacred dance happens does not show me that we were taught what the sacred dance is. You have to be taught firstly about the religious significance of the sacred dance. That is why our dancing … Evangelist, there are many people who will go to hell because of the sacred dance. There are people who will enter hell as a result of the dance. They go to the dance and dance every day and enter hell because of that dance. Because they have no idea what the sacred dance is. They think the sacred dance is something that is done to impress people. As soon as you take the sacred dance to be something you can use to attract people’s attention, you are gone. That is why there is … this thing you do, especially the youth…if ILanga [J.G. Shembe] was still alive … We lived under the leadership of Father iLanga. The sacred dance is never changed. Nowadays it is said that there is the dance of the scotch; where you find that even the singing it is no longer the way if they sing for the scotch. The drums are no longer … that is not it. The sacred dance is the same, it should not be that there is the sacred dance for young men and the other for older men. There is one step of the dance. If we dance we should make the dance to be the dance of heaven. If we are in twenty-three meetings, we should teach each other to dance (Mpanza, Speech, September 2009, PMB).

Mpanza’s talk incorporates many of the issues concerning the sacred dance that were discussed in the previous section. An important issue which is raised here that I have not touched on in the previous section is that of the conflicting ideologies of young and old members of the church and the struggle for the definition of personal identities and the identity of the church as such. An interesting shift in his formulation is that, instead of transporting a person to heaven, if performed incorrectly, the sacred dance will send or will cause a person to go to hell. Also, he maintains that the sacred dance should be treated as something that is of heaven, meaning that it belongs to the spirits of heaven. If the living beings do it, they do it on behalf of their dead relatives, so they should be aware of that fact. But what comes out even more strongly from this speech is that the way the sacred dance is performed is not as Mpanza and many others think it should be performed. Another senior member of the church present at the workshop, Evangelist Mngwengwe, also voiced his concern about the present state of the sacred dance. His main point too was that the dance styles should be the same because Shembe taught his followers the same style. To expand on his point he told of the dream an umkhokheli (leader of women) had about the sacred dance. In his

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story, as in that of an Indian man, men are accused of using the sacred dance to attract women: Ake nginixoxele lo mzekelo maNazaretha. Uthi omunye uNkosikazi, usengumkhokheli manje, owale kwaZulu, kodwa ngokuzalwa owaseMkhambathini. Uthi inkosikazi yasezweni lakubo kwaZulu ivuke nesibonakaliso. Kwalalwa ngesikhathi nje esejwayelekile, kwaze kwashaya o- 9/ 10 le nkosikazi ingavuki. Ithe uma seyivuka le nkosikazi, ithi le nkosikazi ibikade ihambile ihambe neNkosi iNyanga yeZulu. Ithi iNyanga yeZulu “Woza lapha mntanami ngizokukhombisa ongakwazi ngikukhombise nokwaziyo. Okwaziyo yilokhu kusina osekusinwa amaNazaretha inhlayisuthi isinela ukuqonywa. Yikona-ke engizokukhombisa kona ngoba yikona oye ukubone. Inhlayisuthi incintisana ngo […] isigcawu sisinye inkundla iyinye ulayini nolayini usine okunye okungasinwa hhabanye, kodwa isihlabelelo sibe sifana.”Uthi lomama iNyanga yeZulu ithe basinela ukuqonywa. Wathi “Woza ngikukhombise!” Uthi ngempela wazibona esehamba, kwakusasinelwa esigcawini esingenzansi kungakayiwa phezulu. Uthi bathi uma befika lapho wathi “Yima-ke lapha mntanami ungabe usaqhubeka kakhulu. Bheka ngasesangweni.” Uthi zaqhamuka izimoto kwaqhamuka amabhasi. Babe wukwehla nje, ibe wukwehla nje inhlalisuthi isine. Ibe wukwehla nje ikhiphe ulayini. Nabanye besasina laba baqhamuke abanye. Uthi ukusina kwakwehlukile kodwa isihlabelelo sasisisodwa. Uthi yathi iNyanga yeZulu, “Mntanami buka ukuthi lokhu kusina kuyefana na?”Uthi yayiphethe ipeni. Ilokhu idweba nje. Ihambe isigcawu nesigcawu ifike kulabo abasinayo ibabuke ibabuke besine ithi uma isiqedile ukudweba iqhubekele kwabanye. Uthi yaziqeda zonke izigcawu uthi ithe isuka yayililahla phansi lelobhuku, yathi lelibhuku lingcolile aliyi kuShembe. Let me tell you a tale, you Nazaretha. A certain woman, she is a woman leader now, she lives in Zululand but she was born at Mkhambathini. She says a woman of their area in Zululand woke up with a dream. They went to bed at the normal time and nine/ten struck while this woman had not woken up. When she had woken up she said she had gone with Inyanga Yezulu (The Moon of Heaven, referring to Amos Shembe, the third leader). INyanga Yezulu says, “Come here you child so I will show you what you know and I will show you what you do not know. What you do know is this dance that is performed by the amaNazaretha, the men, who dance in order to attract women. It is it that I will show you because you are used to seeing it. The men competing about … in one regiment each and every line dances its own dance different from that of others but the hymn is the same.” This woman says Inyanga Yezulu said they dance so as to attract women. He said, “Come let me show you!” She says indeed she saw herself walking, by then the dances took place in the dancing ground below [meaning in the area where the main entrance to eBuhleni is], not high up [this is where isigcawu, dancing ground, is now]. She says when they arrived at the gate, he said stop here my child, do not go on any further. Look at the gate. She says the cars appeared, buses appeared. As soon as they got off, as soon as the

The Sacred Dance as a Miraculous Practice in Ibandla lamaNazaretha

men alighted, they danced. As soon as they alighted they made a line. As the ones are still dancing, the others came and started dancing. She says the dancing was different but the hymn was the same. She says the INyanga Yezulu said, “Look my child, see if this dance is the same or not.” She says he was carrying a pen. Always putting crosses. He went to every dancing regiment, watching them as they dance and after making a cross, moved to another regiment. She says he went to all the regiments and then she says he threw away that book. He said “This book is dirty; it will not go to Shembe” (Mngwengwe, Speech, September 2009, PMB).

One of the challenges facing the church today is trying to restore the sacred dance to what it used to be or to what it should be. UThingo, the father of the present leader, UNyazi Lwezulu, is reported to have told ministers to ‘correct’ the sacred dance so that he will also take part in it.8 The problem though is that there are not many people who know how exactly the sacred dance was performed during the time of Isaiah Shembe. The oldest men still dancing today started dancing in the 1950s and 1960s, and while they claim that the real dance is what they perform, this is questionable when one considers that the accusation that men were dancing to attract women, not what Shembe had taught, started in the 1940s and is exemplified in the story of the Indian man. A question asked by one member of the audience in the workshop was “Who is responsible for teaching the sacred dance?”, and there was no helpful answer. According to Mpanza, there should be a leader who will be able to go around all the regiments inspecting how they dance and stopping those who dance the ‘wrong’ way. He said the then present leader of all men, Minister Mathunjwa9 , was a quiet person by nature and does not confront people who abuse the sacred dance. But even if Mathunjwa was a different person and did confront dancers, it is still questionable to what extent his dance style is the one taught by Isaiah Shembe himself. For my purposes what is important about this issue of the sacred dance being not what it should be is not the fact that dancers may ‘go to hell’, as Mpanza stated in his speech, but the implication of this issue with regards to the agency of the members as the creators of their own dance styles. The sacred dance in the Nazaretha Church is one of the forms of expression that is used in the constitution of self-hood. The problem stated above, of there being no one who can help teach the sacred dance as it was taught by Isaiah Shembe, worries only some of the Nazaretha members. There are many sacred dance

8 I heard this from a man called Phungula who used to live in Gauteng, at George Koch Hostel. 9 Minister Mathunjwa has since passed away and before he passed away, the present leader of the church, known as uNyazi Lwezulu [Lightning of Heaven] had ended the position of a leader of all men.

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performers who spend time improvising the sacred dance styles so that they create their own vernaculars. The idea behind these improvisations is both the perfection of the sacred dance, performing it in the best possible way, and the creation of difference through competition. Competition involves declared competitions where different groups openly compete with each other in dancing for a given dance hymn, and it also involves undeclared competition where different groups or regiments and different lines in each regiment (as stated in Mngwengwe’s story) compete with each other in the sacred dance of all people. Both these senses of competition include a definition of the self, which involves an attention to the performance itself in which it is the way things are done, rather than things themselves, which are foregrounded (Erlmann: 1996, 226).

4.

Conclusionary Remarks

In this chapter I showed that, according to the members of Ibandla lamaNazaretha, there are acceptable and unacceptable ways of performing the sacred dance. I have attempted to show that while the sacred dance is ideally meant to remain unchanged and to be uniformly performed at all times, this tends not to be the case in reality. I argued that even though this is an ideal, generally accepted by many older members and members in higher positions, in reality there are many other motivations for people to take part in the sacred dance and there are many other factors that influence the performance of the sacred dance. It is through competitions (both declared and undeclared) that one actually encounters the sacred dance being used for purposes other than worshipping God and appeasing ancestors. In exploring the ideals, what the sacred dance is and how it should be performed, and the motivation for people to take part in the sacred dance – which may or may not be to worship God and appease the ancestors – I have been trying to challenge the view that the Nazaretha expressive forms, including the sacred dance, were intended to challenge the state or were a response to colonialism. The reason why these scholars hold this view is that they “[understand] the church within the framework of their own concepts” (Becken: 1996, x). Because of this, in Spivak’s terms now, in representing amaNazaretha, these scholars “represent themselves as transparent” (1988, 275).

Bibliography Bauman R./Briggs, C.L. (1990), Poetics and Performance as Critical Perspectives on Language and Social Life, Annual Review of Anthropology (19), 50–88. Bozzoli, B. (1991), Women of Phokeng: Consciousness, Life Strategy, and Migrancy in South Africa 1900–1983, Portsmouth: Heinmann.

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Becken, H.J. (1996), Introduction, in: G.C. Oosthuizen/I. Hexham (eds), The Story of Isaiah Shembe: History and Traditions Centred at EKuphakameni and Mount Nhlangakazi. (Vol.1), Lewiston/Queenstown/Lampeter: Edwin Mellen Press. Brown, D. (1999), Orality and Christianity: The Hymns of Isaiah Shembe and the Church of the Nazarites, in D. Brown (ed.), Oral Literature and Performance in Southern Africa, Oxford: James Currey; Cape Town: David Philip, 195–219. Brown, D. (1998), Voicing the Text: South African Oral Poetry and Performance, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Erlman, V. (1996), Nightsong: Performance, Power and Practice in South Africa, Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Gunner, E. (2002/2004), The Man of Heaven and the Beautiful Ones of God: Writings from Ibandla lamaNazaretha, a Nazaretha Church, Leiden/London/Köln: Brill; Pietermaritzburg: University of KwaZulu-Natal Press. Hexham, I. (ed.) (1994), The Scriptures of the AmaNazaretha of Ekuphakameni: Selected Writings of the Zulu Prophets Isaiah and Londa Shembe (trans. L. Shembe and H.J. Becken), Calgary: University of Calgary Press. Hofmeyr, I. (2004), Books in Heaven: Dreams, Texts and Conspicuous Circulation, Paper presented in English Studies Research Seminar, UKZN, Pietermaritzburg. Mbembe, A. (2002), African Modes of Self-writing, Public Culture 14 (1), 239–273. Mpanza, M. (1999), Izwi Lezulu, Empangeni: Excellentia Publishers. Mthethwa, B. (1996), The Hymns of the Nazaretha, unfinished PhD Thesis. (ed.) Carol Muller. Muller, C. (1999), Rituals of Fertility and the Sacrifice of Desire: Nazarite Women’s Performances in South Africa, Chicago/London: University of Chicago Press. Ntarangwi, M. (2003), Gender, Identity and Performance. Understanding Swahili Cultural Realities through Song, Trenton/Asmara: Africa World Press. Oosthuizen, G.C./Hexham, I. (ed.) (1996), The Story of Isaiah Shembe. History and Traditions Centred at Ekuphakameni and Mount Nhlangakazi (vol. 1), (trans. H.J. Becken) Lewiston/Queenstown/Lampeter: Edwin Mellen Press. Papini, R. (1999), Carl Faye’s Transcript of Isaiah Shembe’s Testimony of His Early Life and Calling, Journal of Religion in Africa, 29 (3), 243–284. Sharpe, J. (1989), Figures of Colonial Resistance, Modern Fiction Studies 35 (1), 137–155. Sithole, N. (2016), Isaiha Shembe’s Hymns and the Sacred Dance in Ibandla Lama Nazaretha, Leiden/Boston: Brill. Spivak, G.C. (1988), Can the Subaltern Speak?, in C. Nelson/L. Grossberg (eds.), Marxism and the Interpretation of Culture, London: Macmillan, 271–313. Sundkler, B./Bantu, G.M. (1961), Prophets in South Africa. London/New York/Toronto: Oxford University Press. Vilakazi, A. et al. (1986), Shembe. The Revitalisation of African Society, Johannesburg: Skotaville Publishers.

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White, L. (1989), Poetic Licence. Oral Poetry and History, in K. Barber/P.F. de Moraes Farias (ed.), Discourse and its Disguises: The Interpretation of African Oral Texts. Birmingham: Centre of West African Studies, University of Birmingham, 34–38.

Part III Dance in Different Religious Traditions: Historic and Contemporary Perspectives

Susanne Talabardon

Dance in Hasidic Judaism

1.

Dance in Jewish Tradition Let them praise his name in dance; with timbrel and lyre let them chant His praise (Ps 149:3).

Both in the Hebrew Bible and in classical texts of the Jewish tradition (such as the Mishnah and Talmud) we find various references to dance – mainly as part of rituals or spontaneous expressions of joy.1 We hear of the prophetess Miriam leading a dance for women after the people were saved from the floods and Pharaoh (Exod 15:20–21).2 We experience the proverbial “dance around the golden calf” (Exod 32:6). On the other hand, almost nothing is known about dance shapes, steps, or movements. One of the rare exceptions could be the solemn inauguration of the ark in Jerusalem, which sparked an enthusiastic dance of the king of jumping and turning and the queen’s disapproval. Meanwhile, David and all the House of Israel danced before the Lord to [the sound of] all kinds of cypress wood [instruments], with lyres, harps, timbrels, sistrums, and cymbals. […] David went and brought up the Ark of God from the house of Obed – edom to the City of David, amid rejoicing. When the bearers of the Ark of the Lord had moved forward six paces, he sacrified an ox and a fatling. David whirled with all his might before the Lord; David was girt with a linen ephod. Thus David and the House of Israel brought up the Ark of the Lord with shouts and with blasts of the horn (2 Sam 6:5.12–15, New JPS).

In the research literature, the question is discussed what Queen Michal was bothered by.3 Was it the possibly inappropriately frugal dress of the husband or the dance that was not befitting a king? Unfortunately, the information in the text regarding

1 Barzilai: 2019 resumes: “Dance appears in the Bible in two main forms: as part of victory celebrations following war, or as a religious act” (71). 2 Similarly: The victorious dance of Jephthas daughter in Judg 11:34. 3 Cf. 2 Sam 6:16 (New JPS): “As the Ark of the LORD entered the City of David, Michal daughter of Saul looked out of the window and saw King David leaping and whirling before the LORD; and she despised him for it.”

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David’s clothing is rather sparse: a linen ephod is the one in which he makes his appearance (cf. 2. Sam 6: 14: ‫( ) ְו ָד ִ֛וד ְמַכ ְר ֵ֥כּר ְבָּכל־ֹ֖ﬠז ִלְפ ֵ֣ני ְיהָ֑וה ְו ָד ִ֕וד ָח ֖גוּר ֵא֥פוֹד ָֽבּד‬David whirled with all his might before the LORD; David was girt with a linen ephod.) The closest parallel to this dress code is the priestly attire that was appropriate for a ritual use of the holy ark. (cf. 1 Sam 2:18; Grintz/Sperling: 2007, 456). This leads to the assumption that the Queen was disturbed by the ecstatic dance of her husband, which in her opinion did not correspond to a royal habitus. Such a puritanical attitude, however, corresponded neither to the view of the biblical authors nor to that of rabbinical scholars centuries later – as the following report shows. The Babylonian Talmud affectionately describes the enthusiastic dance around the sanctuary in Jerusalem, which was danced every year at the waterdrawing festival (the Simchat Bet Hashoevah) during Sukkot (Feast of Tabernacles) They said: he who has not seen the Simchat Bet Hashoevah has never seen rejoicing in his life. At the conclusion of the first festival day of Sukkot they descended to the Women’s Court (Ezrat Nashim) and they would make there a great enactment. And golden candlesticks were there, and four golden bowls on the top of each of them and four ladders to each, and four youths drawn from the young priests, and in their hands there were jars of oil containing one hundred and twenty logs which they poured into the bowls. […] Men of piety and good deeds used to dance before them with lighted torches in their hands, and they would sing songs and praises. And Levites with innumerable harps, lyres, cymbals and trumpets and other musical instruments stood upon the fifteen steps leading down from the Court of the Israelites to the Court of the Women, corresponding to the fifteen songs of ascents in the Psalms, and it was on these [steps] that the Levites stood with their musical instruments and sang their songs (Babylonian Talmud, Sukka 51a.b).

It goes without saying that dancing at personal celebrations such as weddings and births was just as natural as in any other culture. After the destruction of the Jerusalem Temple by the Roman the Talmudic scholars ruled to refrain from public dance events (cf. Fenton: 2000, 136). The adherence to the ban, however, was largely due to the status of the Jewish communities as minorities under Muslim or Christian rule rather than the exorbitant piety of the people. In Ashkenas, the larger Jewish communities had a Tanzhaus (dance hall) for weddings or other festive occasions. In this way they remained hidden from the eyes of the Christian public. In general, the forms of Jewish (folk) dance could hardly be distinguished from their respective cultural context (cf. Lapson: 2008, 410).

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2.

Hasidism

With the rise of Eastern European H.asidism in the 18th century, the situation changed fundamentally. The dance gained great importance for the followers of the movement. This has a lot to do with the fact that the (mythical) founder of Hasidism, Israel ben Eliezer Ba’al Shem Tov (1699–1760)4 , developed different focuses for the Jewish rite. His teaching propagated new insights because (unlike most of his contemporaries) he made less reference to the Lurianic Kabbalah.5 In the 17th century the mystical system of Yitzchak Luria and his disciples took precedence over all other Kabbalistic systems. It dominated practically every theosophical tendency in Judaism until the 19th century. The Ba’al Shem Tov, however, mainly referred to other, sometimes much older, forms of Jewish mysticism (cf. Doktór: 2011; Grözinger: 2005, 29–64.303–393, Talabardon: 2016, 50). His theological system takes its starting point in cosmogony: Since everything created came into being through the word of God, everything that exists is based on the Hebrew alphabet. The 22 Hebrew letters are the actual instruments of creation and preservation. The Hebrew alphabet – starting with the Alef and descending to the taw, contains the essence of God. But the beginning of creation came through the letter Alef, because it is wisdom. And He created everything by wisdom, as it is said: “You made them all of with wisdom” [Ps 104:24]. Because the letters were chained from top to bottom and He created everything He created: with twenty-two letters from Alef to Taw. And everything created by a letter that is close to the highest is higher than that created by the letter Taw, which is the last letter. […] Behold, the spirituality of God is in the middle of the letter Alef and is hidden in it and he created the light from the letter Alef. And this is the light of Atzilut.6 And then he covered himself with the letter Alef in the middle of the letter Bet and created the world of creatures [Beri’a]. […] And afterwards he covered himself again: with the letter Bet in the middle of the letter Gimel and created the worlds below the world Beri’a until

4 Israel ben Eliezer is usually known as the Besh”t – an acronym from Ba’al Shem Tov. 5 Lurianic Kabbalah is a school of Jewish esoteric tradition which has been named after Yitzhak Luria (1534–1572; also known as the Ar”i or Ari’zal. 6 Atzilut (i.e. noblesse) is the highest area of a sequence of four worlds (‫ אצילות‬/ Atzilut - ‫ בּ ִר ָיה‬/ ‫ י‬Beri’a (creation) – ‫ יצירה‬/ Jezira (formation) – ‫ ֲﬠשׂ ָיה‬/ Assi’a (being made) that emerge from each other. Apart from Atzilut, which (in the older Kabbalah) designates the power of emanation itself, the three lower worlds are named according to biblical terms of creation. With decreasing proximity to the divine core of the emanation, the materiality of the worlds increases – until it is, so to speak, most condensed in the Assi’a.

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he covered himself with the letter Taw. And he created the lower worlds called Malkhut7 (Toledot Jakob Josef, Parashat Beréschit, fol. 8d).8

So God reveals himself in the work of His creation and at the same time is concealed in it. This concept leads to the ontological principle that no place in the world is free from divine presence. The Eternal God is present in every object, in every living being, in every spoken word, in every human gesture. In the basic statement that no place in the world is devoid of Him, the very heart of Hasidic thought is to be found. As there are twenty-two letters in the words of the Torah and prayer there are twenty-two letters in every part of matter and of corporeality in the world. The world and everything in it has been created through them. Only that the letters are enveloped in the matter, in the objects of the world by various garments and shells. But inside the letters breathes the spirituality of the Holy, blessed be He. Because His Holiness, blessed be He, fills the entire earth and everything in it; and there is no place void of Him. […] Only that He is concealed. But if the men of knowledge know about this concealment, there is no concealment and no change for them (Sefer Ba’al Shem Tov I, 39 §11).

In fact, the notion that God is present in every part of the universe has enormous ethical and ritual consequences. It ultimately means that nothing in the world can be considered ontologically evil. What appears dark or evil is only more hidden and veiled. It can be lifted and saved. Its divine root has to be recognized and discovered. For the believing Jew, this means that every single word, every ordinary work, every prayer could and should become a divine service if – and only if – it is carried out with inner contact to its divine root. This kind of conscious living is called worship in corporeality (Avoda ba-Gashmi’ut – ‫)עבודה בגשמיות‬. “The earth is full of His majesty” (Isa 6:3). There is no big or small thing that is separate from Him, because He is in all reality, all of them. Therefore, however, the perfect human being can unite the highest unities even in his physical actions, be it eating and drinking,

7 Malkhut (‫ ;מלכות‬i.e. kingship) is the lowest of ten Sefirot (divine emanations), which represents the divine presence on earth. 8 Since the Ba’al Shem Tov has hardly left any writings of his own, it is necessary to reconstruct his teachings from the works of his early followers and companions. Among the most important sources of this kind are the homilies of Ja’akov Josef (died 1783), of which the Tol’edot (literally ‘generations’, story of a genetic line) Ja’akov Josef are the earliest. Very soon after the death of Israel ben Eli’eser Ba’al Shem Tov, his statements were extracted from these works and compiled into anthologies, of which the Sefer Ba’al Shem tov (Book of Ba’al Shem tov) is one of the most recent.

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sleeping, trading and changing or the material matters between people (Sefer Ba’al Schem Tov I, 97, § 189).

One should cling to God, who is hidden everywhere in every single moment of his life. The Hebrew term for this behavior is devequt (‫‘ – דבקות‬attachment’) and there we have another central concept of early Hasidism.9 The devequt as the spiritual awareness of the presence of the Eternal in everyday life enables the ‘uplifting’ of the ‘sparks’, particles of divine substance hidden in creation, which have to be returned to its source. The ‘uplifting of the sparks’ substantiates the process of Tikkun haOlam (repairing of the world), as it is already described in the Lurianic Kabbalah. Inner prerequisites for finding those sparks and their ‘unification’ with their divine roots, however, is human union with them qua devequt. In fact, these practical consequences of Beshtian ontology were the most impressive parts of his teaching. Many of his followers were drawn to the joy and optimism, associated with the idea that every ordinary act could be elevated to God. Asceticism and sadness could give way to simple joy in the light of the divine presence. The effects on body movements, such as dance, are equally evident. This human activity can also have a positive influence on creation, as a service in joy or as an Avoda ba-Gashmi’ut (worship in corporeality).The Ba’al Shem Tov taught his followers that “the dances of the Jew before his Creator are prayers”, and quoted the Psalmist, “All my bones shall say: ‘Lord, who is like unto Thee?’” (Ps 35:10).10 The sheer possibility of a comprehensive unity of creation, hidden in the letters of the alphabet, is rooted in the Kabbalistic conviction that creation and revelation should be considered as one single process. The so-called Etz Chajim (Tree of Life), the hierarchical unfolding of the Eternal in ten Sefirot (divine emanations), reflects the structure of all being: Be it God himself, His world or human. Moreover, all systems are connected to each other. If one Etz Chajim, or its Sefirot is affected by something, the others will be influenced by it as well. If mankind commits substantial evil, God will suffer. The manifold layers of identification within the system of Sefirot (including colours, biblical figures, ethical values and parts of the human body) serve as a hermeneutical tool for the reinterpretation of biblical or rabbinic tradition. But they can also explain physical movements that have far-reaching influences. Both phenomena, the pan-entheistic teaching of Ba’al Shem Tov, according to which God is essentially omnipresent, as well as the Kabbalistic basic belief that

9 For the Hasidic concept of devequt cf. Idel (2013); Rapoport-Albert (1979). The idea of cleaving to God is, of course, a classic in the history of Jewish spirituality (cf. Schmidt: 1995). 10 Cf. Fenton: 1999, 71. A look at the numerous Hasidic interpretations of Psalm 35:10 would be worthwhile.

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God, world and man have the same sefirotic structure form the background for a new appreciation of dance as theurgical act.

3.

Hasidic Narrativs Reflecting Pan-entheistic Theory

The problems of research on Hasidic legends usually begin with a vivid debate on how to define the term ‘legend’ and whether hasidic tales could be classified as such. A general definition of legend, which helps understanding specifically religious tales, can be borrowed from Linda Dégh: She describes legends as the narrative legacy of clearly defined groups, who share a common belief system. Hasidic legends were, thus, created to express ethical norms and religious values of the respective Hasidic groups telling them (cf. Dégh, Vászony: 1976). The following example was given to honor Moshe Leib von Sasów (1745–1807), a Hasidic master, who worked in eastern Galicia. He was a Torah scholar, known and praised for his humility. Many stories tell of his efforts to buy prisoners free and to help widows, orphans and the poor. And when the righteous [Reb Feiwes]11 came to Sassów, he heard that a letter had come from Berdiczów that the holy Rebbe from Berdiczów12 was seriously ill and that the holy Rebbe from Sassów should pray for him. Then he reminded him that they had always danced and did so especially in the hour of the sacred dances on the holy Shabbat, at night. […] And it happened on the holy Shabbat, at night, when the holy Rebbe, Rabbi Moshe Leib, took new, expensive sandals made from Saffian leather and put them on and began to dance. And it reported [a Hasid]13 that these dances were very sublime things. With every single movement, terrible and wonderful Yichudim would have happened until the whole house was filled with light, so that almost all of the upper Sefirot danced with him. One thing no mind can ever grasp! (Bodek: 1897, 40).14

11 Addition by the author. 12 Levi Yitzchak (1740–1809) was one of the leading figures in the circle around Dov Ber of Międzyrzecz (1704–1772), the “Great Maggid”. Dov Ber was considered the heir and successor of the Baal Shem Tov by the Hasidic historiography and was, in fact, the true organizer and disseminator of the emerging movement. Levi Yitzchak was, like Dov Ber a scion of a family of rabbis, but developed into a folk hero, defending the Jewish people against all and everyone (cf. Dresner: 1986; Green: 2010). 13 Addition by the author. 14 Rebbe (Yiddish: Rabbi) is the respectful name of a Hasidic tzaddik. Yihudim are man-made mystical unions in the upper spheres.

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This little story stresses that every single detail matters for the success of a healing intervention. The famous Rabbi and popular Hasidic master Levi Jitzchak of Berdiczów was seriously ill. Nothing can, thus, be left to chance: A holy man has to dance in the holiest hour – during the night of Sabbath. And he has to take sandals made from morocco leather, nothing else can be of help. Only then unification could be brought about – only then it was possible to create conjugal harmony between the heavenly Sefirot and to spread blessing on earth. Moshe Leib succeeded in pulling the primordial light down from the heavenly realms into his house – so that finally all elements were included in his dance. What should now stand in the way of healing? It would be easy to add other legends on Hasidic masters dancing to heal people or to safeguard the Jewish community against gezerot (persecution decrees), which are harsh decrees of mostly Christian authorities to oppress the Jewish minority. Some rebbes were even famed for their dancing abilities – for instance the Shpoler Zejde15 , a disciple of Pinchas of Korzec (1726–1791) who, for his part, theorized about the mystical meaning of dance (cf. Fenton: 2000, 138) The Hasidic stories and homilies tell of round dances, circle dances, solo and couple dances, meditative or with acrobatic interludes, some of which presented a kind of content-related program.16 The annual festivals (especially Simchat Torah, the feast of the joy of the Torah, which concludes the day of the Succot), the Shabbat and the Rites de passage (here again especially the wedding)17 offered a welcome occasion for dancing, whereby in Hasidic circles a strict separation of the sexes was and is to be observed.18

15 Aryeh Leib, the so-called Shpoler Zejde (i.e. grandfather of Szpola), lived from 1725 to 1812. Despite his old age, he belonged to the third generation of Hasidic Rebbe. He was a typical example of a popular miracle worker Rebbe. The Shpoler Zejde, who had never excelled in his knowledge of the Talmud or Kabbalah, was in a heated argument with Nahman of Bratzlav and other elite tzaddikim (righteous ones) 16 “Outre les rondes, il arrive que les Hassidim pratiquent des danses en duo ou en solo. Les danses de la première catégorie prennent la forme d’un jeu chorégraphique qui rapelle la Broigez-tanz (‘danse de Discorde’) empruntée au répertoire nuptial. Les partenaires cherchent d’abord à s’éviter en se faisant des gestes taquins et aggresifs. Un changement dans la cadence musicale, qui devient douce et langoureuse, déclenche, au contraire, des motifs de reconciliation où il se mettent à danser ensemble. Une variante – la Tekhiyas ha-mêsîm tanz (‘danse de la Résurrection’) – est un simulacre de combat, de meurtre et de retour à la vie” (Fenton: 1999, 72). For other traditional Jewish dance choreographies cf. Lapson: 1963, 59. 17 For wedding dances in their historical development cf. Friedhaber: 1994, 57–58. 18 The separation of sexes was demanded by Jewish scholars since the early Middle Ages and just as often ignored in practice (cf. Friedhaber: 1994, 56). In the very traditionally composed Jewish movements such as the Hasidic, however, it is undisputed. Gender segregation is, thus, expressed in the so-called mitzvah dance, in which the Rebbes dare a ritual dance with the bride of a devotee –

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4.

Nahman of Bratzlav: A Theory about Music as a Theurgical Act

One of the most important and interesting thinkers regarding the role of music and dance in Jewish spirituality was arguably the most significant descendant of Ba’al Shem Tov, Nahman of Bratzlav (1772–1810). Life and teaching of the Bratzlaver Rebbe are deeply interwoven, which is why some aspects of Nahman’s biography will be roughly outlined here. Furthermore, his life, as it was meticulously described by his closest student Nathan Sternharz from Niemirow (1780–1845), could be seen as the mythological blueprint of a hasidic hagio-biography. Nahman was born in Międzybozh – which was the birthplace of the Hasidic movement thanks to the Ba’al Shem who once lived there. Nahmans mother Feige was the granddaughter of the Ba’al Shem Tov. His father was a son of Nahman from Horodenka (died 1772), who belonged to the outstanding followers of the Ba’al Shem Tov. Nahman was the only male descendant of the most distinguished Hasidic family which can be imagined. It is not difficult to imagine what enormous expectations were placed on the only heir of the highest Hasidic nobility.19 He received an excellent traditional Jewish education. His works show a deep familiarity with the Bible, the Talmud and the Halachic codices (Jewish law), the Zohar (literally “splendor”, group of scriptures which represent the main stream of the Castilian Kabbalah), the Lurian scriptures and the Mussar (moral) literature. On the other hand, the intense attention given to him was a heavy burden. An increasing shyness, a feeling of loneliness could have shaped his early years. No one was there to share his fear, no one to help him out of his spiritual doubts and disappointments. An early marriage, which was arranged for him, took him to the utmost outskirts of Jewish settlements in Podolia. Nahman suffered considerable internal doubts and temptations. The tension between Hitqarevut and Hitrachaqut, the experience of closeness and distance from God, became a constant companion of his short life. The drastic breaks between spiritual elevation and depression shaped the entire life of the Bratzlav Rebbe. Despite his internal struggles and isolation, he cherished the early years of his marriage far away from the centres of Hasidic life. Nahman developed a close connection with nature: he often went to the woods and meadows to pray; a practice he later strongly recommended to his followers. Each shepherd has a special melody, according to the grass, where he feeds his herd. Each individual animal has its own special grass that it must eat. Since the shepherd does not

but chastely separated from a handkerchief that both hold and (of course) without eye contact (cf. also Friedhaber, 1985/86). 19 Cf. Green: 1981 who has presented a sensitive and profound account of Nahman’s life and work.

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always graze his herd in the same spot, his melody varies depending on the locations, as he leads them there. […] Each blade of grass has its own song. The shepherd’s tune is made from all these songs. […] But because the shepherd knows the melody, he in turn gives the grasses strength and the cattle have pasture. But the melody is also good for the shepherd himself. Because the shepherd is always with the cattle, it is possible that they will continue and bring the shepherd down from the aspect of his human spirit to the animal spirit until the shepherd grazes himself. […] But he is saved by the melody, because the melody clears the mind (Nahman of Brazlav: 1999, LM II, 63).

This wonderful parable – which, of course, speaks of the close relationship between charismatic leaders and his followers – describes music as the most important spiritual means of uplifting the spirit and keeping the harmony between all living beings on earth. Nahman’s public life began when he accepted to be the Rebbe of a group of local followers. It quickly became clear that he intended to present a new Hasidism that was stripped of all the features of popular spirituality. He wanted to return to his great-grandfather’s intention that each of the Hasidic followers would be a tzaddik. He touted suffering as his path to spiritual restoration. The inner struggle became the most essential religious reality. However, this path was reserved for a spiritual elite. Nahman refused the status of tzaddik for everyone, a popular Rebbe who focused on helping out in worldly matters. However, the more he asked of himself to rise his followers, the more he suffered from self-doubt and feelings of guilt. No wonder, then, that Nahman felt an inner need for a higher spiritual level, which he wanted to achieve through a journey to Israel (1798–1799). This pilgrimage is considered one of the decisive turning points in his life. His visit to the cave of Shimon Bar Jochai, the mystical author of the Zohar (literally “splendor”, foundational books of the Kabbalah) became the spiritual highlight of his stay in Israel. Later in life, Nahman saw himself as the reincarnation of Shimon Bar Jochai – certainly a recourse to this visit. After his return from Israel in summer 1799, he immediately returned to his struggle against popular Hasidism. In 1802, exhausted by the violent and futile dispute, he settled in Bratzlav – the place from which he and his followers eventually borrowed their name. He designed his entry into town as a spiritual conquest in the footsteps of biblical Abraham and Joshua. The spiritual action is secured with a personal and local transfer: Like Abraham on his journey into the unknown, Nahman, the new Abraham, discovered the hidden axis mundi in Bratzlav. As Joshua conquered the city of Jericho, the new Joshua, Nahman, took over the small Ukrainian town: namely with music and dance. In the case of Bratzlav, however, the conqueror did not use wind instruments, but – his own hands and immediately develops a mystical theory from it:

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Concerning Clapping Hands during Prayer: Our Sages have taught (Bereishit Rabbah 1:2): Why did the Torah start with “In the beginning”? For the nations will say to us, “You are thieves! You occupied the land of the seven nations.”20 “His powerful works He told to His nation to give them the heritage of the peoples” (Ps 111:6).21 Because of this, “His powerful works He told to His nation.” He told them that all the worlds are entirely the work of His hands. And the Holy One gives to the ones He favors. This is, “to give them the heritage of the peoples.” For everything is under His control, and all things are called “His KoaCh (powerful) works” – paralleling the Khaf Chet (twenty-eight) letters of the Act of Creation, paralleling the twenty-eight sections of the hands. And it is known that the air of the land of the nations is impure, whereas the air of the Land of Israel is holy and pure, because the Holy One took it out of the hands of the nations and gave it to us. But [in] the land of the nations – it being outside the Land – there, the air is impure. Thus when we clap hands, we thereby rouse the twenty-eight letters of Creation, “His KoaCh works.” We see, then, that it is within His hands to give us the heritage of the peoples. For everything belongs to the Holy One. With this, we have the koach (potency) in our hands to purify the air of the land of the nations, because the land of the nations returns to the Holy One’s rule. And it is within His hands to give it to whomever he wants, as is written, “to give them the heritage of the peoples.” Then, the place in which the Jewish person prays is purified, and he breathes in holy air as in the Land of Israel (Liqquté Mohara“n [LM] 44,1. 1–5 [Mykoff]. Highlighting in the original).

This small but complex sermon assumes the Jewish axiom of a Creatio Continua – which means that creation is an open process in which people participate every day. In addition, it is believed that Jewish life outside the Holy Land, i.e. in the Diaspora, is a cultic problem that can only be solved by a sanctifying act. The town of Bratzlav is being purified, music and dance are the means of a kind of ritual conquest.22 But how does it work? Here we have to come back to the Kabbalistic concepts of a correspondence between divine and cosmological processes. The Hebrew word for δύναμις (potency) is ko’ach (‫)כח‬. The numeric value of this term is 28.23 According to traditional Jewish understanding, the human hand has fourteen 20 Nahman refers to the late antique midrash Bereshit (Genesis) Rabba I,2: “Rabbi Yehoshua of Sichnin in the name of Rabbi Levi opened [with the verse (Tehillim 111:6),]: ‘The power of His works he told to His people [Yisrael].’ Why did Hashem reveal to Yisrael that which was created on the first day, and the second day [and so forth]? Because of the idolaters – so that they will not embitter Yisrael and say to them, ‘Are you not a nation of thieves?’ […] [T]he entire world belongs to Hashem; thus, when it pleased Him, He gave it to you, and when it pleased Him, He took it from you and gave it to us.” 21 Ps 111:6 reads: “He revealed to His people His powerful works in giving them the heritage of nations” (‫) ֣כֹּ ַח ַ ֭מֲﬠָשׂיו ִה ִ֣גּיד ְלַﬠ֑מּוֹ ָל ֵ֥תת ָ֝לֶ֗הם ַנֲח ַ֥לת גּוֹ ִֽים‬. 22 For an interpretation of this sermon cf. Cunz: 1997. 23 ‫ כ‬20 (and) ‫ ח‬8.

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elements (which, by the way, corresponds to its numerological value) – if you bring the two hands together you get ko’ach, dýnamis. So it happens that a simple movement has cosmological effects. In this way, Nahman’s conquest of Bratzlav occurs without trumpets, but no less effectively. But the potential of singing, clapping hands and dancing goes much further. It is by no means restricted to individual cleaning operations. In another sermon, Nahman comes back to the subject. It was written around Purim (literally “lots”, Festival which commemorates the rescue of the Jewish people from a persecution in Persia), in 1803. At that time, Tsar Alexander I issued an edict that contained a number of regulations (“ordinances on the Jews”) on forced recruitment and secular schooling. Nahman decided to go against the decree – by clapping his hands and dancing. In fact, the decree did not come into force until 1827, 16 years after Nahman’s death, which his followers interpreted as the Rebbe’s personal success: When, God forbid, there are Divine Judgements/decrees affecting the Jewish people, through dancing and hand-clapping these Divine judgements/ decrees can be mitigated. And this corresponds to dancing and hand-clapping, because dancing and clapping are drawn from the spirit in the heart. As is readily observable, when a person’s heart is happy he dances and claps his hands. […] And when the feet are lifted up in dance, corresponding to “His heart carried his feet” [BerR 70:8],24 haughtiness – idolatry – is eliminated. And through this, all Divine judgements/decrees are mitigated (LM 10,1 Mykoff).25

Music and dance can therefore not only evoke ritual purification, but also repeal dangerous decrees. Decrees that threatened the existence of the Jewish minority were constant companions in everyday life. The repeal of such decisions was therefore part of the standard repertoire of Jewish charismatics. However, the use of music and dance for such a purpose can be considered a proprium of the Hasidic tzaddikim. Its effect is based on the kabbalistic conviction that the basic structure of man, world and God are identical and interconnected. Hence, the actions of one of the parties can affect all the others. Therefore, in their charismatic rescue operations, the Tzaddikim use rituals that suggest reciprocal movements: lifting the feet in a dance could, for example, raise dangerous edicts. Nathan Sternhartz, Nachman’s secretary and faithful biographer, sometimes offers popular versions of the very complex texts of his master. In his Hayé Mohara“n he refers to the sermon just considered and writes: 24 Cf. Gen 29:1: “Jacob lifted his feet” with Prov 14:30: A “tranquil heart is the life of the flesh” – “Since [Jacob] had been given these good tidings, his heart carried his feet.” 25 A further statement on the subject of Gezerot and dance can be found in LM I, 169.1.6. Here, however, Nahman expresses himself sceptical about the question of whether one can even find the ease to dance in such difficult times.

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He used this lesson as an example. It teaches that dancing and clapping can mitigate the harshest oppression. He bid us to take the lesson at face value and actually make an effort to make merry on our joyous holiday such as Purim and Chanukkah as well as at happy occasions such as weddings. At such times, he said, we should make ourselves feel the true joy of obeying G-d’s commandments. We can make ourselves so elated that we actually dance and clap our hands in joy. This is what abates the harshness of decrees against us. Do not say, “Who can be worthy of nullifying an evil decree through mere dancing and clapping? Certainly only the holies of men!” (Nathan of Nemirov: 1984, Sichot ha-Ra”n 131, 260).

The death of his only son in the summer of 1806, a fire in Bratzlav in the autumn of the same year, and the death of his wife in the spring of 1807 prompted him to change his path once more. He began to tell his famous fantastic stories, the Sippuré Ma’assiot (cf. Green: 1992, 222–232). A few months after his wife’s death, Nahman developed the same disease (tuberculosis). He fought it for four years, but lost the battle and died in Uman on October 15, 1810. Because of this constellation, some of his later texts clearly show testamentary features. This also applies to the following speech that his secretary Nathan Sternhartz reproduced in the Chajjé Moharan: As yet the world has not had the least taste of me. If they were to hear just one of my lessons together with its proper melody and dance they would pass into a state of total surrender. I mean the whole world – even the animals and plants! Everything that exists would be nullified.26 Their very souls would expire from the overwhelming delight they would have. If you want to understand this, think of the power of music and dance. Someone who really knows music can play melodies, which stem from the very essence of music, melodies that have the power to draw the very soul of the listener after their very nuance. The listener becomes total subordinate to the melody: he surrenders himself to the drawing power of the music. The melody breaks through him and draws him in its train. This is even more so in the case of dance. Someone who really knows how to dance can dance in such a way that his body expresses every subtle shade of the music he is dancing to. Every limb of his body has to move in accordance with the music: there are times when the music call for a movement of the head, the legs or the arms, etc., or it may call for the dancer to bend down and swerve. The movements of the body have to be in perfect harmony with the music. Now let us go a stage further and think of a melody with words. In a perfect song, the words of the song are bound up with the melody in every single detail. The song expresses

26 A sophisticated kabbalistic version of this rather popular description is to be found in LM I, 32.1.

Dance in Hasidic Judaism

in words exactly the same as the music expresses through the beauty of the melody. Now add the element of dance: the dance expresses in terms of bodily movement what the words and music express in their terms. Everything works in harmony. When the words, the melody and the dance are all related to each other and woven together in a perfect unity, anyone who is worthy of experiencing them will be so overwhelmed by delight, his soul will literally expire and he will fall into a state of great surrender. This is the greatest of all pleasures. Anyone who has not tasted this knows nothing of pleasure. Happy is the eye that sees this, because even in the next world not everyone will be worthy of hearing and seeing this (Hayé Mohara“n 340; II, 4.1 [Mykoff 1987, 301–302]).

The homily works with the experience that through music and dance (ideally) body and soul are in complete harmony with each other and act in complete unity. In a perfect flow of melody and movement, no one could see who is leading and who is following. The inner unity of music and dance may therefore serve as a perfect simile for the doctrine of the Sefirot. The ten-part system that depicts the revealed part of the divine sphere as well as the structure of its creation is designed for universal harmony and, thus, finds its clear echo in this popular version of the musico-theology of Bratzlaver. The tzaddik, in the present case Nachman, sings and dances. He evokes a heavenly joy, which triggers a universal harmony in melody, words and dance in the human soul. Thus, he awakens the longing for unity with the universe through which divine powers flow. His dance is irresistible in the best sense, the listeners and viewers run the risk of getting lost in the pure bliss of God.

5.

Conclusionary Remarks

The appreciation of dance was not and is not shared equally by all Hasidic branches. In the dynasties that originate from Galicia and Volhynia, the Avoda “with all the limbs”, the emotionally recited and musically supported prayer, has been cultivated and justified since the days of Ba’al Shem Tov. Ps 35:10 “All my members say: Who, the Eternal, is like you?” was put into practice in this sense. In the northern parts of the former Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, however, some Hasidic leaders opted more for moderation and discretion. Especially the founder of the influential Chaba”d Lubavitch (a Hasidic dynasty), Schne’ur Salman von Ljady (1745–1813), detested chaos and somersaults during prayer, which ran counter to his profile as a scholar. Later observers were intrigued. This applies, for example, to the great American dance teacher Dvora Lapson (1907–1996). During her field studies in Poland in 1937, she had several opportunities to watch Hasidim dance. She was particularly impressed by the Galician Hasidim dance to Simchat Torah:

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With his eyes closed and his face glowing with ecstasy he led the joyous dance procession of the Torahs. The procession slowed down many times as the Zaddik danced four steps forward, four steps back, swaying the tremendous scroll from right to left as if it were as light as a prayer book. Wide-eyed Hasidim followed with their Torahs in simple steps, and bending of knees to the rhythm of the music. Following the replacing of the Torahs in the Ark, the Zaddik embraced his nearest disciple in a dance of joy. They were joined by another and another, swinging around in quick steps. Among them was an old man over a hundred years. With halting steps and hands held high, he followed his Zaddik, proud to be so close to him (cf. Feldmann: 1937, 110. Quoted after Feldmann: 1949, 67).

Memorial books of the Jewish places destroyed by the Germans, will often offer loving descriptions of Hasidic dance, as they were to be admired in the twenties and thirties of the 20th century: One instance of the beauty of Hasidism is revealed when Hasidim ascend to the highest reaches of heaven to worship the Creator with joy, namely on days of rest. Such days were quite frequent. Besides the holidays and the first day of each month [rosh khoydesh],27 where the content of Hasidism was expressed, there were also saints’ memorial days [yortsaytn shel tsadikim]28 such as Hoshana Raba [Feast of Tabernacles], the third day in Kheshvan, the nineteenth day of Kislev,29 etc. On these occasions great feasts were held, although what truly mattered was not the food but the atmosphere. The celebration would start with a quiet melody (nigun)30 which would slowly turn into full-voiced singing accompanied by fervent dancing, the atmosphere becoming more and more ecstatic. While watching the dancers at such moments you could not but feel that they had left all earthly matters behind, so to speak, and had ascended to higher realms. We, the boys of the kloyz,31 would wait in great anticipation for these hours of joy (Horovits: 1956).

On Shabbat and feast days, at weddings, processions and seasons, people danced and sang, especially in the villages and cities of Galicia and Ukraine, if there were Hasidic groups. The nigunim were and are even more widespread than the dance of the Rebbe and his followers. There is hardly a Hasidic branch that does not have a specific tradition of melodies that goes back to one of its rebbes. Tish-nigunim, sung during the festive Shabbat meal or on the occasion of the festive receptions

27 The new moon, in Hebrew Rosh Chodesch, was greeted with special rites. 28 Jorzejt means the anniversary of the death of a person. 29 Cheshwan (November / October) and Kislev (November / December) are months in the Jewish calendar. 30 A nigun is a melody without words. 31 A kloys refers to a separate prayer room in which Kabbalistic or Hasidic groups gathered for common study or prayer.

Dance in Hasidic Judaism

at the zaddik, meditative nigunim and finally dance melodies (rikkud) are passed on from generation to generation. The Chaba”d-Lubawitch branch has rendered special services to the maintenance of Hasidic music tradition. Even if their seven rebbes were not known for their appreciation of dance, they shared the love of the entire Hasidic camp for music. She is ‘the pen of the soul’, as a bonmot of Shne’ur Salman from Ljady says which is quoted time and again.

Bibliography Adams, D./Apostolos-Cappadona, D. (ed.) (1993), Dance as Religious Studies, New York, NY: Crossroad. Anderson, G.A. (1991), A Time to Mourn, a Time to Dance. The Expression of Grief and Joy in Israelite Religion, University Park, Pa.: Pennsylvania State University Press. Assaf, D. (2010), “Hasidism: Historical Overview”. YIVO Encyclopedia of Jews in Eastern Europe. https://yivoencyclopedia.org/article.aspx/Hasidism/Historical_Over view (2020–10–04). Barzilai, S. (2009), Chassidic Ecstasy in Music, Frankfurt a.M.: Lang. Berk, F. (ed.) (1960), The Jewish Dance. An Anthology of Articles, New York: Exposition Press. Bodek, M.M. (ed.) (1897), ‫ספר מעשה צדיקים‬:‫( עם דברי צדיקים‬Ma’asse Zaddikim im Divré Zaddiqim), Lemberg. Cunz, M. (1997), Die Fahrt des Rabi Nachman von Brazlaw ins Land Israel (1798–1799), TSMJ 11, Tübingen: Mohr-Siebeck. Dégh, L. (2001), Legend and Belief: Dialectics of a Folklore Genre, Bloomington et al.: Indiana University Press. Dégh, L./Vászony, A. (1976), ‘Legend and Belief ’, in D. Ben-Amos (ed.), Folklore Genres, Austin, London: Publications of the American Folklore Society, 93–123. Doktór, J. (2011), The Beginnings of Beshtian Hasidism in Poland, Shofar 29, 41–54. Dresner, S.H. (1986), Levi Yitzhak of Berditchev. Portrait of a Hasidic Master, New York: Shapolsky Publishers. Feldman, L.H. (1949), Another Parallel to the Maenadism of the Bacchae: Hasidism in Modern Jewry, Harvard Theological Review 42, 65–67. Feldman, W.Z. (2010a), “Dance: An Overview”. YIVO Encyclopedia of Jews in Eastern Europe. https://yivoencyclopedia.org/article.aspx/Dance/An_Overview (2020–09–22). Feldman, W.Z. (2010b), “Dance: Traditional Dance”. YIVO Encyclopedia of Jews in Eastern Europe. https://yivoencyclopedia.org/article.aspx/Dance/Traditional_Dance (2020–09–22). Fenton, P.B. (2000), ‫ריקוד הקודש ברוחניות היהודית‬: ‫הריקוד החסידי‬, Daat. A Journal of Jewish Philosophy & Kabbalah 45, 135–145 [zugleich: ‘La danse sacré dans la spiritualité juive: la

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danse hassidique’, in France Schott-Billmann (ed.) (1999): Danse et spiritualité. L’ivresse des origins; Paris: Le Grand Livre du Mois]. Flanagan, J.W. (1983), ‘Social Transformation in Ritual in 2 Sam 6’, in C.L. Meyers/M.P. O’Connor (ed.), The Word of the Lord Shall Go Forth: Essays in Honor of David Noel Freedman, Indiana, Wiona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 361–372. Friedhaber, Z. (1983), Dramatization in Hassidic Dances, Israel Dance Annual, 117–120. Friedhaber, Z. (1984), Dance Among the Jews in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, Israel Dance Annual, 162–166. Friedhaber, Z. (1985/86), The Dance with the Separating Kerchief, Dance Research Journal 17 (2), 65–69. Friedhaber, Z. (1988), “Jewish Dance Traditions”, in S.J. Cohen (ed.), International Encyclopedia of Dance, New York: Oxford University Press. Friedhaber, Z. (1994), Jewish Dance Traditions through the Ages – Jewish Dance in the Mishna-Talmudic Period – part I, Israel Dance Quarterly 3, 56–57. Green, A. (2010), “Levi Yitsh.ak of Barditshev”. YIVO Encyclopedia of Jews in Eastern Europe. https://yivoencyclopedia.org/article.aspx/Levi_Yitshak_of_Barditshev (2020–10–07). Green, A. (1981), Tormented master. A Life of Rabbi Nahman of Bratslav, New York: Schocken Books. Grintz, Y./Sperling, S.D. (2007), Art. Ephod, EncJud vol. 6, 455–546. Grözinger, K.E. (2005), Jüdisches Denken. Theologie, Philosophie, Mystik. Band II, Von der mittelalterlichen Kabbala zum Hasidismus, Frankfurt am Main: Campus. Horovits, S. (1956), ‘The Hassidim of Buczacz‘, in Y. Cohen (ed.)/Sefer Buczacz: Matsevet Zikaron Le-kehila Kedosha, Tel Aviv. http://www.jewishgen.org/yizkor/buchach/buchach. html, 2020–10–15. Idel, M. (2013), Modes of Cleaving to the Letters in the Teachings of Israel Baal Shem Tov: A Sample Analysis, Jewish History 27, 299–317. Ingber, J.B. (ed.) (2011), Seeing Israeli and Jewish Dance, Detroit: Wayne State University Press. Israel ben Eli’ezer Ba’al shem Tov (1999),‫( ספר בעל שם טו‬Sefer Ba’al Shem Tov), 2. Vol., Jerusalem. Lapson, D./Shiloah, A. (2008), Art. Dance, EncJud 5, 409–412. Lapson, D./Shiloah, A. (1963), Jewish Dances of Eastern and Central Europe. Journal of the International Folk Music Council 15, 58–61. Lapson, D./Shiloah, A. (1937), The Chassidic Dance, The Dance Observer 9, 109–113. Mykoff, M. (1987), Tzaddik (Chayey Moharan). A Portrait of Rabbi Nachman. Jerusalem: Breslov Research Institute. Nahman of Bratzlav (1999): ‫( ליקותי מוהר”ן‬Liqquté Mohara”n), Jerusalem. Nathan Sternhartz von Niemirów, ‫ספר חיי מוהר”ן‬, (Chajé Mohara”n), Jerusalem o.D. Nathan Sternhartz von Niemirów, ‫( שיחות הר”ן‬Sichot ha-Ra”n) 131, Nathan of Nemirov, Rabbi Nachman’s Wisdom (Aryeh Kaplan, ed.), Jerusalem 1984, 260.

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Rapoport-Albert, A. (1979), God and the Zaddik as the Two Focal Points of Hasidic Worship, History of Religions 18, 296–325. Schmidt, G. (1995), “Cleaving to God” through the Ages: An Historical Analysis of the Jewish Concept of “Devekut”, Mystics Quarterly 21, 103–120. Schott-Billmann, F. (ed.) (1999), Danse et spiritualité. L’ivresse des origines. Paris: Noêsis. Talabardon, S. (2016), Chassidismus, Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. Wright, David P. (2002), Music and Dance in 2 Sam 6, Journal of Biblical Literature 121, 201–225. Yaacov Yosef of Polna’a (1780),‫( ספר תולדות יעקוב יוסף‬Sefer Tol’dot Yaakov Yosef), Koretz.

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Dancing with Gods Dance and Initiation in Ancient Greek Religious Practices

To Judith Koltai

1.

Studying Ancient Greek Dance1

Dance is an elusive object of study, especially the dance of past epochs. No amount of conjecture and interpretation can restore ancient dance practices, let alone guarantee an accurate understanding of their experience and their meaning in the original context. This is true for Greek antiquity no less than for any other distant culture, despite the considerable amount of information available. When looking for dance in ancient Greek religious practices, a great variety of textual sources come to our aid, including choral lyric and epigraphical records. This chapter focuses on a different set of texts, spanning from the end of the fifth century BCE to around the second century CE, which deal with dancing in mystery rites, often by way of metaphor. Taking the cue from mentions of dancing as part of initiation rites in Aristophanes and Euripides, the discussion dwells on a number of passages from Plato, before moving on to Clement of Alexandria and the apocryphal Acts of John. It argues that these texts present dance as a way to attain cognition through sensory and emotional experience. Dance is a medium of the human body. It is dynamic and transitory, but it nevertheless possesses a physical and tangible concreteness. It is ephemeral, but it is also a site of unmediated, bodily experience for both performers and spectators. In its most essential form, dance can be defined as physical movement that is to some extent formalized and does not respond to a concrete practical need, but has a symbolic function. In Greek antiquity, the two elements that are added most consistently to the basic understanding of dance as movement of the body are rhythm and figures or poses (schēmata, standardized patterns of movement or

1 This chapter reuses materials originally published in Schlapbach, 2018 (1–5.136.149–166.286f) and reproduced here, with slight changes, by permission of Oxford University Press (https://global.oup. com/academic/product/the-anatomy-of-dance-discourse-9780198807728?q=schlapbach&lang=en &cc=ch).

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postures). Further criteria include grace and expressiveness.2 The oscillation of dance between immediacy and elusiveness was keenly perceived in ancient Greek culture, and the manifold tensions in dance between motion and stillness, change and permanence as well as representation and reality come to the fore in the above mentioned philosophical and religious texts. While most of these texts are rather removed from actual dance practices and reflect a fairly abstract level of elaboration, the so-called dance hymn of Acts of John seems to be connected to an actual practice and suggests that dance persisted as a component of religious rituals in Gnostic Jesus-communities of the first centuries CE. Existing overviews of ancient dance tend to focus on classical Greece.3 However, some of the most important sources on dance are in fact from later periods, and their potential to illuminate us on ancient Greek dance has not yet been fully recognized. By juxtaposing the classical Greek discourse on dance in mystery cults with a text from a Gnostic Christian milieu, this essay sheds light on the continuity and interreligious adaptability of ancient Greek conceptualizations of dance and, perhaps, also of dance practices. Many ancient discussions of dance are not neutral but slanted towards positive or negative value judgments. Plato’s idea of a tight regulation of mousikē, which included choral dance, in the ideal city is only the most famous example (Laws 2 and 7). In the first and second centuries CE, Plutarch and Athenaeus stage convivial conversations, where the participants regret the dance of the old days and dismiss modern versions of it. Lucian of Samosata and Aelius Aristides cite a whole plethora of accusations against the most popular dance of their own times, pantomime. Against this background, the texts discussed here stand out because they portray the dances belonging to mystery rites in a most positive light. The perception of dance was by no means uniform, and it is interesting to note that the well-known hostility of the Church fathers toward dance was neither unparalleled in non-Christian sources, nor was it shared as a matter of course among early Jesus-communities.

2 “Movement of the body”: Plato, Laws 814d; Athenaeus 1, 20c. For rhythm and figures, see for instance Aristotle, Poetics 1447a 27f. Even in the absence of a narrative content, dance could be perceived as expressing something and, hence, as a form of rhetoric, as Webb (1997, 136–139) shows with the example of Salome. For a basic modern definition, see, e.g., Naerebout (1997, 163): “Thus dance movement is movement which carries, and is made to carry, meaning”; Naerebout (2006, 39) adds an intention on the part of the dancers and recognition “as a special category of behaviour” on the part of the spectators. 3 For example Lawler (1964a and 1964b); Prudhommeau (1965); Lonsdale (1993); Naerebout (1997). For a correction of the stereotype that Romans did not dance, see e.g. Alonso Fernandez (2013; 2015); Naerebout (2009).

Dancing with Gods

2.

Dance, Experience, and Cognition in Ancient Greek Mystery Cults

Dancing was an essential part of mystery rites. A glance at Aristophanes’ Frogs or Euripides’ Bacchae illustrates this point sufficiently. In the parodos of Frogs, a persiflage of the Eleusinian rites, the chorus invites Iacchus to “come to this meadow here to dance for the holy revelers […] a pure dance, sacred to holy initiates” (326f.335f). And when in the opening monologue of the Bacchae, Dionysus states that he has now come to Thebes “after setting those places to dance and introducing my rites there” (τἀκεῖ χορεύσας καὶ καταστήσας ἐμὰς / τελετάς, 21–22), the institution of a new mystery cult all but coincides with making people dance.4 The focus on dancing suits the dramatic genre particularly well, because the theatre accommodates the representation of dance scenes. However, we have no reason to doubt that the emphasis on dance as part of mysteries also reflects the reality of the rites themselves. Plato mentions Bacchic dances, in which the dancers impersonate inebriated Nymphs, Pans, Silens and Satyrs, and associates them with cathartic rites (katharmoi and teletai, Laws 7, 815cd). Dancing is particularly prominent in relation to the Corybantes, divine beings belonging to the cult of Cybele in Asia Minor. In Plato’s Ion Corybantic dancing, here used metaphorically of the soul, is associated with inspiration and put in a stark contrast with skill and rational understanding (technē, epistēmē: 533e–534a.536bc). Socrates compares in the Euthydemus the method of questioning by Dionysodorus and Euthydemus to the dancing and joking in the mysteries of the Corybantes: just as the Corybantic revellers play games with the initiand, the two sophists confound their young interlocutor with fallacies, a process which according to Socrates must be understood as a necessary prelude to initiation, which is a metaphor for proper understanding (277de).5 The passage suggests that in the Corybantic mysteries, frantic dancing in the round may contribute to the bewilderment of the candidate, a preliminary stage, which is followed by insight and “acceptance of sense” (Burkert: 1987, 89f). How such a change from confusion to enlightenment may occur is explained at Laws 7, 791a, where the Athenian argues that the vehement bodily motion of 4 Translations are the author’s. Epigraphical evidence abounds, e.g. SIG 736, 73 and 97 (Andania; see Riedweg, 58 n. 144); further examples in Jaccottet (2003). Although dancing is a universally acknowledged part of ancient mysteries, it has received little sustained attention; among the exceptions are Mylonas (1961, 72f); Burkert (1983, 287f = 1972, 317f); Burkert (1985, 290–293 = 2 2011, 432–435); Riedweg (1987, 57f); Lada-Richards (1999, 98–102); Hardie (2004, 19–24); Kowalzig (2005, 60–72); Bremmer (2014, 105–7); Seaford (2013). In scholarship on dance see Latte (1913, 88–104); Koller (1954, 42–48); Andresen (1961, 235–244); Lawler (1964a, 92–97); Fitton (1973, 255f). Naerebout (1997, 325) rightly notes that there is no distinct phenotype of “religious” or “sacred” dance. 5 The two sophists claim to “demonstrate the protreptic sophia” (278c 6). Corybantic dances are mentioned also at Laws 7, 790c–791b. On the bewildering effect see Edmonds (2006, 348f) and Burkert (1983, 268 = 1972, 295f).

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Corybantic dancing and piping in the company of the gods (ὀρχουμένους τε καὶ αὐλουμένους μετὰ θεῶν) first overpowers, then calms inner unrest and fear, creating “calm and peace” (γαλήνην ἡσυχίαν τε) and a sensible state of mind (ἕξεις ἔμφρονας).6 Nevertheless, it would be mistaken to identify two distinct phases in the Corybantic rites or the mysteries in general – one characterised by sensory impressions and emotions and the other by intellection. Rather, as a famous fragment attributed to Aristotle’s On Philosophy suggests, at the culmination of mystery rites one “is not to learn something, but to experience and be affected” (οὐ μαθεῖν τι δεῖν ἀλλὰ παθεῖν καὶ διατεθῆναι, fr. 15 Ross).7 What we glean from these texts is that in the ancient Greek mystery cults, experience and insight cannot be severed, but are ultimately one and the same. In addition, it may safely be assumed that the dancing plays no small part in shaping mystery initiation as an incisive experience with a lasting impact on the psyche of the initiate. A fragmentary passage from Plutarch, which describes the moment of death with imagery related to the pathos of mystery initiation, highlights once more the transition from initial puzzlement to final illumination. It mentions meadows and dances as part of the blissful sights that the initiate beholds at the very culmination of the ritual: “And pure regions and meadows welcomed them, offering voices and dances and solemn ceremonies of sacred sounds and holy apparitions” (fr. 178 Sandbach = Stob. 4.52.49).8 Fritz Graf has shown that the passage is influenced by eschatological myths and does not really tell us anything on the Eleusinian initiation. Nevertheless, it conveys an idea of the general development and the atmosphere that must have characterised the ceremonies related to it.9 Similarly but more succinctly, Aristides Quintilianus foregrounds the strong emotional aspect of the initiatic experience. He explains that in the Bacchic mysteries, anxiety is “cleared away through the

6 See Schöpsdau (2003, 510–513), with further literature. He usefully compares Ti. 44b 3 (γαλήνη, of the soul) and 88de (impact of cosmic on bodily movement). In the light of συγχορευτάς at Laws 654a, μετὰ θεῶν (791a 7) must mean “in the company of the gods” (contra Schöpsdau, “with the help of the gods”). A similar transition from an overwhelming sensory and emotional experience to insight is detailed at Dio, Oratio 12.33f, with Schlapbach (2021). 7 = Synes. Dio 8, 48a (254, 8–12, Terzaghi). This culmination is surely preceded by instruction (cf. Psellos, Schol. ad Joh. Climacum 6.171, which is added by Ross to Arist. fr. 15; Clem. strom. 5.71.1; CIL 6.1.1779 with Graf [2003], 253). See further Riedweg (1987, 8–10; 127–129); Burkert (1987, 153 n. 13); Borgeaud (2007, 193f). A gold plate from Thurii similarly foregrounds experience (Orphicorum Fragmenta 32f = A4 Zuntz = L8 Bernabé/Jiménez San Cristóbal; see Zuntz [1971], 328–333; Burkert [1987], 162 n. 2; Bernabé/Jiménez San Cristóbal [2008], 95–98). 8 For the transition from confusion to silence see also Plu. prof. virt. 10, 81de. At Non posse suaviter vivi 27, 1105b, teletai and katharmoi are associated with playing and dancing in Hades. 9 See Graf (1974, 132–138) and Seaford (2006, 70f). Sourvinou-Inwood (2003, 33f) argues that in Eleusis the Telesterion itself corresponds to the meadows.

Dancing with Gods

melodies and dances of the ritual in a joyful and playful way” (ὑπὸ τῶν ἐν ταύταις μελῳδιῶν τε καὶ ὀρχήσεων ἅμα παιδιαῖς ἐκκαθαίρηται).10 Dancing was thus part of various stages of initiation ceremonies and could fulfil different functions, unsettling the initiands at one point – most likely before the initiation – and filling them with joy and serenity at another – either at the very culmination of the initiation or as a result of it. Accounts of initiation generally put great emphasis on the visual dimension, which is encapsulated in the term epopteia itself – one of the words for “initiation” and etymologically connected with the verb “to see.”11 However, it should not be overlooked that we also find striking metaphors of physical movement and touching for the moment of initiation itself. In his treatise Isis and Osiris Plutarch writes, with reference to Plato’s and Aristotle’s comparisons of philosophy to mystery rites, that “those who have left behind these conjectural and confused and variegated matters by means of reason leap out to that first and simple as well as immaterial principle (πρὸς τὸ πρῶτον ἐκεῖνο καὶ ἁπλοῦν καὶ ἄυλον ἐξάλλονται), and having actually touched the pure truth about it as if in an initiation, they believe that they have reached the fulfilment of philosophy” (77, 382de).12 Of all elements that characterise initiation ceremonies, the image of “leaping out” is certainly most akin to the dancing. Moreover, perhaps it is this element, the dancing, that makes best sense of the claim attributed to Aristotle that mystery initiation is not about learning something, but about being deeply affected and altered by one’s experience, be it as a spectator or an active participant in the dance.13 The strong emotional impact of an initiatic experience is highlighted already in Plato’s Phaedrus, which turned out to be one of the most influential accounts of the encounter with the divine. Socrates’ famous ‘palinode’, with its strong poetic undertones and mythical elements, develops the idea of a divine heavenly dance in an eschatological perspective (244a–257a). It depicts the gods as a “divine”, “blessed chorus” (247a.250b), in whose company the soul (another “dancer” (252d) in the divine chorus) may get a blissful glimpse of the forms in their “resplendent beauty.”14 The entire passage is filled with vocabulary and imagery related to the 10 De musica 3.25, trans. Burkert (1987, 113f), who notes the affinity with Aristotle’s concept of katharsis. The psychological function of religious festivals as depicted in Laws 2 also comes to mind. See further Maximus of Tyre 32.7. 11 See Graf (1974, 81f) on the central role of seeing. 12 = Arist. Eudemus fr. 10 Ross, on which see Riedweg (1987, 127–129). 13 See above at n. 7. As Borgeaud (2007, 203ff) observes, there is a tight link between motion and emotion. The image of “leaping” (ἅλμα) for spiritual practices is used – with negative connotation – in regard to Egyptian monks by Synes. Dio 8, 47d–48a, 254, 5f Terzaghi. See Voelke (2001, 131–133); Dronke (2003, 43–54) on “leaping” in spiritual contexts in patristic and medieval sources; Borgeaud (2007, 199f). 14 See Csapo (2008, 265f); Graf (1974, 134); Belfiore (2006).

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Bacchic and Eleusinian mysteries. In particular, cosmological notions, like diexodos (the technical term for the periodical revolutions of the heavenly bodies), the number twelve for the gods, and the image of the “divine chorus”, which must be understood as the dance of the heavenly bodies (in line with Timaeus 40c), point to an influence of the mysteries which goes beyond the mere metaphor of ‘initiation’ (τελετή, 250b).15 Socrates explains that the soul, carrying a memory of its sojourn with the “blessed chorus” of the gods, is reminded of this experience when it sees earthly beauty, and as if struck by the madness of love, it tries to fly up again (249d–250c).16 This account conveys the profoundly transformative nature of the dance with the gods, which leaves an indelible emotional trace in the soul. And if there might remain a doubt as to which aspect of the rite it is that creates such a strong impact, at least one ancient reader of Plato, Clement of Alexandria, spells out the intimate connection between initiation and dancing, echoing both Phaedrus and Timaeus: “If you wish, you too will be initiated, and you will dance with the angels around the only true god, who is without origin and destruction” (εἰ βούλει, καὶ σὺ μυοῦ, καὶ χορεύσεις μετ’ ἀγγέλων ἀμφὶ τὸν ἀγέννητον καὶ ἀνώλεθρον καὶ μόνον ὄντως θεόν, Protreptic 120.2).17 In this passage, which is part of an elaborate symbolic

reinterpretation of Bacchic mystery rites in a Christian key, initiation means choral dancing. A similar point is made more summarily in Lucian’s On Dancing 15 (“it is impossible to find an ancient initiation rite without dance”), and later it seems to become a commonplace, as a passage from John Chrysostom suggests.18 However, Clement’s account stands out for its wealth of allusions to classical texts, especially Euripides’ Bacchae and Plato. What is more, Clement’s Christian reinterpretation eloquently confirms the tight connection between Bacchic dancing and the heavenly sphere that transpired so frequently from earlier sources, with the figure of Jesus as a mediator (119.1–120.4): βακχεύουσι δὲ ἐν αὐτῷ οὐχ αἱ Σεμέλης τῆς κεραυνίας ἀδελφαί, αἱ μαινάδες […], ἀλλ᾽ αἱ τοῦ θεοῦ θυγατέρες, αἱ ἀμνάδες αἱ καλαί, τὰ σεμνὰ τοῦ λόγου θεσπίζουσαι ὄργια, χορὸν ἀγείρουσαι σώφρονα. […] Χριστὸς ἐπιλάμπει φαιδρότερον ἡλίου […] ῍Ω τῶν ἁγίων ὡς

15 See Riedweg (1987, 35–69), esp. 56–8; an Orphic-Pythagorean background is likely; see ibid., 56; Graf (1974, 88). 16 On Phaedrus and the mystery tradition see Burkert (1987, 92f). 17 Italics by the author. Cf. Plato, Phdr. 250b; Ti. 52a (ἀγέννητον καὶ ἀνώλεθρον). See Junod/Kaestli (1983, 622 n. 1); Riedweg (1987, 148–158); Herrero de Jauregui (2010, 251–78f). 18 In Col. hom. 12.5, PG 62, 387: “In the Greek mysteries there are dances, but in ours silence and decency (σιγὴ καὶ εὐκοσμία).” Dionysiac initiation and dancing are associated at Strabo 10.3.10, 468C; similarly Libanius, Oratio 64.13f.

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ἀληθῶς μυστηρίων, ὢ φωτὸς ἀκηράτου. δᾳδουχοῦμαι τοὺς οὐρανοὺς καὶ τὸν θεὸν ἐποπτεῦσαι […] “ἐθέλω γάρ, ἐθέλω καὶ ταύτης ὑμῖν μεταδοῦναι τῆς χάριτος, ὁλόκληρον χορηγῶν τῆν εὐεργεσίαν, ἀφθαρσίαν. […] διορθώσασθαι ὑμᾶς πρὸς τὸ ἀρχέτυπον βούλομαι, ἵνα μοι καὶ ὅμοιοι γένησθε.”

Revelers on this mountain are not the sisters of Semele “struck by lightning”, the Maenads, […] but the daughters of god, the beautiful lambs, who presage the holy rites of the Word, assembling a chaste chorus. […] Jesus shines more brightly than the sun. […] O truly sacred mysteries! O pure light! I am led by the light of the torch to see the heavens and god. […] “I [scil. Jesus] want, yes, I want to impart to you this grace, supplying in its fullness the kind gift of incorruption. I wish to straighten you up to the archetype, so that you may become akin to me.”19

Clement preserves for a Christian audience the idea that a circular dance in the company of heavenly beings is the essence of initiation, and that assimilation to the divine is its aim.20 But it is another early Christian text that spells out most explicitly the intimate connection between dance, experience and cognition, namely the apocryphal Acts of John.

3.

Seeing Oneself in the Other: Dancing with Jesus in Acts of John

The topic of dance occupies several chapters in the apocryphal Acts of John. Unlike in Clement’s portrayal, with which it has otherwise many elements in common, in Acts of John dance is neither a metaphor nor an eschatological anticipation, but part of the events recounted in the gospel section, which extends from chapters 87 to 105 of the Acts. It is generally assumed that the account of Jesus dancing among his disciples on the night before his crucifixion is an institution narrative reflecting an actual cult practice of dancing in the round embraced by a (Valentinian) Gnostic community.21 For a long time Acts of John was the only witness for such a practice, but today it is no longer an isolated case: in the last twenty years two

19 The passage is indebted to Euripides’ Bacchae (the quotation is from Ba. 6). 20 Echoing Timaeus 47bc and 90d. Burkert (1985, 103f = 2 2011, 162f) notes (albeit for earlier periods) that “the experience of the dance merges with the experience of the deity.” 21 Junod/Kaestli (1983, 621–627). An actual dance ritual is generally, if cautiously, assumed by scholars; only Lalleman (1998, 64–66) remains skeptical as to an actual ritual, arguing that Acts of John merely helps to create an identity for a new group. On dancing in early Christianity see Dilley (2013); Shaw (2011, 222; 466–468); MacMullen (1997, 102–107); Webb (1997); Andresen (1961).

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related apocryphal texts have been published, the Coptic Gospel of the Saviour 22 and, more importantly, the Coptic Dance of the Saviour around the Cross.23 These new finds, which bear clear resemblances to Acts of John, suggest that dance might have been less exceptional in early Christian communities than was hitherto generally assumed. Within the gospel section of the Acts of John, a “Gnostic apocalypse” can be identified (94–102), which is most likely to have originated in a Christian Gnostic environment in Syria around the second century CE.24 The apocalypse falls into two parts: First, a hymn or dance song, which marks the moment occupied in the canonical gospels by the passover meal (94–96). Second, the revelation of the deeper truth of Jesus’ passion through the vision of the Cross of Light (97–102).25 The textual history of the hymn is particularly complex. For the present purpose, it is sufficient to retain that older Gnostic material was worked into the Christian Gnostic dance song, with the older material now occupying most of chapter 95. The two textual layers were combined carefully via the theme of dancing, which was introduced into the older textual layer for the sake of greater harmony with the new context (95.18–30).26 This means that the theme of dancing received a twofold treatment which, as we will see, serves among else to reinforce the key idea of a link between dancing and cognition. Most interestingly for the present purpose, the circular dance depicted in the hymn is repeatedly referred to as a “mystery” (96.2, in the plural; 100.11; 101.2f).

22 Edited by Hedrick/Mirecki (1999), with modifications by Emmel (2002). For further literature and translations see Piovanelli (2012, 231 n. 6). On dancing in the Gospel of the Savior see Yingling (2013). 23 Edited by Hubai (2009). These texts can be placed between the end of the fourth and the sixth century (Piovanelli 2012, 239). For an English translation of the Dance of the Savior see Piovanelli (2012, 240f), who notes the similarities with Acts of John (ibid., 241f). 24 For the date see Junod/Kaestli (1983, 631f). For the Gnostic origin ibid., 594; 625f, and 700; Kaestli (1986, 86–88; highlighting themes in common with the fourth Gospel); Schneider (1991a, 209–219); Schneider (1991b); Schneider (1994); Luttikhuizen (1995). For the subsequent “orthodox” recycling in the Gospel of the Savior and the Dance of the Savior see Piovanelli (2012, 246). 25 Acts of John 94.3 recalls Mark 14:26 and Matthew 26:30, and the mention of piping at 95.19 evokes Matthew 11:16–17 and Luke 7:31–32 (the children in the market place). See Piovanelli (2012, 243 n. 51). Lalleman (1998, 128f) notes that 95.19–22 translates the simile of Mt 11:17 into a literal discourse. 26 See Junod/Kaestli (1983, 638–642); Kaestli (1986, 82f); Lalleman (1998, 12f); Schneider (1991a, 147–167f).

Dancing with Gods

It is best to quote this text, which affords a rare, if oblique, glimpse on the possible role of dancing in ancient mystery cults, at some length.27 In what follows, the words in quotation marks are spoken by Jesus himself: 94.3 ‘Πρίν με ἐκείνοις παραδοθῆναι ὑμνήσωμεν τὸν πατέρα καὶ οὕτως ἐξέλθωμεν ἐπὶ τὸ προκείμενον.’ Κελεύσας οὖν ἡμῖν γῦρον ποιῆσαι, ἀποκρατούντων τὰς ἀλλήλων χεῖρας, ἐν μέσῳ δὲ αὐτὸς γενόμενος, ἔλεγεν ‘Τὸ ἀμὴν ὑπακούετέ μοι.’ Ἤρξατο οὖν ὑμνεῖν καὶ λέγειν·       ‘Δόξα σοι πάτερ.’ Καὶ ἡμεῖς κυκλεύοντες ὑπηκούομεν αὐτῷ τὸ ἀμήν.       ‘Δόξα σοι λόγε, 10       δόξα σοι χάρις.’ Ἀμήν.       ‘Δόξα σοι τὸ πνεῦμα,       δόξα σοι ἅγιε,       δόξα σου τῇ δόξῃ.’      Ἀμήν.          ‘Αἰνοῦμέν σε πάτερ,             15       εὐχαριστοῦμέν σοι φῶς       ἐν ᾧ σκότος οὐκ οἰκεῖ.’       Ἀμήν.   95. […]          ‘Ἡ χάρις χορεύει.’             18        ‘Αὐλῆσαι θέλω,       ὀρχήσασθε πάντες.’ Ἀμήν.      20        ‘Θρηνῆσαι θέλω,       κόψασθε πάντες.’ Ἀμήν.        ‘Ὀγδοὰς μία       ἡμῖν συμψάλλει.’ Ἀμήν. ‘Ὁ δωδέκατος ἀριθμὸς            25 ἄνω χορεύει.’ Ἀμήν. ‘Τῷ δὲ ὅλῳ ἄνω χορεύειν ὑπάρχει.’ Ἀμήν. ‘Ὁ μὴ χορεύων τὸ γινόμενον ἀγνοεῖ.’ Ἀμήν.             30  

27 The affinity with dance as part of ancient mystery rites is noted by Junod/Kaestli (1983, 625f; see also Dewey (1986, 74–80); Andresen (1961, 235–244). The text is Junod/Kaestli (1983); textual problems are generally disregarded (but see below n. 33).

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‘Φυγεῖν θέλω καὶ μένειν θέλω.’ Ἀμήν.

[…] ‘Λύχνος εἰμί σοι τῷ βλέποντί με.’ Ἀμήν. ‘Ἔσοπτρόν εἰμί σοι             45 τῷ νοοῦντί με.’ Ἀμήν. […] (96.)   ‘Ὑπακούων δέ μου τῇ χορείᾳ ἴδε σεαυτὸν ἐν ἐμοὶ λαλοῦντι, καὶ ἰδὼν ὃ πράσσω τὰ μυστήριά μου σίγα. ὁ χορεύων νόει ὃ πράσσω ὅτι σόν ἐστιν τοῦτο τὸ ἀνθρώπου πάθος ὃ μέλλω πάσχειν. οὐ γὰρ ἐδύνου ὅλως συνιδεῖν ὃ πάσχεις      5 εἰ μή σοι λόγος ὑπὸ πατρὸς ἐστάλην. ὁ ἰδὼν ὃ πράσσω ὡς πάσχοντα εἶδες καὶ ἰδὼν οὐκ ἔστης ἀλλ’ ἐκινήθης ὅλος.

† κινηθεὶς σοφίζειν † στρωμνήν με ἔχεις ἐπαναπάηθί μοι.                   10 τίς εἰμι ἐγὼ γνώσῃ ὅταν ἀπέλθω. ὃ νῦν ὁρῶμαι τοῦτο οὐκ εἰμί· ‹ὃ εἰμι› ὄψει ὅταν σὺ ἔλθῃς. εἰ τὸ πάσχειν ᾔδεις, τὸ μὴ παθεῖν ἂν εἶχες· τὸ παθεῖν σύγγνωθι καὶ τὸ μὴ παθεῖν ἕξεις.       15 ὃ σὺ μὴ οἶδας αὐτός σε διδάξω. θεός εἰμι σοῦ, οὐ τοῦ προδότου. ῥυθμίζεσθαι θέλω ψυχὰς ἁγίας ἐπ’ ἐμέ. τὸν λόγον γνῶθι τῆς σοφίας. πάλιν ἐμοὶ λέγε·            20

      Δόξα σοι πάτερ·       δόξα σοι λόγε·       δόξα σοι ‹τὸ› πνεῦμα [ἅγιον]. Τὸ δὲ ἐμὸν εἰ θέλεις ἀμὴν γνῶναι, λόγῳ [ἅπαξ] ἔπαιξα πάντα καὶ οὐκ ἐπῃσχύνθην ὅλως.       25 ἐγὼ ἐσκίρτησα, σὺ δὲ νόει τὸ πᾶν, καὶ νοήσας λέγε·

      Δόξα σοι πάτερ.’ Ἀμήν.   94.3 “Before I am handed over to them, let us praise the Father in a song and thus go towards what is before us.” Summoning us to form a ring, holding each others’ hands and with him placed in the middle, he said: “Respond to me with the Amen.” So he began to sing and to say:

Dancing with Gods

       “Glory be to you, Father.” And we, moving in a circle, responded to him with the Amen. “Glory to you, Logos,      10 glory to you, Grace.” Amen. “Glory to you, Spirit, glory to you, Holy, glory to your glory.” Amen   “We praise you, Father,             15 we thank you, Light, in whom darkness does not dwell.” Amen.   95. […] “Grace dances.” “I want to pipe, all of you dance!” Amen.             20 “I want to wail, all of you beat your breasts!” Amen.   “The Eight, one, sings with us.” Amen. “The number Twelve      25 dances high up.” Amen.   “To the universe high up dancing belongs.” Amen. “He who does not dance in the chorus does not know what happens.” Amen.       30   “I want to flee and I want to stay.” Amen. […] “I am a lamp for you who look at me.” Amen. “I am a mirror for you      45 who discern me.“ Amen.   […]   96. “Responding to my dancing see yourself in me as I speak, and seeing what I do, be silent about my mysteries.

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You who dance in the chorus, understand what I do, for yours is the experience of mankind which I am to suffer. For you cannot wholly see what you experience,       5 if I had not been sent to you as Logos by the Father. You who saw what I do saw me as one who experiences, and upon seeing you did not keep still but were wholly set in motion. † Having been set in motion […]†, you have me as a bed, rest on me!       10 Who I am you will know when I go away. What I appear to your eyes now I am not. ‹What I am› you will see when you come. If you knew the suffering, you would possess the absence of suffering. Know the suffering, and you will possess the absence of suffering.       15 What you don’t know I myself will teach to you. I am your god, not the traitor’s. I want to bring your holy souls into the same rhythm with me. Know the Logos of Wisdom. Again say to me:       20 Glory to you, Father, glory to you, Logos, glory to you, Spirit. What is mine, if you really want to know it, through the Logos I played at everything and I was not shamed at all.       25 I danced, but you, understand the whole, and having understood it, say: Glory to you, Father.” Amen.

The basic form of this dance is described with some emphasis as a “ring” with Jesus “placed in the middle”, while the disciples “hold each others’ hands” and “move in a circle” (94.5–9). This setting allows the dancers to be in contact and interact with each other and with Jesus, the centre of the whole. It is fair to assume that the “response” that is called for refers not only to the song, but also to the dance movements (96.1).28 One of the most interesting features of this hymn is the way in which the interaction between Jesus and the members of the chorus is not only described, but also mirrored in the language. Although the hymn is sung by Jesus himself with the chorus joining in only to pronounce the Amen (94.6f), from the outset the first person

28 Junod/Kaestli (1983, 651f); contra Lalleman (1998, 184f). On the presumable form of the dance see Beard-Shouse (2010, 60f).

Dancing with Gods

plural prevails as grammatical subject (94.3f: ὑμνήσωμεν, ἐξέλθωμεν; 94.15f: Αἰνοῦμέν; εὐχαριστοῦμεν). The singing is thus framed as a shared experience, which creates cohesion and unity, just like the dancing itself. This changes temporarily with the older textual layer in chapter 95, which is characterised by the repetition of the first person singular “I want” (θέλω) in virtually every line. The transition from this portion to the rest of the hymn is eased with the insertion of four lines, in which the first person singular alternates with the imperative plural, creating a dialogical structure, which is more akin to the rest of the hymn (95.19–22).29 The series of imperatives continues in 96, now in the singular. However, no doubt each and every member of the group is addressed with these imperatives, so that distinctions between individuals fade away. Further emphasis on the communal nature of the experience is added through the use of the compound verbs sym-psallei and syn-idein, literally “sings with” and “see with” (95.24 and 96.5), the former with a subject that points to cosmic sympathy (the Ogdoad). Further on, the wording suggests dissolving boundaries also between Jesus and the Father, with “you” echoing “me” in 96.20f: πάλιν ἐμοὶ λέγε / Δόξα σοι πάτερ (“Again say to me: Glory to you, Father”). Dissolving boundaries between the dancers, as well as their growing identification with Jesus and, through Jesus, with the Father, thus emerge as the core themes of this hymn.30 At the level of the content, this is spelled out in chapter 96, which explains the deeper sense of the choral dance: Jesus is a mirror, in which each dancer is invited to “see” himself (ἴδε σεαυτὸν ἐν ἐμοὶ, 96.1). And the suffering of Jesus is nothing but the suffering of mankind itself, which belongs to each dancer, or the dancers collectively (σόν ἐστιν τοῦτο τὸ ἀνθρώπου πάθος ὃ μέλλω πάσχειν, “yours is the experience of mankind which I am to suffer”, 96.4).31 But most importantly, this process of self-cognition is enabled by the shared experience of the dancing itself, as we glean from the imperative addressed to the dancing disciple: “You who dance in the chorus, understand what I do” (ὁ χορεύων νόει ὃ πράσσω, 96.3). Whoever reworked the text had no doubts about the momentousness of this line, since we find it reiterated, now in the negative, in the inserted chapter: “He who does not dance in the chorus does not know what happens” (Ὁ μὴ χορεύων / τὸ γινόμενον ἀγνοεῖ,

29 Bowe (1999, 93f) rightly sees this “blurring of distinctions” as an essential characteristic of the hymn. 30 See Bowe (1999, 100f). 31 Italics by the author. The image of the mirror (ἔσοπτρον) is anticipated in the older Gnostic material worked into the hymn and provides a link between the two textual layers (95.45); see Junod/Kaestli (1983, 642f). It is part of widely shared imagery of the mysteries; see ibid., 650. The synaesthesia in 96.1 (ἴδε σεαυτὸν ἐν ἐμοὶ λαλοῦντι) adds emphasis on the seeing, in line with the precept of silence (96.2).

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95.29f). Put differently, insight into one’s own suffering via the mirror of Jesus is predicated on joint dancing, or on mutually coordinated bodily movement.32 But there is more. It has not been noted hitherto that the dance song pays great attention to the interplay of active and passive, which is in fact crucial in understanding intersubjectivity. A transition of sorts from active to passive already underlies the idea that dancing yields insight. Conversely, seeing Jesus translates into movement: “You who saw what I do saw me as one who experiences, and upon seeing you did not keep still but were wholly set in motion” (ὁ ἰδὼν ὃ πράσσω ὡς πάσχοντα εἶδες καὶ ἰδὼν οὐκ ἔστης ἀλλ’ ἐκινήθης ὅλος, 96.7f). The context suggests that this motion or movement of the onlooker refers to his dancing, although what counts is precisely that physical and mental processes are tightly interlaced. It should not be overlooked that the movement is in fact expressed with a grammatical passive (ἐκινήθης), a detail which perfectly summarises the inseparability of active and passive, or moving and being affected. In 96.3–8 the twofold way this central theme is approached – movement enables insight, and seeing causes movement – reflects the perfect complementarity of seeing, moving, and understanding, which flow from one another in the process of the ritual. How this is possible can be guessed in some more detail from the intriguing shift from “doing” (πράσσω) to “experiencing” (πάσχοντα) in the lines just quoted.33 Throughout the hymn paschō and related words clearly allude to the events of the passion. However, in the light of the metaphorical reinterpretation of these events in chapter 101 it is important to bear in mind the larger category of bodily experience, which allows to make better sense of the shift in 96.7. This shift suggests that in the eyes of the dancing onlooker, the seemingly exclusive categories of active and passive merge with each other. What Jesus does – how he moves, how he dances – is one and the same with the impression that he is being moved, i.e. that he is the passive subject of an experience (96.7). In this process the onlooker himself is also moved, both outwardly and inwardly; in other words, he as well becomes the subject of an experience. Experience is the link between Jesus and the disciple, the conduit that leads from Jesus’ movement to the disciple’s insight: based on Jesus’ dance an experience is witnessed in him, and this witnessed experience of

32 Junod/Kaestli (1983, 624f) note the “revelatory function” of the dance (with 95.29f), cf. ibid., 651. Lalleman (1998, 193f) discusses Jesus as a mirror, but overlooks the crucial role of the disciples’ dancing (also ibid., 184). 33 prassō (96.7) is Junod/Kaestli’s emendation, justified by prassō in line 2 and the fact that the transmitted text (paschō) is tautological (see Junod/Kaestli [1983], 651). Junod/Kaestli (1983, 652f) draw attention to an apocryphal logion of Jesus transmitted in the Gospel of Thomas (P. Oxy. 654, no. 1) and Clement of Alexandria, strom. 5.14.96; 2.9.45, in which four steps towards final rest are distinguished, which show a certain similarity with the present passage (final rest is the likely sense of 96.9–10).

Dancing with Gods

Jesus merges with the disciple’s own, real and lived experience of movement, which amounts to insight. The interchangeable nature of active and passive is already a major topic of chapter 95, the older textual layer, where a long series (lines 2–17) of verbs appearing both in the active and the passive undermines the very dichotomy of these two categories, expressing, in the words of one scholar, “the desire of the initiate to become one with the mystery god” (Luttikhuizen [2006], 142): σωθῆναι θέλω      2 καὶ σῷσαι θέλω. Ἀμήν. Λυθῆναι θέλω καὶ λῦσαι θέλω. Ἀμήν. 5 (κτλ)   “I want to be saved      2 and I want to save.” Amen. “I want to be redeemed and I want to redeem.” Amen.       5 (etc.)

A similar oscillation between active and passive is furthermore found in the shift from “what happens” to “what I do” in 95.30 and 96.3. In the light of these ideas, it is now possible to refine what was said above (Section 2), namely that in mystery rites experience and insight are one. In Acts of John, the physical practice of dancing is the very key to the nexus of experience and insight. For communal dancing is the ritual practice that ensures empathy, understood here as a shift in awareness from an experience witnessed in another to one’s own experience, or from projected to actual experience. And the latter, the awareness of one’s own, alterable being in the shared experience of the dance, is in itself the insight to be gained from the ritual. In the communal dance, seeing and moving form a continuum in terms of the experience of those involved. Seeing a dancer and dancing are part of the same process and work towards the same twofold goal, empathy and experience of self. It is perhaps fair to say that in highlighting this double function of dance – empathy and experience of self – Acts of John spells out what Clement implies when he equates dancing with initiation.34 The way the theme of empathy with Jesus is elaborated reveals further commonalities with the ancient mystery tradition and with Clement in particular. Jesus’ wish to assimilate his fellow dancers to himself by bringing them into the same rhythm

34 For a modern enquiry into dance and empathy, see Foster (2008 and 2011).

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(ῥυθμίζεσθαι θέλω ψυχὰς ἁγίας ἐπ’ ἐμέ, 96.18) resonates closely with Clement’s Protreptic and, via Clement, with Plato’s Timaeus.35 Moreover, the striking cosmological references in chapter 95 recall Clement’s Christian reinterpretation of the astral dimension of the mysteries in Protreptic 119 (above at n. 19). Although in Acts of John the references to the “Eight” and the “Twelve” remain obscure, they clearly convey the idea of a correspondence between earthly and heavenly dance, a leitmotiv of ancient mystery cults.36 The human and divine realms are connected also in the figure of Jesus himself, who after descending as Logos and dancing as Grace suffers “the experience of mankind” and in so doing enables the disciples’ full realisation of their own, human experience (96.4–6).37 Again, here and in the remainder of Jesus’ discourse, Jesus’ experience and the disciples’ experience are deeply interwoven. What is meant by the “experience (pathos) of mankind” will subsequently be elaborated, if in an enigmatic manner, with the pathos of the Logos, which consists of the very events related to the crucifixion but transposed to a symbolic dimension (101). In between these two passages, the voice of the narrator resumes with a comment that underlines the precedence of the choral dance itself over its elucidation through words with a striking transitive use of the verb choreuō: “Having imparted these things through the dance with us, beloved ones, the Lord left” (Ταῦτα, ἀγαπητοί, χορεύσας μεθ’ ἡμῶν ὁ κύριος ἐξῆλθεν, 97.1f).38 The choral dance is itself a revelatory act, and the words spoken by Jesus merely translate what the dance conveys in its own, more direct way. The crucial role of the dance is confirmed by the fact that its end marks the physical dissolution of the group and the renewal of their erring: “And we, as if gone astray or put to sleep, each fled in a different direction” (97.2f). The erring is expressed with the same verb (πλανηθέντες) that is used for the “erring” revolutions of the human mind in Plato’s Timaeus (πεπλανημένας, 47c 3–4). Once again, there is a striking continuity in the ideas related to dancing – heavenly in Timaeus and human, with Jesus descended, in Acts of John. In Timaeus, the “erring” revolutions of the human mind must align themselves with the “unerring ones” (ἀπλανεῖς,

35 Protr. 120.4: διορθώσασθαι ὑμᾶς πρὸς τὸ ἀρχέτυπον βούλομαι, ἵνα μοι καὶ ὅμοιοι γένησθε (“I wish to straighten you up to the archetype, so that you may become akin to me”); Timaeus 47bc and 90d. 36 The “Eight” sym-psallei (95.23f); the “Twelve” dances above (95.25f; cf. the twelve gods at Phaedrus 247a); the universe (textual problem) dances (26f). On the Valentinian background, see Junod/ Kaestli (1983, 615f). 37 On Grace (94.11; 95.18; 98.12; 109.7) as a link between heaven and earth, see Junod/Kaestli (1983, 615f). 38 Italics by the author. The accusative is otherwise common with cognate objects (e.g. χορείας) or for the divinity that is celebrated. An influence of ὀρχεῖσθαι with accusative, the verb used for contemporary pantomimes portraying myths through dance, is likely.

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47c 3) of the heavenly bodies, to which they are “akin” (συγγενεῖς, 47b 8). In Acts of John the disciples are “akin” to Jesus (101.6, quoted below). In both contexts dancing is a practice that conveys an existential sense of belonging and reinforces a profound connection with the divine. So, when Jesus addresses a lengthy discourse to his disciple John on the Mount of Olives at the very time he is ostensibly being crucified (98.7–101.16), he invites John not to pay attention to “those outside the mystery” (100.11). And the mystery, as we also glean from Jesus’ speech, is nothing but the experience (pathos) conveyed in the dance (101.1–6): οὐδὲν οὖν ὧν μέλλουσιν λέγειν περὶ ἐμοῦ ἔπαθον· ἀλλὰ καὶ τὸ πάθος ἐκεῖνο ὃ ἔδειξά σοι καὶ τοῖς λοιποῖς χορεύων μυστήριον βούλομαι καλεῖσθαι. ὃ γὰρ εἶ σὺ ὁρᾷς, τοῦτο ἐγώ σοι ἔδειξα· ὃ δέ εἰμι τοῦτο ἐγὼ μόνος οἶδα, ἄλλος οὐδείς. τὸ οὖν ἐμὸν ἔα με ἔχειν, τὸ δὲ σὸν δι’ ἐμοῦ ὅρα. ἐμὲ δὲ ὄντως ὁρᾶν, οὐκ ἔφην ὑπάρχειν, ἀλλ’ ὃ σὺ δύνῃ γνωρίζειν συγγενὴς ὤν.

“So I have experienced none of the things which they will say about me. But even that experience which I showed to you and to the others in my dance, I wish that it be called a mystery. For you see what you are, that I have shown to you. But what I am, that I alone know, no one else. So let me have what is mine, but see what is yours through me. To see me truly, I said that it was not possible, but only that which you are able to know, being akin.”39

The passage suggests that Jesus showed “that experience” in the dance so that the disciples may attain self-knowledge. By contrast, the rite does not reveal anything about Jesus’ true nature. Once more, the tight connection between seeing, dancing and cognition comes to the fore. The mystery has a cognitive purpose, and the sensory-emotional experience of the rite is a necessary condition of insight. But at the same time the passage puts greatest emphasis on delimiting the insight envisaged by the ritual. It states twice that this insight consists in nothing but seeing one’s own being (ὃ γὰρ εἶ σὺ ὁρᾷς, 3; τὸ δὲ σὸν δι’ ἐμοῦ ὅρα, 5). The disciple won’t gain full understanding of Jesus’ nature, who declared already in the song itself: “What I appear to your eyes now I am not” (96.12). Instead, Jesus is the medium through which the fellow dancer is invited to “see” what he himself is (101.5). There is thus a peculiar dialectic between the symbolic appearance of Jesus and the unmediated experience of self, the ultimate aim of the mystery. The “seeing” (familiar from accounts of initiation) is clearly predicated on the active participation in the dance,

39 Italics by the author. The crucial verb “to show” is repeated in the section dedicated to the Cross of Light (98.1: ἔδειξεν).

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which was established earlier as an indispensable element of the ritual (95.29f; 96.3). Cognition in this mystery should therefore by no means be confused with mere physical seeing. Rather, the visual impact is part of a more complex experience to which seeing, bodily movement and empathy contribute in equal measure. Interestingly, these intuitions are fully borne out by the findings of recent research on mirror neurons, which has shown that witnessing someone who moves involves the very same parts of the brain that are activated, when those movements are actually executed and not just seen in another.40 From the perspective of neurobiology, we see the other “as experiencing” (rather than as doing) for the simple reason that we experience the other. For in witnessing someone else, we “reuse” our own mental and emotional states in an “embodied simulation”. This is how – to use an example given by Vittorio Gallese – when we sit in a café and see someone reaching for a cup, we immediately know not only that this person is going to drink from the cup, but also that the person is guided by the desire for the drink.41 Without having to infer anything, we relate immediately to the other’s intentional state; we experience it. Moreover, research on concerted physical action and its lasting effects on the brain suggests that those involved forge a bond with each other that outlasts the shared activity. “When the self acts”, Marco Iacoboni writes, “the self also perceives the other. Self and other become two sides of the same coin.” He concludes: “Our neurobiology […] puts us ‘within each other’.”42 If we accept Acts of John as deeply informed by the ancient tradition of mystery rites, we can conclude that the crucial role of dancing in the mysteries rests on the ultimately simple idea that physical movement – both another’s and one’s own, and especially as they respond to each other – is a privileged entry way to the experience of one’s own being in its relatedness to others. While the Acts of John refrains from defining the sensory-emotional experience provided by the dance in any detail, the way it portrays dancing together as a practice that yields understanding makes perfect sense from a modern scientific perspective. The dance it depicts allows the participants to get a sense of their susceptibility to intersubjective experience, and this goes perhaps towards understanding what it means to be a human being. It would be wrong to read the evidence from Acts of John as representative for ancient mystery rites in general. Nevertheless, the text adds nuance to what many sources hint at, namely that dancing is the very heart of mystery cults.

40 See Iacoboni (2008) for an introduction to mirror neurons; Gallese (2014b) for a recent overview; for a critical assessment see Hickok (2014). 41 See Gallese (2014a); Gallese (2013). Wittgenstein (1980), section 570 went even farther, stating: “We see emotion.” – As opposed to what? – “We do not see facial contortions and make the inference that he is feeling joy, grief, boredom” (quoted in Iacoboni 2008, 262). 42 Iacoboni (2011, 56f).

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4.

Conclusionary Remarks: The Pathos of Dance

The pragmatic function of dancing as a way of shaping experience, which is highlighted in many sources on ancient mystery rites, is spelled out clearly in the Acts of John. The contrast between active and passive is softened, and the experiences of self and other are deeply entwined. As the hymn puts it, those who witness someone else dancing, upon seeing what he does, perceive him as one who experiences, and they themselves are inwardly and outwardly moved by what they see. In this perspective, dancing together is not so much an activity as a means to access another’s experience, which is transformed into one’s own. Although many details of this intriguing hymn remain obscure, it seems clear enough that the “human experience” (τὸ ἀνθρώπου πάθος, 96.4) that Jesus imparts to his fellow dancers through the dancing has to do with his (apparent) death on the Cross, through which the disciples become aware of their own mortality. In its own way, then, this dance aims at revealing a basic condition, shared by all human beings. In more general terms, the dance allows the participants to get a sense of their vulnerability and their susceptibility to intersubjective experience, which goes perhaps towards understanding what it means to be a human being.43 One of the most prominent leitmotivs of ancient dance discourse is the ability of dance to blur the boundaries between seemingly clear-cut categories. Dance reconciles opposites by encapsulating rational patterns and sensory experience, presence and transience, active and passive. This resonates in interesting ways with recent analyses of physical performance as practised by artists since the 1960s, as well as with Homi Bhabha’s notion of the Third Space.44 Dance is performative and dynamic, and its way to cognition and action is experience. Experience, understood first of all as a traceable physical event, is by definition unmediated. Dance can thus be understood as a practice in which human beings, whether as dancers or spectators, are confronted with the irreducible reality of their own physical existence, which is constantly changing. In the context of ancient Greek religious practices, dance may ultimately be a means of conceptualizing and expressing the unstable nature of human life, and thus perhaps a strategy of coping with it.

43 This is perhaps especially true in the proto-Christian framework depicted in the Acts of John, which places great emphasis on pathos. But insofar as the dance and the intersubjective experience it enables contribute to the formation of a community, which is vital for the well-being of the individual, the above remarks may be relevant in a wider context. See Seaford (2013, 266–273) for the internal dynamic and ‘solidarity’ of the mystic chorus. 44 Fischer-Lichte (2008, ch. 2 at n. 6) sees an essential trait of modern performance art in its ability to undermine binary conceptual categories. She claims furthermore that performance art since the 1960s has uncovered the conditions and mechanisms that characterize physical performance in general (ibid., ch. 7). In the light of the above discussion, this view seems perfectly plausible.

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Bibliography Text editions Bernabé, A./Jiménez San Cristóbal, A.I. (2008), Instructions for the Netherworld. The Orphic Gold Tablets, Leiden/Boston, Massachusetts: de Gruyter. Hedrick, C.W./Mirecki, P.A. (ed.) (1999), Gospel of the Savior. A New Ancient Gospel, Santa Rosa, California: Polebridge Press. Hubai, P. (2009), Koptische Apokryphen aus Nubien. Der Kasr el-Wizz Kodex, tr. A. Balog, Berlin/New York: de Gruyter. Junod, É./Kaestli, J.-D. (ed.) (1983), Acta Iohannis, 2 vols. Turnhout: Brepols.

Secondary literature Alonso Fernández, Z. (2013), ‘Maenadic Ecstasy in Rome: Fact or Fiction?’, in A. Bernabé/ M. Herrero de Jáuregui/A.I. Jiménez San Cristóbal/R. Martín Hernández (ed.), Redefining Dionysos, Berlin/Boston, Massachusetts: de Gruyter: 185–199. Alonso Fernández, Z. (2015), Docta saltatrix. Body Knowledge, Culture, and Corporeal Discourse in Female Roman Dance, Phoenix 69: 304–333. Andresen, C. (1961), Altchristliche Kritik am Tanz – ein Ausschnitt aus dem Kampf der alten Kirche gegen heidnische Sitte, ZKG 72, 217–62, reprinted in P. Gemeinhardt/C. Andresen (ed.), Theologie und Kirche im Horizont der Antike, Berlin: de Gruyter, 91–138. Beard-Shouse, M.G. (2010), The Circle Dance of the Cross in the Acts of John. An Early Christian Ritual (MA thesis, University of Kansas), http://kuscholarworks.ku.edu/dspace/ bitstream/1808/6462/1/BeardShouseku0099M_10717_DATA_1.pdf, accessed 17 June 2107. Belfiore, E. (2006), Dancing with the Gods. The Myth of the Chariot in Plato’s Phaedrus, AJPh 127, 185–217. Borgeaud, P. (2007), ‘Rites et émotions. Considérations sur les mystères’, in J. Scheid (ed.), Rites et croyances dans les religions du monde romain, Entretiens sur l’antiquité classique 53, Genève: Fondation Hardt: 189–222. Bowe, B.E. (1999), Dancing into the Divine. The Hymn of the Dance in the Acts of John, JECS 7, 83–104. Bremmer, J. (2014), Initiation into the Mysteries of the Ancient World, Berlin/Boston, Massachussets: de Gruyter. Burkert, W. (1983), Homo Necans. The Anthropology of Ancient Greek Sacrificial Ritual and Myth, tr. P. Bing. Berkeley/Los Angeles: University of California Press = Homo Necans. Interpretationen altgriechischer Opferriten und Mythen, Berlin/New York: de Gruyter, 1972 (repr. 1997).

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Burkert, W. (1985), Greek Religion. Archaic and Classical, tr. J. Raffan. Oxford/ Cambridge, Massachusetts: Blackwell = Griechische Religion der archaischen und klassischen Epoche, Stuttgart: Kohlhammer 1977 (2nd ed., 2011). Burkert, W. (1987), Ancient Mystery Cults, Cambridge, Massachusetts/London: Harvard University Press = Antike Mysterien. Funktionen und Gehalt, Munich: C.H. Beck 1990. Csapo, E. (2008), ‘Star Choruses. Eleusis, Orphism and New Musical Imagery and Dance’, in M. Revermann/P. Wilson (ed.), Performance, Iconography, Reception. Studies in Honour of Oliver Taplin, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 262–290. Dewey, A.J. (1986), The Hymn in the Acts of John: Dance as Hermeneutic, Semeia 38, 67–80. Dilley, P. (2013), Christus saltans as Dionysos and David: The Dance of the Savior in its Late-Antique Cultural Context, Apocrypha 24, 237–254. Dronke, P. (2003), Imagination in the Late Pagan and Early Christian World, Florence: Sismel. Edmonds, R.G. III (2006), To Sit in Solemn Silence? Thronosis in Ritual, Myth, and Iconography, AJP 127, 347–366. Emmel, S. (2002), The Recently Published Gospel of the Saviour (“Unbekanntes Berliner Evangelium”): Righting the Order of Pages and Events, HTR 95, 45–72. Fitton, J.W. (1973), Greek Dance, CQ 23, 254–274. Foster, S. L. (2008), ‘Movement’s Contagion. The Kinesthetic Impact of Performance’, in T.C. Davis (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Performance Studies. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 46–59. Foster, S.L. (2011), Choreographing Empathy. Kinesthesia in Performance, London/New York: Routledge. Gallese, V. (2013), ‘Den Körper im Gehirn finden. Konzeptuelle Überlegungen zu den Spiegelneuronen’, in: M. Leuzinger Bohleber/R.N. Emde/R. Pfeifer (ed.), Embodiment. Ein innovatives Konzept für Entwicklungsforschung und Psychoanalyse, Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 75–112. Gallese, V. (2014a), Bodily Selves in Relation. Embodied Simulation as Second-Person Perspective on Intersubjectivity, Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B 369, 20130177. Gallese, V. (2014b), ‘A New Take on Intersubjectivity’, in M. Ammaniti/V. Gallese, The Birth of Intersubjectivity. Psychodynamics, Neurobiology, and the Self, New York/London: W. W. Norton & Co., 1–25. Graf, F. (1974), Eleusis und die orphische Dichtung Athens in vorhellenistischer Zeit, Berlin/New York: de Gruyter. Graf, F. (2003), ‘Lesser Mysteries – Not Less Mysterious’, in M.B. Cosmopoulos (ed.), Greek Mysteries. The Archaeology and Ritual of Ancient Greek Secret Cults, London/New York: Routledge, 241–262. Hardie, A. (2004), ‘Muses and Mysteries’, in P. Murray/P. Wilson (ed.), Music and the Muses. The Culture of ‘Mousike’ in the Classical Athenian City, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 11–37.

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Herrero de Jáuregui, M. (2010), Orphism and Christianity in Late Antiquity, Berlin/New York: de Gruyter. Hickok, G. (2014), The Myth of Mirror Neurons. The Real Neuroscience of Communication and Cognition, New York/London: W.W. Norton & Co. Iacoboni, M. (2008), Mirroring People. The New Science of How We Connect with Others, New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Iacoboni, M. (2011), ‘Within Each Other. Neural Mechanisms for Empathy in the Primate Brain’, in A. Coplan/P. Goldie (ed.), Empathy. Philosophical and Psychological Perspectives, Oxford/New York: Oxford University Press, 45–57. Jaccottet, A.-F. (2003), Choisir Dionysos. Les Associations dionysiaques ou la face cachée du dionysisme, 2 vols., Kilchberg: Akanthus. Kaestli, J.-D. (1986), Response, Semeia 38: 81–88. Koller, H. (1954), Die Mimesis in der Antike. Nachahmung, Darstellung, Ausdruck, Bern: Francke. Kowalzig, B. (2005), ‘Mapping out Communitas: Performances of Theōria in their Sacred and Political Context’, in J. Elsner/I. Rutherford (ed.), Pilgrimage in Graeco-Roman and Early Christian Antiquity. Seeing the Gods, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 41–72. Lada-Richards, I. (1999), Initiating Dionysus. Ritual and Theatre in Aristophanes’ Frogs, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Lalleman, P.J. (1998), The Acts of John. A Two-Stage Initiation into Johannine Gnosticism, Leuven: Peeters. Latte, K. (1913), De saltationibus Graecorum capita quinque, Giessen: A. Töpelmann. Lawler, L.B. (1964a), The Dance in Ancient Greece, London: A. & C. Black. Lawler, L.B. (1964b), The Dance of the Ancient Greek Theatre, Iowa City: University of Iowa Press. Lonsdale, S.H. (1993), Dance and Ritual Play in Greek Religion, Baltimore, Maryland/ London: Johns Hopkins University Press. Luttikhuizen, G. (1995), ‘A Gnostic Reading of the Acts of John’, in J.N. Bremmer (ed.), The Apocryphal Acts of John, Kampen: Pharos, 119–152. MacMullen, R. (1997), Christianity and Paganism in the Fourth to Eighth Centuries, New Haven, Connecticut: Yale University Press. Mylonas, G.E. (1961), Eleusis and the Eleusinian mysteries, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Naerebout, F.G. (1997), Attractive Performances. Ancient Greek Dance: Three Preliminary Studies, Amsterdam: Gieben. Naerebout, F.G. (2006), ‘Moving Events. Dance at Public Events in the Ancient Greek World. Thinking through its Implications’, in E. Stavrianopoulou (ed.), Ritual and Communication in the Graeco-Roman World, Kernos suppl. 16, Liège: Centre International d’Étude de la Religion Grecque Antique, 37–67.

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Naerebout, F.G. (2009), ‘Das Reich tanzt … Dance in the Roman Empire and its Discontents’, in O. Hekster/S. Schmidt-Hofner/C. Witschel (ed.), Ritual Dynamics and Religious Change in the Roman Empire, Leiden: Brill, 143–158. Piovanelli, P. (2012), Thursday Night Fever. Dancing and Singing with Jesus in the Gospel of the Savior and the Dance of the Savior around the Cross, Early Christianity 3, 229–248. Prudhommeau, G. (1965), La Danse grecque antique, 2 vols., Paris: Edition du Centre national de la recherch scientifique. Riedweg, C. (1987), Mysterienterminologie bei Platon, Philon und Klemens von Alexandrien, Berlin/New York: de Gruyter. Schlapbach, K. (2021), ‘Making Sense: Dance in Ancient Greek Mystery Cults and in Acts of John’, in L. Gianvittorio/K. Schlapbach (ed.), Choreonarratives. Dancing Stories in Greek and Roman Antiquity and Beyond, Leiden: Brill, 82–107. Schneider, P.G. (1991a), The Mystery of the Acts of John. An Interpretation of the Hymn and the Dance in Light of the Acts’ Theology, San Francisco: Edwin Mellen Press. Schneider, P.G. (1991b), “A Perfect Fit”. The Major Interpolation in the Acts of John, Society of Biblical Literature Seminar Papers 30, 518–532. Schneider, P.G. (1994), ‘The Acts of John. The Gnostic Transformation of a Christian Community’, in W.E. Helleman (ed.), Hellenization Revisited. Shaping a Christian Response within the Greco-Roman World, Lanham, Maryland: University Press of America, 241–269. Seaford, R. (2006), Dionysos. London/New York: Routledge. Seaford, R. (2013), ‘The Politics of the Mystic Chorus’, in J. Billings/F. Budelmann/F. Macintosh (ed.), Choruses, Ancient and Modern, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 261–279. Shaw, B.D. (2011), Sacred Violence. African Christians and Sectarian Hatred in the Age of Augustine, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Voelke, P. (2001), Un Théâtre de la marge. Aspects figuratifs et configurationnels du drame satyrique dans l’Athènes classique, Bari. Webb, R. (1997), ‘Salome’s Sisters. The Rhetoric and Realities of Dance in Late Antiquity and Byzantium’, in L. James (ed.), Women, Men and Eunuchs. Gender in Byzantium, London/New York: Routledge, 119–148. Wittgenstein, L. (1980), Remarks on the Philosophy of Psychology, vol. 2, ed. G.H. von Wright/H. Nyman, tr. C.G. Luckhardt/M.A.E. Aue, Oxford: Blackwell. Yingling, E. (2013), Singing with the Savior. Reconstructing the Ritual Ring-Dance in the Gospel of the Savior, Apocrypha 24, 255–279. Zuntz, G. (1971), Persephone. Three Essays on Religion and Thought in Magna Graecia, Oxford: Oxford University Press.

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Dancing the Islamic Way Two Famous Sufi Masters This contribution consists of two short translations from the Persian language pertaining to dance as a religious practice among Muslims. The texts are excerpted from hagiographies of Sufi masters famous for their teaching, practices, and long legacies. While situated within specific socio-historical circumstances, the perspectives on Sufi dance brought up here index issues that have mattered throughout history whenever dance has been the subject of Islamic religious discussion. These texts are especially helpful for giving us a sense for the place of traditional, psychosomatic, interpersonal, and social issues pertaining to dance within Sufi contexts. The translations are quite straightforward and my overall purpose is to let them speak for themselves. I would like to preface them by explaining the choice of leaving the word samā‘, which denotes dance, untranslated within the English text. This is because the literal meaning of samā‘ is ‘audition’, even though, from context, we can be certain that the activity to which this word is referring corresponds to what we would commonly describe as dance. The seeming non sequitur is a noteworthy point of information: it indicates dance’s presumed absolute predication on aural stimulus in Sufi contexts. Among Sufis who advocate or allow dancing for religious purposes, the body is activated into dance on the precondition of sound entering it through the ear in the form of recitation or music. From this understanding, the word samā‘ comes to refer to both hearing the stimulus and dancing in reaction to it. Furthermore, it is noteworthy that the word samā‘ has a semantic field wider than dance. It can refer to any experience of hearing music or its recitation for religious purposes, without it necessarily leading to dance. Samā‘ is also closely connected to zekr (Arabic: dhikr), literally ‘remembrance’, which refers to any kind of disciplined spiritual practice aimed at concentrating one’s being on God or an intermediary, such as one’s Sufi master. Sufis who frown upon listening to music and dancing usually distinguish clearly between zekr (which is allowed) and samā‘ (which is reprehensible). Among those who use music and dance for religious purposes, the two terms tend to meld into each other, and one has to discern the matter from individual context. Overall, Sufi dance is situated within a larger spectrum of corporeal religious practices that run the gamut between silent and still meditation, on one end, and vigorous movement in dance, on the other (Avery: 2004; Bashir: 2011, 68–77; Lewisohn: 1997).

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1.

The Dance of Jalāloddīn Rūmī

The first translated selection describes the place of dance in the life of Jalāloddīn Rūmī (died 1274), the famous poet (in Persian as well as in modern translations), who is also the original figure of the Sufi community known as the Mevlevis (Ambrosio/Feuillebois/Zarcone: 2006). Basing their perspective on Rūmī’s exemplary life spent in Konya (present-day Turkey), the Mevlevis are known as the ‘whirling dervishes’ in English on account of their elaborately choreographed dancing liturgy. The Mevlevis are by far the best known practitioners of Islamic religious dance. Their performance began its long life in the 13th century. It has been celebrated both as a religious exercise and as an impressive spectacle inspiring people ranging between pre-modern Sufi adepts, modern western theorists of dance, and tourists (Barber: 1980; Behar: 2014; Hamilton: 2016; De Zorzi: 2015). The text pertaining to dance which follows comes from the oldest known source providing an account of Jalāloddīn Rūmī’s life. Its author, Farīdūn b. Ahmad Sipāhsālār (died first quarter of the fourteenth century CE), claims to have been attached as a disciple to Rūmī until his death, following which his descendants succeeded him as the community’s leaders. Following a pattern common to this type of Sufi literature, he states that he decided to write a posthumous account of the master in order to preserve his sacred memory. He considered this an urgent task because, at the time of writing, Rūmī’s contemporaries were dwindling rapidly in number due to advanced age (Sipāhsālār: 1946, 4–8). In the long term, Sipāhsālār’s account was superseded by another, lengthier hagiography of Rūmī that utilized his work as a resource (Elias: 2020; Lewis: 2014). Sipāhsālār’s description of Rumi adopting dance is both laudatory and apologetic. The defensiveness observable here reflects socio-religious ambivalence that is a common feature of Islamic discussions pertaining to dance. Rūmī’s adoption of dance is justified through tradition, his personal encounter with another Sufi, and psychosomatic effects relatable to a cosmology traceable to the Quran.

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Translation (Sipāhsālār: 1946, 64–68)1 Know, truthful lover and agreeable friend – may God accompany you in both the worlds – that in the initial part of his life, our Eminent Lord (Hazrat-e Khodāvandegār) – may God let his light flow upon us – carried on according to the path and example of his father, his eminence Mawlānā Bahāoddīn Valad. This included imparting lessons, giving sermons, and undertaking religious exercises. He followed all the forms of worship, and performed spiritual exercises that are attributed to his eminence the Prophet [Muhammad]2 , God’s prayers and peace on him. He experienced such epiphanies and stations that had not come to anyone else among others who were also perfected persons, devoted to prayer, fasting, and spiritual exertion. But he never did samā‘.

،‫ﺑﺪان ای ﻋﺎﺷﻖ ﺻﺎدق و اﻧﯿﺲ ﻣﻮاﻓﻖ‬ ‫ ﮐﻪ ﺣﻀﺮت‬،‫وﻓﻘﮏ اﻪﻠﻟ ﻓﯽ اﻟﺪارﯾﻦ‬ ‫ﺧﺪاوﻧﺪﮔﺎر ﻣﺎ اﻓﺎض اﻪﻠﻟ ﻧﻮره ﻋﻠﯿﻨﺎ از‬ ‫اﺑﺘﺪای ﺣﺎل ﺑﻄﺮﯾﻘﻪ و ﺳﯿﺮت ﭘﺪرش‬ ‫ﻟﻧﺎ ﺑﻬﺎءاﻟﺪﯾﻦ وﻟﺪ رﺿﻮان‬ ‫ﺣﻀﺮت ﻣﻮ ﺎ‬ ‫ﻋﻠﯿﻪ ﻣﺜﻞ درس ﮔﻔﺘﻦ و ﻣﻮﻋﻈﻪ‬ ‫ﻓﺮﻣﻮدن و ﻣﺠﺎﻫﺪه و رﯾﺎﺿﺖ ﻣﺸﻐﻮل‬ ‫ﻣﯿﺒﻮدﻧﺪ و از ﻫﺮ ﮔﻮﻧﻪ ﻋﺒﺎدت و رﯾﺎﺿﺖ‬ ‫ﮐﻪ از ﺣﻀﺮت رﺳﺎﻟﺖ ﺻﻠﻮات اﻪﻠﻟ ﻋﻠﯿﻪ‬ ‫ﻠﻣﻪ ﻣﻨﻘﻮل ﺑﻮد ﻣﺘﺎﺑﻌﺖ ﻣﯿﻨﻤﻮدﻧﺪ و‬ ‫وﺳ ﺎ‬ ‫آن ﺗﺠﻠﯿﻬﺎ و ﻣﻘﺎﻣﺎت ﮐﻪ ﻫﯿﭻ ﮐﺎﻣﻠﯽ را‬ ‫دﺳﺖ ﻧﺪاده ﺑﻮد در ﺻﻮرت ﻧﻤﺎز و روزه‬ ‫ اﻣﺎ‬،‫و رﯾﺎﺿﺖ ﻣﺸﺎﻫﺪه ﻣﯿﻔﺮﻣﻮدﻧﺪ‬ .‫ﺳﻤﺎع ﻫﺮﮔﺰ ﻧﮑﺮده ﺑﻮدﻧﺪ‬

Then, he saw, with spiritual sight, that the Sultan of beloveds, Mawlānā Shamsolhaqq Vaddīn Tabrīzī – may God exalt his memory – is the beloved and lord among [God’s] friends and holds the highest station among beloveds. He fell in love with him and regarded everything he said as a bounty. He [Tabrīzī] then told him: “Come to samā‘, because what you seek increases in samā‘. Samā‘ is forbidden to the multitudes because they are mired in worldly desires. When they do samā‘, their blameworthy and deplorable condition increases, because their movement is directed toward enjoyment and play. There is no doubt that samā‘ is forbidden for such a group. However, those who desire and love the Truth, their condition and desires increase through samā‘ such that no one other than God comes within their sight. For this group, samā‘ is allowed.”

‫ﻟﻧﺎ ﺳﻠﻄﺎن اﻟﻤﺤﺒﻮﺑﯿﻦ‬ ‫ﭼﻮن ﺣﻀﺮت ﻣﻮ ﺎ‬ ‫ﻟﻧﺎ ﺷﻤﺲ اﻟﺤﻖ واﻟﺪﯾﻦ اﻟﺘﺒﺮﯾﺰی‬ ‫ﻣﻮ ﺎ‬ ‫ﻋﻈﻢ اﻪﻠﻟ ذﮐﺮه را ﺑﻨﻈﺮ ﺑﺼﯿﺮت دﯾﺪ ﮐﻪ‬ ‫ﻠی‬ ‫ﻟوﻟﯿﺎﺳﺖ و ﺑﺎﻋ ﺎ‬ ‫ﻣﻌﺸﻮق وﺳﻠﻄﺎن ا ﺎ‬ ‫ﻣﻘﺎﻣﺎت ﻣﺤﺒﻮﺑﺎن ﻣﻘﺎم دارد ﻋﺎﺷﻖ او‬ ‫ﺷﺪ و ﺑﻬﺮ ﭼﻪ او ﻓﺮﻣﻮدی آن را ﻏﻨﯿﻤﺖ‬ ‫ ﭘﺲ اﺷﺎرت ﻓﺮﻣﻮدﻧﺪ ﮐﻪ در‬.‫داﺷﺘﯽ‬ ‫ ﮐﻪ آﻧﭽﻪ ﻃﻠﺒﯽ در ﺳﻤﺎع‬،‫ﺳﻤﺎع درآ‬ ‫ ﺳﻤﺎع ﺑﺮ ﺧﻠﻖ از آن‬،‫زﯾﺎده ﺧﻮاﻫﺪ ﺷﺪن‬ ،‫ﺣﺮام ﺷﺪ ﮐﻪ ﺑﺮ ﻫﻮای ﻧﻔﺲ ﻣﺸﻐﻮﻟﻨﺪ‬ ‫ﭼﻮن ﺳﻤﺎع ﻣﯿﮑﻨﻨﺪ آن ﺣﺎﻟﺖ ﻣﺬﻣﻮم و‬ ‫ﻣﮑﺮوه زﯾﺎده ﻣﯿﺸﻮد و ﺣﺮﮐﺖ را از ﺳﺮ‬ ‫ﻟ ﺟﺮم ﺳﻤﺎع ﺑﺮ‬ ‫ ﺎ‬،‫ﻟﻬﻮ و ﺑﻄﺮ ﻣﯿﮑﻨﻨﺪ‬ ‫ﻠف آن‬ ‫ ﺑﺮ ﺧ ﺎ‬،‫ﭼﻨﯿﻦ ﻗﻮم ﺣﺮام ﺑﺎﺷﺪ‬ ‫ در‬،‫ﺟﻤﻌﯽ ﮐﻪ ﻃﺎﻟﺐ و ﻋﺎﺷﻖ ﺣﻖ اﻧﺪ‬ ‫ﺳﻤﺎع آن ﺣﺎﻟﺖ و ﻃﻠﺐ زﯾﺎدت ﻣﯿﺸﻮد‬ ‫و ﻣﺎ ﺳﻮی اﻪﻠﻟ در آن وﻗﺖ در ﻧﻈﺮ‬ ‫ ﭘﺲ ﺑﺮ ﭼﻨﯿﻦ ﻗﻮم‬،‫اﯾﺸﺎن ﻧﻤﯽ آﯾﺪ‬ .‫ﺳﻤﺎع ﻣﺒﺎح ﺑﺎﺷﺪ‬

He [Rūmī] heeded these instructions and entered into samā‘. In samā‘, he saw and examined what had been described, and he continued this practice to the end of his life. He made it his path and rule. The greatest among shaykhs and knowers, possessors of ecstasy, are said to have done samā‘, enunciating great words during it. It is related that, one day, an Arab of the desert from Najd was singing these verses [in Arabic] in a beautiful and captivating voice:

‫ﺑﻨﺎ ﺑﺮ اﺷﺎرت اﯾﺸﺎن اﻣﺘﺜﺎل ﻓﺮﻣﻮدﻧﺪ و‬ ‫ آﻧﭽﻪ اﺷﺎرت ﻓﺮﻣﻮده‬،‫در ﺳﻤﺎع در آﻣﺪه‬ ،‫ﺑﻮدﻧﺪ در ﺣﺎﻟﺖ ﺳﻤﺎع ﻣﺸﺎﻫﺪه ﮐﺮده‬ ‫ﺑﻤﻌﺎﯾﻨﻪ دﯾﺪﻧﺪ وﺗﺎ آﺧﺮ ﻋﻤﺮ ﺑﺮ آن ﺳﯿﺎق‬ ‫ﻋﻤﻞ ﮐﺮدﻧﺪ وآن را ﻃﺮﯾﻖ و آﺋﯿﻦ‬ ‫ﺳﺎﺧﺘﻨﺪ و از اﮐﺜﺮ ﻣﺸﺎﯾﺦ و ﻋﺮﻓﺎء‬ ‫ﺻﺎﺣﺐ وﺟﺪ ﻣﺮوﯾﺴﺖ ﮐﻪ ﺳﻤﺎع ﻣﯽ‬ ‫ﻓﺮﻣﻮده اﻧﺪ و در اﺛﻨﺎی آن ﮐﻠﻤﺎﺗﯽ ﻋﺎﻟﯽ‬ ‫ﻧﻘﻞ ﻣﯿﮑﺮده اﻧﺪ و ﻧﻘﻠﺴﺖ ﮐﻪ روزی‬ ‫اﻋﺮاﺑﺌﯽ در ﻧﺠﺪ ﺑﺂوازی ﺧﻮش و دﻟﮑﺶ‬ :‫اﯾﻦ اﺑﯿﺎت ﻣﯽ ﺳﺮاﺋﯿﺪ ﮐﻪ‬

1 In accordance with the statutory provisions of copyright law, the author/publisher has made every effort to obtain copyrights from the authors of the texts. It has not been possible to locate the copyright holders in all cases; the publisher may be contacted for legitimate claims not mentioned here. 2 Words in square brackets are additions by the author in the following.

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240

Shahzad Bashir

Every morning and daybreak, My eyes weep tears of ardor. Desire’s serpent has stung my liver. There’s no doctor, nor an enchanter for this, Save the beloved, with whom I am smitten. He alone has my talisman and medicine.

‫ﺗﺒﮏ ﻋﯿﻨﻲ ﺑﺪﻣﻊ ﮐﻞ ﺻﺒﺢ و ﮐﻞ اﺷﺮاق‬ ‫ﻟ ﻟﺴﻌﺖ ﺣﯿﺔ اﻟﻬﻮی ﮐﺒﺪي ﻣﺸﺘﺎق‬ ‫ﺎ‬ ‫ﻟ راﻗﻲ‬ ‫ﻟ اﻟﺤﺒﯿﺐ اﻟﺬي ﻃﺒﯿﺐ ﻟﻬﺎ و ﺎ‬ ‫ا ﺎ‬ ‫ ﺷﻌﻔﺖ ﺑﻪ‬.‫ﻋﻨﺪه رﻗﯿﺘﻲ و ﺗﺮﯾﺎﻗﻲ‬

When his eminence [Prophet Muhammad], the lord of the firsts and the lasts – on him highest prayers and plentiful salutations –, heard these verses, the great oceans of spiritual knowledge, love, and passion that were in his enlightened heart came to a boil. He indicated the Arab to repeat the verses, while his eminence, from height of desire, twirled his blessed hands. His movements were so vigorous that his blessed mantle fell away from his shoulders.

‫ﻟﺧﺮﯾﻦ ﻋﻠﯿﻪ‬ ‫ﻟوﻟﯿﻦ وا ﺂ‬ ‫ﺣﻀﺮت ﺳﯿﺪ ا ﺎ‬ ‫اﻟﺼﻠﻮة اﻓﻀﻠﻬﺎ و ﻣﻦ اﻟﺘﺤﯿﺎت اﮐﻤﻠﻬﺎ‬ ‫ﭼﻮن اﯾﻦ اﺑﯿﺎت ﺑﺸﻨﯿﺪ درﯾﺎﻫﺎی ﻣﻌﺮﻓﺖ‬ ‫و ﻣﺤﺒﺖ و ﺷﻮق ﮐﻪ در دل ﻣﻨﻮرش ﺑﻮد‬ ‫ اﺷﺎرت ﻓﺮﻣﻮد ﺗﺎ اﻋﺮاﺑﯽ‬.‫در ﺟﻮش آﻣﺪ‬ ‫اﯾﻦ اﺑﯿﺎت را ﻣﮑﺮر ﮐﺮد و ﺣﻀﺮت اﯾﺸﺎن‬ ‫از ﻏﺎﯾﺖ ﺷﻮق دﺳﺖ ﻣﺒﺎرک ﻣﯽ‬ ،‫اﻓﺸﺎﻧﺪﻧﺪ و ﺣﺮﮐﺖ ﻋﻨﯿﻒ ﻣﯿﮑﺮدﻧﺪ‬ ‫ﭼﻨﺎﻧﮑﻪ ردای ﻣﺒﺎرک از دوش ﺑﯿﻔﺘﺎد‬

The people of God have written many treatises on the permissibility of samā‘. Those committed to investigating it have found it admissible and sound. Lovers’ singing voices strike as being pleasant [to them] because, during the gathering of alast3 , they were drawn to beautiful spiritual voices and were thus nourished to pleasure from samā‘. Today, when they are imprisoned in the dense world of base desires, that spiritual world having been left far behind, when a tiny bit from those beautiful, subtle sounds reaches their open ears, the height of passion drives their saddened hearts to perturbation and boiling. In their [hearts’] wake, bodies go into motion as well.

‫در ﺑﯿﺎن اﺑﺎﺣﺖ ﺳﻤﺎع ﺑﺮ اﻫﻞ اﻪﻠﻟ رﺳﺎﻟﻪ‬ ‫ﺑﺴﯿﺎر ﺳﺎﺧﺘﻪ اﻧﺪ و اﻫﻞ ﺗﺤﻘﯿﻖ آﻧﺮا‬ ‫ آواز ﻏﻨﯿﻨﻪ‬،‫ﻣﺴﻠﻢ و ﺟﺎﺋﺰ داﺷﺘﻪ‬ ‫ﻋﺎﺷﻘﺎن را از آن ﺧﻮش ﻣﯽ آﯾﺪ ﮐﻪ در‬ ‫ﺑﺰم اﻟﺴﺖ در ﻣﯿﺎن آوازﻫﺎی ﺧﻮش‬ ‫روﺣﺎﻧﯽ اﻧﺲ ﮔﺮﻓﺘﻪ اﻧﺪ و ﺑﺎ ﺳﻤﺎع‬ ‫ اﻣﺮوزﮐﻪ در ﻋﺎﻟﻢ‬،‫ﻧﺰﻫﺖ آن ﭘﺮورﯾﺪه‬ ‫ﻧﻔﺲ و ﮐﺪورت وﺟﻮد ﮔﺮﻓﺘﺎرﻧﺪ و از آن‬ ‫ﻋﺎﻟﻢ روﺣﺎﻧﯽ دورﻣﺎﻧﺪه ﭼﻮن ﺷﻤﻪ ای‬ ‫از آن آوازﻫﺎی ﺧﻮش و ﻟﻄﯿﻒ در ﮔﻮش‬ ‫ﻫﻮش ﻣﯿﺮﺳﺪ از ﻏﺎﯾﺖ ﺷﻮق دل‬ ‫ﻣﺤﺰون در اﺿﻄﺮاب و ﺟﻮش ﻣﯽ آﯾﺪ و‬ .‫ﺗﻦ را ﺑﻤﺘﺎﺑﻌﺖ درﺣﺮﮐﺖ ﻣﯽ آورد‬

All movements that issue forth from truth-seekers during samā‘ signify a point and a [greater] reality. Spinning is an indication of affirming God’s oneness. This is the station of knowers who affirm unity. In this situation, they see the beloved, the one sought, everywhere their sight goes. Whichever way they turn, they are recipients of His effulgence. Jumping and stepping have two meanings: First, jumping means a communion with the higher world from the height of desire. Second, these [actions] indicate that the practitioner has conquered the lower soul and has crushed everything undesirable underfoot. Twirling hands have multiple meanings as well. On the one side, [this represents] happiness caused by having reached the honor of union, and attention being focused on the stage of spiritual perfection. While on the other side, [twirling hands denotes] victory over the army of the aspect of the soul that commands to evil. This is what is meant by the greater struggle (jehād-e akbar).

‫ﺗﻤﺎﻣﺖ ﺣﺮﮐﺎﺗﯽ ﮐﻪ در ﺳﻤﺎع از ﻣﺤﻘﻘﺎن‬ ‫ﺻﺎدر ﻣﯿﮕﺮدد اﺷﺎرﺗﺴﺖ ﺑﻨﮑﺘﻪ ای و‬ ‫ ﭼﻨﺎﻧﮑﻪ ﭼﺮخ زدن اﺷﺎرﺗﺴﺖ‬،‫ﺣﻘﯿﻘﺘﯽ‬ ،‫ﺑﺘﻮﺣﯿﺪ و اﯾﻦ ﻣﻘﺎم ﻋﺎرﻓﺎن ﻣﻮﺣﺪﺳﺖ‬ ‫ﮐﻪ در آن ﺣﺎل ﻣﺤﺒﻮب و ﻣﻄﻠﻮب را در‬ ‫ﻫﻤﻪ ﺟﻬﺎت ﻣﯽ ﺑﯿﻨﻨﺪ و ﺑﻬﺮ ﺳﻮ ﮐﻪ ﻣﯽ‬ ‫ﮔﺮدﻧﺪ از ﻓﯿﺾ او ﺑﻬﺮه ﻣﯽ ﯾﺎﺑﻨﺪ و‬ ‫اﻣﺎﺟﻬﯿﺪن و ﭘﺎ ﮐﻮﻓﺘﻦ اﺷﺎرﺗﺴﺖ ﺑﺪو‬ ‫ وﺟﻪ اول از ﻏﺎﯾﺖ ﺷﻮق‬: ‫وﺟﻪ‬ ‫اﺗﺼﺎﻟﺴﺖ ﺑﻌﺎﻟﻢ ﻋﻠﻮی و ﭘﺎ ﮐﻮﻓﺘﻦ‬ ‫اﺷﺎرﺗﺴﺖ ﮐﻪ ﺳﺎﻟﮏ در آن ﺣﺎل ﻧﻔﺲ را‬ ‫ ﻣﺎ ﺳﻮی را در ﭘﺎی‬،‫ﻣﺴﺨﺮ ﺧﻮد ﮔﺮداﻧﺪ‬ ‫ﻫﻤﺖ ﭘﺴﺖ ﻣﯽ ﮔﺮداﻧﺪ و دﺳﺖ‬ ‫ وﺟﻪ‬،‫اﻓﺸﺎﻧﺪن اﺷﺎرﺗﺴﺖ ﺑﭽﻨﺪ وﺟﻪ‬ ‫اول از ﺷﺎدی ﺣﺼﻮل ﺷﺮف وﺻﺎﻟﺴﺖ و‬ ‫ﺗﻮﺟﻪ ﺑﺪرﺟﻪ ﮐﻤﺎل ودوم ﻇﻔﺮﺳﺖ ﺑﺮ‬ ‫ ﮐﻪ ﺟﻬﺎد اﮐﺒﺮ ﻋﺒﺎرت‬،‫ﻋﺴﮑﺮ ﻧﻔﺲ اﻣﺎره‬ .‫از آﻧﺴﺖ‬

3 The gathering of alast refers to the Quranic statement that, at the beginning of creation, God assembled all human essences and asked them “am I not your Lord (alastu bi-rabbikum).” They responded with a resounding “yes” (balā, Quran 7:172). Especially among Sufis, this exchange is regarded as the establishment of a covenant between God and human beings that is buried within humans during earthly existence and needs to be recalled through spiritual exercises.

Dancing the Islamic Way

Sometimes it happens that a dear one who is a part of the samā‘ and is moving loses all sense of consciousness of the self. In that moment, in the middle of the gathering, s/he sees her/himself clearly [from the outside], as if looking into a mirror, considering the object beautiful and becoming involved with it in the game of love. Drawing people to samā‘, to incite them into movement, is the station of those who falter [in their steps like this]. Doing this, they scatter divine effulgence to the hearts of all those present and turn divine mercy into a common good for all.

‫و در ﺳﻤﺎع ﻋﺰﯾﺰی را در ﮐﻨﺎر ﮔﺮﻓﺘﻦ‬ ‫وﺳﻤﺎع زدن وﻗﺘﯽ واﻗﻊ ﻣﯽ ﮔﺮدد ﮐﻪ‬ ‫ﻓﻘﯿﺮ ﺑﮑﻠﯽ از ﺧﻮدی ﺧﻮد ﻣﺴﺘﻬﻠﮏ ﻣﯽ‬ ‫ و در وﻗﺖ اﻓﺎﻗﺖ ﺧﻮد را در ﻣﯿﺎن‬،‫ﮔﺮدد‬ ‫آن ﺟﻤﻊ در آﺋﯿﻨﻪ درون ﻫﺮ ﮐﻪ ﺑﺼﻔﺎی‬ ‫ آن ﻋﺰﯾﺰ را در ﮐﻨﺎر‬،‫ﺗﻤﺎم ﻣﺸﺎﻫﺪه ﻣﯿﮑﻨﺪ‬ ‫ ﺑﺎ ﺧﯿﺎل ﺟﻤﺎل ﺧﻮﯾﺶ ﺑﺎ آن‬،‫ﮔﺮﻓﺘﻪ‬ ‫ﻋﺰﯾﺰ ﻋﺸﻘﺒﺎزی ﻣﯽ ﮐﻨﺪ و ﻣﺮدم را در‬ ‫ﺳﻤﺎع ﮐﺸﯿﺪن و ﺑﺤﺮﮐﺖ ﺗﺤﺮﯾﺾ ﮐﺮدن‬ ‫ ﮐﻪ ﻓﯿﺾ را ﺑﺮ‬،‫ﻣﻘﺎم اﻫﻞ ﺳﻬﻮﺳﺖ‬ ‫ﻗﻠﻮب ﻫﻤﻪ ﺣﻀﺎر ﻣﯽ اﻓﺸﺎﻧﻨﺪ و رﺣﻤﺖ‬ .‫را ﺑﺮ ﻫﻤﻪ ﻋﺎم ﻣﯽ ﮔﺮداﻧﻨﺪ‬

Submitting and prostrating signifies servanthood. Likewise in samā‘. They serve the Beloved through acts of standing, bowing, and prostrating, in the same way as occurs during the ritual prayer (namāz). When they observe an aspect of the Truth inside themselves because of the journey they are undertaking, they fall into prostration in front of it. These are lengthy issues. A seeker who has not reached the requisite station cannot picture the state of pleasure and enjoyment in question: whoever has not tasted does not know.

‫ﺗﻮاﺿﻊ و ﺳﺠﺪه ﮐﺮدن ﻋﺒﺎرت از ﻣﻘﺎم‬ ‫ ﺗﺎ ﻣﺤﺒﻮب را در ﺳﻤﺎع‬،‫ﻋﺒﻮدﯾﺖ دارد‬ ،‫ﺑﻘﯿﺎم و رﮐﻮع و ﺳﺠﻮد ﻋﺒﺎدت ﮐﻨﻨﺪ‬ ‫ﭼﻨﺎﻧﮑﻪ در ﻧﻤﺎز و ﻧﯿﺰ ﺻﻔﺘﯽ از ﺻﻔﺎت‬ ،‫ﺣﻖ در درون ﻫﺮ ﮐﻪ ﻣﺸﺎﻫﺪه ﻣﯽ ﮐﻨﻨﺪ‬ ‫ﺑﻨﺴﺒﺖ ﺳﯿﺮ ﮐﻪ دارﻧﺪ آن ﺻﻔﺖ را‬ ،‫ اﯾﻦ ﻣﻌﻨﯽ ﺗﻄﻮﯾﻞ دارد‬.‫ﺳﺠﺪه ﻣﯽ آرﻧﺪ‬ ‫ﺗﺎ ﻃﺎﻟﺐ ﺑﺪان ﻣﻘﺎم ﻧﺮﺳﺪ ﮐﯿﻔﯿﺖ ﻣﺰه و‬ ‫ﻟﻄﻒ آن ﺣﺎل را ﺑﻤﻘﺎل ﻧﺘﻮاﻧﺪ ﺗﺼﻮﯾﺮ‬ .« ‫ﻟ ﯾﻌﺮف‬ ‫ »ﻣﻦ ﻟﻢ ﯾﺬق ﺎ‬،‫ﮐﺮدن‬

Verse Someone asked: “Who is a lover?” I said: “When you become me you will know!” His excellence, our Eminent Lord [Rūmī] – may God be pleased with him – has written great things about the realities of samā‘. All who pursue studying these will surely have their minds’ mirrors light up and they will become privy to these realities. He says regarding samā‘: Verse Samā‘, for lovers, comes like food. In it imagination aggregates together. In the samā‘ done by our companions, emptiness of the stomach is a condition, since this increases the pleasure and enjoyment. Therefore, our Lord says: Verse Man of samā‘, keep your stomach empty, Because one satiated issues no cries of longing. If you fill the stomach with a lot of delicacies, You remain void of the heart-ravisher’s kisses and embrace. All forms of moving and stopping of people in samā‘ are based on reason and are not in jest or meaningless. Therefore, he says:

‫ﺑﯿﺖ‬ ‫ﭘﺮﺳﯿﺪ ﯾﮑﯽ ﮐﻪ ﻋﺎﺷﻖ ﭼﯿﺴﺖ‬ ‫ﮔﻔﺘﻢ ﮐﻪ ﭼﻮ ﻣﻦ ﺷﻮی ﺑﺪاﻧﯽ‬ ‫وﺣﻀﺮت ﺧﺪاوﻧﺪﮔﺎر ﻣﺎ رﺿﻮان اﻪﻠﻟ‬ ‫ﻋﻠﯿﻪ در ﻣﯿﺎن ﺣﻘﺎﯾﻖ ﺳﻤﺎع ﮐﻠﻤﺎﺗﯽ‬ ‫ ﻫﺮ ﮐﻪ در‬،‫ﻋﺎﻟﯽ اﻧﺸﺎ ﻓﺮﻣﻮده اﺳﺖ‬ ‫ﻣﻄﺎﻟﻌﻪ آن ﻣﺪاوﻣﺖ ﻧﻤﺎﯾﺪ ﻫﺮ آﯾﻨﻪ آﯾﻨﻪ‬ ‫ﺿﻤﯿﺮ او روﺷﻦ ﺷﻮد و ﺑﺮ ﺳﺮ ﺣﻘﯿﻘﺖ‬ : ‫آن وﻗﻮف ﯾﺎﺑﺪ و در ﺳﻤﺎع ﻣﯽ ﻓﺮﻣﺎﯾﺪ‬ ‫ﺑﯿﺖ‬ ‫ﭘﺲ ﻏﺬای ﻋﺎﺷﻘﺎن آﻣﺪ ﺳﻤﺎع‬ ‫ﮐﻪ درو ﺑﺎﺷﺪ ﺧﯿﺎل اﺟﺘﻤﺎع‬ ‫ودر ﺳﻤﺎع اﺻﺤﺎب ﻣﺎ ﺧﻠﻮی ﻣﻌﺪه‬ ‫ ﺗﺎ ﺗﺮوض و ﺗﻠﻄﻒ زﯾﺎده‬،‫ﺷﺮﻃﺴﺖ‬ ‫ ﭼﻨﺎﻧﮑﻪ ﺣﻀﺮت ﺧﺪاوﻧﺪﮔﺎر ﻣﺎ‬،‫ﮔﺮدد‬ : ‫ﻣﯽ ﻓﺮﻣﺎﯾﺪ‬ ‫ﺑﯿﺖ‬ ‫ای ﻣﺮد ﺳﻤﺎع ﻣﻌﺪه را ﺧﺎﻟﯽ دار‬ ‫زﯾﺮا ﭼﻮ ﺗﻬﯿﺴﺖ ﻧﯽ ﮐﻨﺪ ﻧﺎﻟﻪ زار‬ ‫ﭼﻮن ﭘﺮ ﮐﺮدی ﻣﻌﺪه زﻟﻮت ﺑﺴﯿﺎر‬ ‫ﺧﺎﻟﯽ ﻣﺎﻧﯽ ز دﻟﺒﺮ و ﺑﻮس و ﮐﻨﺎر‬ ‫ﺣﺮﮐﺖ و ﺳﮑﻮن اﻫﻞ ﺳﻤﺎع ﺑﻨﺎ ﺑﺮ ﺟﺪ‬ ‫ ﭼﻨﺎﻧﮑﻪ ﻣﯽ‬،‫ ﻧﻪ ﺑﻄﺮ و ﻫﺰل‬،‫دارد‬ : ‫ﻓﺮﻣﺎی‬

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At time’s end, the Beloved plays an entrancing tune. His inner reality is the truth of truths, the outside seems a mere game.

‫ﺳﺎزﺋﯽ ﻃﺮب ﮐﺮد زﻣﺎن آﺧﺮ در ﯾﺎر‬ ‫ﺑﺎزﺋﯽ او ﻇﺎﻫﺮ ﺟﺪ ﺟﺪ او ﺑﺎﻃﻦ‬

If someone denies the secret of following the lights of samā‘, do not count this an error. Say: “To you your religion and to me mine” [Quran 109:6]. Perhaps s/he does not have the correct disposition in order to have the ability to appreciate these points. As it is said: “The believer is discerning and careful”. Our Lord says:

‫واﮔﺮ ﺷﺨﺼﯽ از ﺳﺮ ﺗﻘﻠﯿﺪ اﻧﻮار ﺳﻤﺎع‬ ‫ »ﻟﮑﻢ دﯾﻨﮑﻢ‬،‫را ﻣﻨﮑﺮ ﺑﺎﺷﺪ ﻋﯿﺐ ﻣﺸﻤﺮ‬ ‫ ﺷﺎﯾﺪ ﮐﻪ او را آن‬،‫وﻟﻲ دﯾﻦ « ﺑﺮ ﺧﻮان‬ ‫ﻣﺬاق ﺻﺤﯿﺢ ﻧﺒﻮده ﺑﺎﺷﺪ ﮐﻪ ﺗﻤﯿﺰ ﮐﻨﺪ‬ ‫ ﮐﻪ »اﻟﻤﺆﻣﻦ ﮐﯿﺲ ﻣﻤﯿﺰ‬،‫اﯾﻦ دﻗﺎﯾﻖ را‬ ‫ﻓﻄﻦ « و ﺣﻀﺮت ﺧﺪاوﻧﺪﮔﺎر ﻣﺎ‬ : ‫ﻣﯿﻔﺮﻣﺎﯾﺪ‬

For the living, samā‘ is life’s comfort. One knows that it is life’s life.

‫ﮐﺴﯽ داﻧﺪ ﺳﻤﺎع آرام ﺟﺎن زﻧﺪﮔﺎﻧﺴﺖ‬ ‫ﮐﻪ او را ﺟﺎن ﺟﺎﻧﺴﺖ‬

2.

The Dances of Shaykh Safī of Ardabil

The second translation consists of episodes selected from the chapter on dance in the hagiography of the master Shaykh Safīoddīn (Safī for short, died 1334) of Ardabil (present-day Azerbaijan, Iran). This master was a major religious figure in his own times, heading a large religious community and playing an influential role in the region’s sociopolitical affairs. Moreover, his legacy developed in ways that people in his own time could scarcely have imagined. Less than two centuries after his death, in 1501, one of his descendants named Esmā‘īl (died 1524) claimed himself the king of Iran. Only fourteen years of age at the time of the proclamation, Esmā‘īl was both the political authority and the hereditary Sufi guide of his soldiers known as the Qezelbāsh. While Sufis intermingled with the political elites quite often during the Middle Ages, the descendants of Shaykh Safī of Ardabil (who came to be called the Safavids) are extraordinary for transforming from a religious lineage to a ruling dynasty that lasted for more than two centuries, from 1501–1722 (Bashir: 2004; Gronke: 1993; Mazzaoui: 1972). My translation below comes from a work entitled Safvat as-safā (The Essence of Purity), written by Ebn Bazzāz Ardabīlī (died in the last quarter of the fourteenth century CE). As in the case of the author writing about Rūmī, this author also claims to have written to preserve sacred memory. In this case, the author was a disciple of the great master’s son and successor, Shaykh Sadroddīn (died 1391/92), who is mentioned often in the text and is cited as the person who asked him to collect the traditions. The resulting text is possibly the longest hagiography dedicated to a single Sufi figure written in Persian during the Middle Ages. Ensconced within this lengthy document is a short chapter on Shaykh Safī’s practice of dance for religious purposes. From this, I have translated episodes that represent the major themes that run through the overall account. In this instance, the discursive representation of Sufi dance reflects the larger world of post-Mongol Iran. In this context, Sufis held an increasingly important place as religious as well as political and socioeconomic

Dancing the Islamic Way

mediators. Shaykh Safī’s dance provides us a sense for how a great living Sufi master sanctified his surroundings and conditioned the practices and beliefs of his followers. Translation (Ardabīlī, Safvat as-safā: 1997, 642–651)4 Shaykh Sadroddīn [Shaykh Safī’s son and successor] – may God prolong his blessings – related that Shaykh [Safi] – may God sanctify his innermost secret – went one day to Ardabil. At this time, the environs of Ardabil were desolated because of attacks by Georgians, and a part of the city’s walls that had partly fallen was scattered on the ground. There, an itinerant singer sat reciting a Persian poem by Farīdoddīn ‘Attār (died 1221). When the Shaykh’s blessed ears heard this, he went into a total ecstasy and started a monumental dance: Verse They sent, from their abode, a wind toward the soul’s bird. No wonder the song’s wing enlarged the heart with passion. Then [after the dancing] he said: “This effulgence that graced me by descending [on me] during samā‘ conveyed something to the place where the samā‘ happened to have occurred.” Now this was the case even though a home and hospice in Ardabil were yet to be built for the Shaykh. At the time, he had a house in the village of Kalkhūrān. After, he made a home in the Fiqā‘īyān area, which is one of the lower quarters of Ardabil, but this too remained incomplete and was never inhabited. He later laid the foundations of a home in the Bāgh-e As‘ad [The Felicitous Garden], which is now distinguished by royal possession – may God continue its blessing – but that also did not become available. Then, he made a home outside the Nawshahr gate but it too was not completed. Finally, he made his home in the place that is now the location of his house, hospice, and blessed seclusion chamber. Upon its completion, it became a gathering place for people, the abode of saints, and the destination of the pious.

‫ رواﯾﺖ‬،‫ ادام اﻪﻠﻟ ﺑﺮﮐﺘﻪ‬،‫ﺷﯿﺦ ﺻﺪراﻟﺪﯾﻦ‬ ‫ روز ی در‬،‫ ﻗﺪس اﻪﻠﻟ ﺳﺮه‬،‫ﮐﺮد ﮐﻪ ﺷﯿﺦ‬ ‫ و اﻃﺮاف اردﺑﯿﻞ‬،‫ﯽﮔﺬﺷﺖ‬ ‌ ‫اردﺑﯿﻞ ﻣ‬ ‫ﺑﻮاﺳﻄﻪ ﺧﺮاﺑﯽ ﮔﺮﺟﯿﺎن ﻫﻨﻮز ﺑﺎﯾﺮ ﺑﻮد و‬ ‫اﻧﺪﮐﯽ از ﺑﺎروی ﺷﻬﺮﮐﻪ ﻧﯿﻢ رﻳﺨﺘﻪ ﺑﻮد ﺑﺮ‬ ‫ ﺑﺮ آن ﺟﺎ ﻟﻮری ﻧﺸﺴﺘﻪ و از‬.‫ﭘﺎی ﺑﻮد‬ ‫ رﺣﻤﺔ ‌اﻪﻠﻟ‬،‫ﭘﺎرﺳﯿﻬﺎی ﻓﺮﯾﺪاﻟﺪﯾﻦ ﻋﻄﺎر‬ ‫ ﻗﺪس‬،‫ ﭼﻮن ﺷﯿﺦ‬.‫ﯽﺧﻮاﻧﺪ‬ ‌ ‫ ﻏﺰﻟﯽ ﻣ‬،‫ﻋﻠﯿﻪ‬ ،‫ ﺑ‌ﻪ ﻣﺴﺎﻣﻊ ﻣﺒﺎرک اﺳﺘﻤﺎع ﻓﺮﻣﻮد‬،‫ﺳﺮه‬ ‫وﺟﺪی ﺗﻤﺎم ﯾﺎﻓﺖ و در ﺳﻤﺎع رﻓﺖ و‬ .‫ﺳﻤﺎع ﻋﻈﯿﻢ ﮐﺮد‬ ‫ﺷﻌﺮ‬ ‫ﻣﺮغ ﺟﺎن را زآﺷﯿﺎن ﺧﻮﯾﺸﺘﻦ دادﻧﺪ ﺑﺎد‬ ‫ﻟﺟﺮم ﺑﺎل ﻃﺮب اﻧﺪر ﻫﻮای دل ﮔﺸﺎد‬ ‫ﺎ‬ ‫ﻖﺗﻌﺎﻟﯽ‬ ‌ ‫ﭘﺲ ﻓﺮﻣﻮد ﮐﻪ »از ﻓﯿﻀﯽ ﮐﻪ از ﺣ‬ ‫در آن ﺳﻤﺎع ﻓﺎﯾﺾ و ﻧﺎزل ﺷﺪ ﭼﯿﺰی ﺑﺪﯾﻦ‬ ‫ﻣﻘﺎم رﺳﯿﺪ ﮐﻪ ﺑﺮ ‌آن ﺟﺎ ﺳﻤﺎع اﺗﻔﺎق اﻓﺘﺎده‬ ‫ در‬،‫ ﻗﺪس ﺳﺮه‬،‫« و ﺣﺎل آﻧﮏ ﺷﯿﺦ را‬.‫ﺑﻮد‬ ‫آن وﻗﺖ ﺧﺎﻧﻪ و زاوﯾﻪ در اردﺑﯿﻞ ﻫﻨﻮز‬ ‫ﻣﺒﻨﯽ ﻧﺸﺪه ﺑﻮد ﺑﻠﮏ ﺧﺎﻧﻪ در دﯾﻪ‬ ‫ ﺑﻌﺪ از آن در درب‬.‫ﮐﻠﺨﻮران داﺷﺖ‬ ‫ﻓﻘﺎﻋﯿﺎن ﮐﻪ از ﺟﻤﻠﻪ دروب ﺳﻔﻠﯽ اردﺑﯿﻠﯽ‬ ‫اﺳﺖ ﻣﻘﺎم و ﻣﺴﮑﻦ ﺳﺎﺧﺖ ﺗﻤﺎم ﻧﺸﺪ و‬ ‫ ﺑﺎز در ﺑﺎغ اﺳﻌﺪ‬.‫ﮐﻪ اﮐﻨﻮن–ﻣﯿﺴﺮ ﻧﮕﺸﺖ‬ ‫اﺧﺘﺼﺎص ﻣﻠﮑﯽ ادام اﻪﻠﻟ ﺑﺮﮐﺘﻪ دارد‬ –‫ ﺑﺎز‬.‫ آن ﻧﯿﺰ ﻣﯿﺴﺮ ﻧﺸﺪ‬.‫ﺑﻨﯿﺎد ﺧﺎﻧﻪ ﻧﻬﺎد‬ ‫ﺧﺎرج دروازه ﻧﻮ ﺷﻬﺮ ﺧﺎﻧﻪ ﺑﻨﯿﺎدﮐﺮد و ﺗﻤﺎم‬ ‫ ﭘﺲ‬.‫درﯾﻦ ﻣﻘﺎم ﮐﻪ اﮐﻨﻮن ﺧﺎﻧﻪ و ﻧﺸﺪ‬ ‫زاوﯾﻪ وﺧﻠﻮﺗﺴﺮای ﻣﺘﺒﺮک اﺳﺖ ﺟﺎی و‬ ‫ ﺗﻤﺎم ﺷﺪ و ﮐﻤﺎل ﮔﺮﻓﺖ و‬،‫ﻣﺴﮑﻦ ﺳﺎﺧﺖ‬ ‫ﻣﺤﻂ رﺣﺎل و ﻣﻬﺒﻂ رﺟﺎل و ﻗﺒﺎب اوﻟﯿﺎ و‬ .‫ﻣﺄب اﺻﻔﯿﺎ ﺷﺪ‬

4 In accordance with the statutory provisions of copyright law, the author/publisher has made every effort to obtain copyrights from the authors of the texts. It has not been possible to locate the copyright holders in all cases; the publisher may be contacted for legitimate claims not mentioned here.

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That venue of samā‘ – about which the Shaykh had said that “from divine emanation that has come down upon my heart, a portion will be conveyed to that place” – is the place of his illuminated tomb. This is now the qibla5 of felicity and the Ka‘ba for hopes that seek protection in the world. All the religious benefits and effects of purity that will appear there, between now and the time of Resurrection, are issuing forth from the emanation (Ardabīlī: 1997, 642–643).

‫ ﻗﺪس اﻪﻠﻟ‬،‫و آن ﻣﻮﺿﻊ ﺳﻤﺎع ﮐﻪ ﺷﯿﺦ‬ ،‫ﺾاﻟﻬﯽ ﮐﻪ ﺑ‌ﻪ دل ﺳﺮه‬ ‌ ‫ﻓﺮﻣﻮد ﮐﻪ »از ﻓﯿ‬ «‫ﻣﻦ ﻓﺮو آﻣﺪ ﺑﺪﯾﻦ ﻣﻮﺿﻊ ﻧﺼﯿﺒﯽ رﺳﯿﺪ‬ ‫آن ﻣﻘﺎم اﺳﺖ ﮐﻪ اﮐﻨﻮن ﻣﺮﻗﺪ ﻣﻨﻮر ﺷﯿﺦ‬ ‫اﺳﺖ ﮐﻪ ﻗﺒﻠﻪ اﻗﺒﺎل و ﮐﻌﺒﻪ آﻣﺎل اﻣﺎﻧﯽ‬ ‫ﺟﻬﺎﻧﯽ اﺳﺖ و ﺟﻤﻌﯿﺖ دﯾﻦ و آﺛﺎر ﺻﻔﺎﯾﯽ‬ ‫ﮐﻪ ﺗﺎ ﻗﯿﺎﻣﺖ ﺑﺮ اﯾﻦ ﻣﻘﺎم ﻇﺎﻫﺮ ﺧﻮاﻫﺪ ﺷﺪ‬ .‫از آﺛﺎر آن ﻓﯿﺾ اﺳﺖ‬

[Shaykh Sadroddīn,] – may God prolong his blessing – said that one night there was a samā‘ in the city of Sarāv [Sarab] in the mosque inside the hospice of Khwājeh Afzal. When Shaykh [Safi] began to move his feet on the occasion, an earthquake rattled the city and many people came out of their homes.

‫ادام اﻪﻠﻟ ﺑﺮﮐﺘﻪ ﻓﺮﻣﻮدﮐﻪ ﺷﺒﯽ در ﺷﻬﺮ‬ ‫ﺳﺮاو در ﻣﺴﺠﺪی ﮐﻪ ﺑﺮ در زاوﻳﻪ ﺧﻮاﺟﻪ‬ ‫ ﺳﻤﺎﻋﯽ ﺑﻮد و‬،‫ رﺣﻤﺔ ‌اﻪﻠﻟ ﻋﻠﯿﻪ‬،‫اﻓﻀﻞ‬ ‫ ﻗﺪم ﻣﺒﺎرک در‬،‫ساﻪﻠﻟ ﺳﺮه‬ ‌ ‫ ﻗﺬ‬،‫ﭼﻮن ﺷﯿﺦ‬ ‫ﺳﻤﺎع درﺣﺮﮐﺖ آورد زﻟﺰﻟﻪ در ﺷﻬﺮ اﻓﺘﺎد‬ .‫ﮐﻪ ﺑﺴﯽ ﻣﺮدم از ﺧﺎﻧ‌ﻪﻫﺎ ﺑﯿﺮون اﻓﺘﺎدﻧﺪ‬

Verse As the heart extended its foot into that field, An upheaval came to life in the world. Those who were in the samā‘ looked around. Some saw that all the walls of the mosque had started going around in order to become a part of the samā‘, and the mosque’s lamps were also spinning. Some others saw that the mosque’s walls had raised themselves up from the ground and flares of divine light were leaping from the lamps. When the world’s atoms become intimates [mahram] of the secret, They mix their voices into the tumult of lovers. Among the people who had come out of houses because of the earthquake was a woman, a Sayyid [that is, descendant of Prophet Muhammad], who was the wife of Amīr Zeyāoddīn Qūshchī. When she came out and heard the great noise and commotion, she went toward its origin, until she got to the neighborhood of Khwājeh Afzal. She asked, “What is going on here?” They said, “Shaykh Safīoddīn is dancing in ecstasy.” She said, “For God’s sake, make a path for me so that I can see his blessed face.” She came to the threshold of the mosque, but as soon as her sight fell on the Shaykh, he left his state and sat down from the dance. His followers, who were under his spiritual guardianship, realized that the Shaykh had known from his spiritual sight that a nā-mahram6 [non-intimate] had cast her eyes on him and had hence sat down.

‫ﺷﻌﺮ‬ ‫دل ﻗﺪم ﭼﻮن اﻧﺪر آن ﻣﯿﺪان ﻧﻬﺎد‬ ‫ﺷﻮرﺷﯽ اﻧﺪر ﺟﻬﺎن ﺟﺎن ﻓﺘﺎد‬ .‫ ﻧﻈﺮ ﻣﯿﮑﺮدﻧﺪ‬.‫آن ﻣﺮدم در ﺳﻤﺎع ﺑﻮدﻧﺪ‬ ‫ﯽدﯾﺪﻧﺪ ﮐﻪ دﯾﻮارﻫﺎی ﻣﺴﺠﺪ‬ ‌ ‫ﺑﻌﻀﯽ ﻣ‬ ‫ﺗﻤﺎﻣﺖ ﺑﺮ ﺳﺒﯿﻞ ﻣﻮاﻓﻘﺖ در ﺳﻤﺎع و دور‬ ‫آﻣﺪه ﺑﻮدﻧﺪ و ﻗﻨﺪﯾﻠﻬﺎی ﻣﺴﺠﺪ ﻫﻤﻪ ﺑﺮ‬ ‫ﯽدﯾﺪﻧﺪ ﮐﻪ‬ ‌ ‫ﺳﺒﯿﻞ در ﭼﺮخ رﻓﺘﻪ و ﺑﻌﻀﯽ ﻣ‬ ‫دﯾﻮارﻫﺎی ﻣﺴﺠﺪ ﺑﺮﺧﺎﺳﺘﻪ ﺑﻮد و ﻣﺸﺎﻋﻞ‬ .‫اﻟﻬﯽ ﺷﻌﻠﻪ ﮐﺸﯿﺪه‬ ‫ﺷﻌﺮ‬ ‫ذرات ﺟﻬﺎن ﭼﻮ ﻣﺤﺮم راز ﺷﻮﻧﺪ‬ ‫ﺑﺎ ﺷﻮرش ﻋﺎﺷﻘﺎن ﻫﻤﺂواز ﺷﻮﻧﺪ‬ ‫و از آن ﺟﻤﻠﻪ ﮐﻪ ﺳﺐ زﻟﺰﻟﻪ از ﺧﺎﻧ‌ﻪﻫﺎ‬ ‫ﺑﯿﺮون آﻣﺪه ﺑﻮدﻧﺪ ﻋﻮرﺗﯽ ﺑﻮد ﺳﯿﺪه ﮐﻪ‬ ‫ ﭼﻮن‬.‫ﻠل اﻣﯿﺮ ﺿﯿﺎءاﻟﺪﯾﻦ ﻗﻮﺷﺠﯽ ﺑﻮد‬ ‫ﺣ ﺎ‬ ‫از ﺧﺎﻧﻪ ﺑﯿﺮون آﻣﺪ وﻟﻮﻟﻪ و آوازی و زﺟﻠﯽ‬ ‫ﯽآﻣﺪ‬ ‌ ‫ در ﭘﯽ آن رواﻧﻪ ﺷﺪ و ﻣ‬.‫ﻋﻈﯿﻢ ﺷﻨﯿﺪ‬ ‫ رﺣﻤﺔ ‌اﻪﻠﻟ‬،‫ﺗﺎ ﻧﺰدﯾﮏ ﻣﺤﻠﺔ ﺧﻮاﺟﻪ اﻓﻀﻞ‬ ‫ ﭘﺮﺳﯿﺪ ﮐﻪ »اﯾﻦ ﭼﻪ ﺣﺎﻟﯽ‬.‫ رﺳﯿﺪ‬،‫ﻋﻠﯿﻪ‬ ‫ ﻗﺪس‬،‫ﯽاﻟﺪﯾﻦ‬ ‌ ‫ »ﺷﯿﺦ ﺻﻔ‬:‫اﺳﺖ؟« ﮔﻔﺘﻨﺪ‬ ،‫ »از ﺳﺮه‬:‫ ﮔﻔﺖ‬.«‫در ﺳﻤﺎع و وﺟﺪ اﺳﺖ‬ ‫ﺑﺮای ﺧﺪا راه دﻫﯿﺪ ﺗﺎ ﯾﮏ ﻧﻈﺮ روی‬ .‫« در دﻫﻠﯿﺰ آن ﻣﺴﺠﺪ آﻣﺪ‬.‫ﻣﺒﺎرﮐﺶ ﺑﯿﻨﻢ‬ ‫در ﺣﺎل ﮐﻪ ﻧﻈﺮش ﺑﺮ ﺷﯿﺦ آﻣﺪ ﺷﯿﺦ ﺣﺎﻟﯽ‬ ‫ﻠزﻣﺎﻧﯽ ﮐﻪ‬ ‫ ﻣ ﺎ‬.‫در ﻣﯿﺎن ﺳﻤﺎع ﻓﺮو ﻧﺸﺴﺖ‬ ‫ﯽداﻧﺴﺘﻨﺪ‬ ‌ ‫ ﻣ‬،‫ ﻗﺪس ﺳﺮه‬،‫ﻟﯾﺖ ﺷﯿﺦ‬ ‫دأب و ﺎ‬ ‫ﮐﻪ ﭼﻮن ﻧﺎﻣﺤﺮﻣﯽ ﻧﻈﺮ ﺑﻪ ‌ﺷﯿﺦ اﻧﺪازد‬ .‫ﻟﯾﺖ ﺑﺪاﻧﺪ و ﻓﺮو ﻧﺸﯿﻨﺪ‬ ‫ﺷﯿﺦ ﺑﻪ ‌ﻧﻮر و ﺎ‬

5 Qibla is the direction toward Mecca, to which Muslims face for ritual prayer. The Ka‘ba is the cube-like shrine in Mecca to which the qibla is oriented. The author’s point here is that Shaykh Safī’s grave has become like the Ka‘ba for his followers. 6 Nā-mahram is the Islamic legal category that pertains between members of the opposite gender who are unrelated by marriage or select forms of kinship. The opposite of this is mahram, meaning people married, or in relationships that preclude the possibility of marriage (father – daughter, brother – sister, and some other pairs established in legal texts).

Dancing the Islamic Way

They inquired all around the premises, saw the woman at the threshold, and said to her, “Go away!” She asked, “For what reason?” They said, “The shaykh knows from his spiritual light that a nā-mahram has cast her eyes on him. This has muddied his experience and caused him to abandon samā‘ in the middle of it.” The woman left and thought to herself, “If this samā‘ had been for worldly reasons, it would have energized further from the look of a nā-mahram. Since the samā‘ was due to emanation of divine secrets, he took the gaze of a nā-mahram as forbidden.” She then became his disciple and devotee. On a later day, she arranged a glorious banquet, took an oath of discipleship to the Shaykh, and donated a part of the village of Ahmadābād to him. The Shaykh gave that donation away to Khwājeh Afzal.

‫ آن ﻋﻮرت را در‬.‫ﺗﻔﺤﺺ در و ﺑﺎم ﮐﺮدﻧﺪ‬ :‫« ﮔﻔﺖ‬.‫ »ﺑﯿﺮون رو‬:‫ ﮔﻔﺘﻨﺪ‬.‫دﻫﻠﯿﺰ دﯾﺪﻧﺪ‬ ‫ »ﺷﯿﺦ ﺑﻪ ‌ﻧﻮر‬:‫»ﺑﻪ ﭼﻪ ﺳﺒﺐ؟« ﮔﻔﺘﻨﺪ‬ ‫ﻟﯾﺖ داﻧﺴﺖ ﮐﻪ ﻧﺎﻣﺤﺮﻣﯽ در وی ﻧﻈﺮ‬ ‫و ﺎ‬ ‫ وﻗﺖ ﺑﺮ وی ﺷﻮراﻧﯿﺪه ﺷﺪ و در‬.‫ﯽﮐﻨﺪ‬ ‌ ‫ﻣ‬ ‫« آن ﻋﻮرت‬.‫ﻣﯿﺎن ﻣﯿﺪان ﻓﺮو ﻧﺸﺴﺖ‬ ‫ﺑﯿﺮون آﻣﺪ و ﺑﺎ ﺧﻮد ﻓﮑﺮ ﮐﺮد ﮐﻪ »اﮔﺮ ان‬ ‫ﺳﻤﺎع ﻧﻔﺴﺎﻧﯽ ﺑﻮدی ﺑﻪ ‌ﻧﻈﺮ ﻧﺎﻣﺤﺮم زﯾﺎدت‬ ‫ ﭼﻮن ﺳﻤﺎع ﻓﯿﺾ اﺳﺮار اﻟﻬﯽ‬.‫ﯽ ﺷﺪی‬ ‌ ‫ﻣ‬ ‫اﺳﺖ ﺑﺎ ﺷﻮاﯾﺐ ﻧﻈﺮ ﻧﺎﻣﺤﺮم ﺣﺮاﻣﯽ‬ ‫ روز دﯾﮕﺮ‬.‫ و ﻣﺮﯾﺪ و ﻣﻌﺘﻘﺪ ﺷﺪ‬،‫ﯽﺷﻤﺮﻧﺪ‬ ‌ ‫ﻣ‬ ‫دﻋﻮﺗﯽ و ﺿﯿﺎﻓﺘﯽ ﺷﮕﺮف ﺑﺴﺎﺧﺖ و ﻣﺮﯾﺪ‬ ‌ ‫ ﻗﺪ‬،‫ﺷﺪ و ﺣﺼﻪ دﯾﻪ اﺣﻤﺪآﺑﺎد ﺑﻪ ‌ﺷﯿﺦ‬ ‫س‬ ،‫ ﻗﺪس ﺳﺮه‬،‫ داد و ﺷﯿﺦ‬،‫آن ﺣﺼﻪ را ﺳﺮه‬ .‫ﺑﻪ ﺧﻮاﺟﻪ اﻓﻀﻞ داد‬

When intimates [mahramān] share around the tasteful goblet in company, Seekers outside are reminded of the dregs’ sweet smell (Ardabīlī: 1997, 643–644).

‫ﺷﻌﺮ‬ ‫ﻣﺤﺮﻣﺎن ﭼﻮن ﺟﺎم ذوق آرﻧﺪ در ﻣﺠﻠﺲ ﺑﻪ‬ ‫دور‬ ‫ﺧﺎﮐﺒﻮﺳﺎن را ﺑﻪ ﺑﻮی ﺟﺮﻋ‌ﻪای ﯾﺎد آورﻧﺪ‬

[Shaykh Sadroddīn,] – may God prolong his blessing – said that when the late Khwājeh Mohyīoddīn left for the eternal abode, Shaykh [Safī] retracted his foot from samā‘ into his tunic. He neither did samā‘ nor heard [any] intercession [from those urging him]. Until one night, when he was sitting in his blessed hospice with a group of singers and Sufis in his presence, he suddenly stood up and went into samā‘. Since no religious singer (qavvāl) was present, Mawlānā ‘Abdorrahmān Hāfez who was famous among the group – may God have mercy on him – began by reciting a verse from the Quran. The Shaykh – may his innermost secret be preserved – went into ecstasy and people’s eyes poured out fountains of tears.

‫داﻣﺖ ﺑﺮﮐﺘﻪ ﻓﺮﻣﻮد ﮐﻪ ﭼﻮن ﻣﺮﺣﻮم ﺳﻌﯿﺪ‬ ،‫ رﺣﻤﺔ اﻪﻠﻟ ﻋﻠﯿﻪ‬،‫ﯽاﻟﺪﯾﻦ‬ ‌ ‫ﺧﻮاﺟﻪ ﻣﺤﯿ‬ ‫ ﻗﺮﯾﺐ‬،‫س ﺳﺮه‬ ‌ ‫ ﻗﺪ‬،‫ ﺷﯿﺦ‬،‫ﺑ‌ﻪدار ﺑﻘﺎ رﺳﯿﺪ‬ ‫ﺳﺎﻟﯽ ﭘﺎی ﻣﺒﺎرک از ﺳﻤﺎع در داﻣﻦ ﮐﺸﯿﺪ و‬ ‫ ﺗﺎ‬.‫ﯽﺷﻨﯿﺪ‬ ‌ ‫ﺳﻤﺎع ﻧﻤﯽ ﮐﺮد و ﺷﻔﺎﻋﺖ ﻧﻤ‬ ‫ﺷﺒﯽ در زاوﻳﻪ ﻣﺘﺒﺮﮐﻪ ﻧﺸﺴﺘﻪ ﺑﻮد و‬ ‫ﺟﻤﺎﻋﺘﯽ از ﺣﻔﺎظ و ﻣﺘﺼﻮﻓﻪ در ﺣﻀﻮر‬ ‫ﻣﺒﺎرﮐﺶ ﻧﺎﮔﺎه ﺑﺮﺧﺎﺳﺖ و در ﺳﻤﺎع رﻓﺖ و‬ ‫ﻟن‬ ‫ ﭼﻮن ﻫﯿﭻ ﮐﺲ از ﻗﻮا ﺎ‬.‫ﺳﻤﺎع ﮐﺮد‬ ‫ﻟﻧﺎ ﻋﺒﺪاﻟﺮﺣﻤﻦ ﺣﺎﻓﻆ‬ ‫ﮐﻪ–ﺣﺎﺿﺮ ﻧﺒﻮد ﻣﻮ ﺎ‬ ‫ رﺣﻤﺔ ‌اﻪﻠﻟ ﻋﻠﯿﻪ‬،‫آﯾﺘﯽ ﻣﺸﻬﻮر ﺑﻮد ﺑﻪ ﻋﺪه‬ ،‫ﯽﺧﻮاﻧﺪ و ﺷﯿﺦ‬ ‌ ‫از ﻗﺮآن آﻏﺎز ﮐﺮد و ﻣ‬ ‫ﯽراﻧﺪ و ﺧﻠﻖ از ﭼﺸﻤﻬﺎ‬ ‌ ‫ وﺟﺪ ﻣ‬،‫ﻗﺪس ﺳﺮه‬ .‫ﯽاﻓﺸﺎﻧﺪ‬ ‌ ‫ﭼﺸﻤ‌ﻪﻫﺎی اﺷﮏ ﻣ‬

Once the Shaykh’s ecstasy and samā‘ had concluded ‫ﭘﺲ ﭼﻮن وﺟﺪ و ﺳﻤﺎع ﺷﯿﺦ ﺑﻪ ‌ﺟﻠﻮس‬ and he had taken a seat, he inquired, “Aren’t you going «‫ ﻓﺮﻣﻮدﮐﻪ »ﺳﺒﺐ ﺳﻤﺎع ﻧﭙﺮﺳﯿﺪ؟‬،‫اﻧﺠﺎﻣﯿﺪ‬ to ask me the reason for the samā‘?” They said, “Shaykh, ‫« ﻓﺮﻣﻮد ﮐﻪ »ﻧﺸﺴﺘﻪ‬.‫ »ﺷﯿﺦ ﻓﺮﻣﺎﯾﺪ‬:‫ﮔﻔﺘﻨﺪ‬ please tell us.” The Shaykh said, “As I sat, I saw my son ‫ رﺣﻤﺔ‬، ،‫ﯽاﻟﺪﯾﻦ‬ ‌ ‫ دﯾﺪم ﮐﻪ ﻓﺮزﻧﺪ ﻣﺤﯿ‬،‫ﺑﻮدم‬ Mohyīoddīn – may God have mercy on him – appear with ‫ درآﻣﺪ ﺷﻤﻌﯽ در دﺳﺖ و در‬،‫‌اﻪﻠﻟ ﻋﻠﯿﻪ‬ a light in his hand, and behind him was Shaykh Zāhed – .‫ساﻪﻠﻟ ﺳﺮه‬ ‌ ‫ ﻗﺪ‬.‫ﻋﻘﺐ او ﺷﯿﺦ زاﻫﺪ‬ may God preserve his spirit.7 Mohyīoddīn came, kissed ‫ﯽاﻟﺪﯾﻦ ﺑﻴﺎﻣﺪ و دﺳﺖ ﻣﻦ ﺑﺒﻮﺳﯿﺪ‬ ‌ ‫ﻣﺤﯿ‬ my hand, and said: ‘Father, I have brought Shaykh Zāhed ‫وﮔﻔﺖ ﺑﺎﺑﺎ ﺷﯿﺦ زاﻫﺪ را ﺑﻪ ‌ﺷﻔﺎﻋﺖ‬ as an intercessor in order to convince you to do samā‘.’ ‫ و ﺣﻠﻖ ﺧﻮد ﺑﮕﺮﻓﺖ‬.‫آورد‌هام ﺗﺎ ﺳﻤﺎع ﮐﻨﯽ‬ He put his hand on his throat, saying, ‘Do samā‘ for my ‫ﮐﻪ از ﺑﺮای ﻣﻦ و ﺷﻔﺎﻋﺖ ﺷﯿﺦ زاﻫﺪ ﮐﻪ‬ sake, and for the sake of Shaykh Zāhed’s intercession.’ ‫ ﻧﺎﭼﺎر ﺑﻪ ‌اﺷﺎرت و ﺷﻔﺎﻋﺖ ﺷﯿﺦ‬.‫ﺳﻤﺎع ﮐﻦ‬ Inevitably, I did samā‘ on the direction and intercession «.‫ ﺳﻤﺎع ﮐﺮدم‬،‫ ﻗﺪس روﺣﻪ‬،‫زاﻫﺪ‬ of Shaykh Zāhed – may his spirit be preserved.”

7 Shaykh Zāhed Gīlānī (d. 1301) was Shaykh Safī’s own Sufi master, who had died long before Shaykh Safī came to preside over the kind of community that is being described in this incident.

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We sing, desiring thoughts of that friend. The beauty of the beloved’s face is our life’s delight. My life’s wages are the steady loss that is the night of separation. On market day, let us all get to work to meet him (Ardabīlī, 1997, 649–650).

‫ﻣﺎ ﻃﺮب در ﻃﻠﺐ ﺧﺎﻃﺮ آن ﯾﺎر ﮐﻨﯿﻢ‬ ‫ﻧﺰﻫﺖ ﺟﺎن زﺟﻤﺎل رخ دﻟﺪار ﮐﻨﯿﻢ‬ ‫ روان ﮐﺎﺳﺪ ﺑﻮد‬،‫ﻧﻘﺪ ﻋﯿﺸﻢ ﺑﻪ ﺷﺐ ﻫﺠﺮ‬ ‫روز ﺑﺎزار وﺻﺎﻟﺶ ﻫﻤﻪ ﺑﺮ ﮐﺎر ﮐﻨﯿﻢ‬

Farrokh Qavvāl (singer) said that once the Shaykh – may God preserve his innermost secret – took the hand of Pīreh ‘Ezzoddīn and took him home. He told me this too so that I also went to his place. There, he lay with nothing on his body except a sheet. He did not have a shirt, belt, or outer cloak. He indicated to me, “Farrokh, recite something!” I recited:

‫ساﻪﻠﻟ‬ ‌ ‫ ﻗﺪ‬،‫ﻓﺮخ ﻗﻮال ﮔﻮﯾﺪ ﮐﻪ ﺑﺎری ﺷﯿﺦ‬ ‫ دﺳﺖ ﭘﯿﺮ ﻋﺰاﻟﺪﯾﻦ ﺑﮕﺮﻓﺖ و در ﺧﺎﻧﻪ‬،‫ﺳﺮه‬ ‫ﺑﺮد و ﻣﺮا ﻧﯿﺰ ﺑﺎر داد ﺗﺎ در ﺧﺎﻧﻪ رﻓﺘﻢ و‬ ‫ از ﺟﺎﻣﻪ ﺑﺮ ﺗﻦ ﻣﺒﺎرک او ﯾﮏ‬.‫ﺗﮑﯿﻪ ﻓﺮﻣﻮد‬ ‫ﻓﺮﺟﯽ ﺑﯿﺶ ﻧﺒﻮد و ﭘﯿﺮاﻫﻦ و ازار و ﺟّﺒﻪ‬ ‫ اﺷﺎرت ﻓﺮﻣﻮد‬.‫ﻫﯿﭻ ﺑﺮ ﺗﻦ ﻣﺒﺎرک ﻧﺪاﺷﺖ‬ :‫« ﺑﺨﻮاﻧﺪم‬.‫ﮐﻪ »ﻓﺮخ ﭼﯿﺰی ﺑﺨﻮان‬

Everyone who, on the path to truth, has no mark left from reality, The world’s leader has come, he is guide to humans and the jinn.

‫ﯽﻧﺸﺎن‬ ‌ ‫ﻫﺮﮐﻪ در راه ﺣﻘﯿﻘﺖ از ﺣﻘﯿﻘﺖ ﺑ‬ ‫ﺷﺪ‬ ‫ﻣﻘﺘﺪای ﻋﺎﻟﻢ آﻣﺪ ﭘﯿﺸﻮای اﻧﺲ و ﺟﺎن ﺷﺪ‬

The Shaykh – may his innermost secret be preserved – went into great ecstasy, stood up, and did vigorous samā‘. I was beset with a great apprehension that the sheet would accidentally come apart and reveal his blessed body. I kept my eyes on this. However, the two edges of the sheet remained stuck to each other such that one would think that they had been sown together. They never came apart at all until the ecstasy reached its end and he sat down.

‫ وﺟﺪی ﻋﻈﯿﻢ ﺑﺸﺪ و‬،‫ ﻗﺪس ﺳﺮه‬، ‫ﺷﯿﺦ را‬ ‫ و ﻣﻦ در‬.‫ﺑﺮﺧﺎﺳﺖ و ﺳﻤﺎع ﮐﺮد ﺑﺴﯿﺎری‬ ‫اﻳﻦ ﻓﮑﺮ ﻋﻈﯿﻢ ﻣﺘﻮزع ﺧﺎﻃﺮ ﺑﻮدم ﮐﻪ ﻧﺒﺎدا‬ ‫ﮐﻪ ﻓﺮﺟﯽ ﮔﺸﺎده ﮔﺮدد و ﮐﺸﻒ اﻧﺪام‬ ‫ ﻫﺮ دو ﻟﺐ‬،‫ ﻧﻈﺮ ﺗﯿﺰ ﮐﺮدم‬.‫ﻣﺒﺎرﮐﺶ ﺷﻮد‬ ‫ﻓﺮﺟﯽ ﭼﻨﺎن ﻣﻤﺎس ﻫﻤﺪﯾﮕﺮ ﺷﺪﻧﺪ ﮐﻪ‬ ‫ﭘﻨﺪاری دوﺧﺘ‌ﻪاﻧﺪ و ﻗﻄﻌًﺎ از ﻫﻢ ﺟﺪا‬ ‫ ﺗﺎ ﭼﻨﺪاﻧﮏ وﺟﺪ ﺑﻪ آﺧﺮ ﭘﯿﻮﺳﺖ و‬،‫ﯽﺷﺪ‬ ‌ ‫ﻧﻤ‬ .‫ﺑﻨﺸﺴﺖ‬

We have become naked, losing the stranger’s dress. The unseen hand is the instrument that maintains our decency. Love is now in control, as long as separation remains the life, Our intellect and consciousness are for meeting the Beloved (Ardabīlī: 1997, 651).

‫از ﻟﺒﺎس ﻏﯿﺮ ﺗﺎ ﻋﺮﯾﺎن ﺷﺪﯾﻢ‬ ‫دﺳﺖ ﻏﯿﺮت ﭘﺮد‌هﭘﻮش ﻣﺎ ﺷﺪﺳﺖ‬ ‫ﻋﺸﻖ ﺗﺎ ﻫﺠﺮان ﺟﺎن ﮐﺮد اﺧﺘﯿﺎر‬ ‫وﺻﻞ ﺟﺎﻧﺎن ﻋﻘﻞ و ﻫﻮش ﻣﺎ ﺷﺪﺳﺖ‬

3.

Conclusionary Remarks

While the excerpts that I have translated are small samples of Islamic discussions about dance, they touch upon issues we can find debated widely in the larger literature. From these we get a sense for dance as an exceptionally potent human activity. This can be gathered both from the positive evaluations of dance, and from the implied criticism that the work on Rūmī in particular aims to address. Those who objected to dance also understood it as being transformative, although in an improper direction. Sufi supporters of dance attempted to counter this by insisting on the importance of context. They agreed that dance for carnal pleasure was reprehensible. Nevertheless, when undertaken as a response to divine and appropriately authoritative calling, dance was a means for achieving the highest religious ends.

Dancing the Islamic Way

Among Sufis invested in dance, the activity helped to define the community. In both cases I have presented, dance is shown to come to the great masters as a kind of divine gift. Rūmī and Safī were extraordinary men, who ‘entered into dance’ spontaneously as expected under hagiographical convention. Their followers, who took these descriptions as prescriptions, were compelled to recreate the desired ecstasy in dance through cultivation. Elaborate performances, such as those done by the Mevlevis, were inspired by Rūmī’s words and stories, but required years of training for practitioners to execute adequately. The disciplined effort to recreate Rūmī’s dance made it a signature act that was crucial to the community’s religious ethos and was its marker for outsiders. In stories about Safī, we see dance as a connector between members of a Sufi community separated by generations. He gave up dance when a beloved disciple died, and came back to it when a disciple (a generation after him) and his master (a generation before him) both beseeched him to do so. Transposed into groups surrounding Shaykh Safī and his successors, the imperative to dance helped to maintain the community’s traditions over time. Dance had the potential to invite people to a community, as well as to restrict their access. We can see this in the story of the woman who was not allowed to see Safī dancing because of her gender. The lack of visual access did not mean that she could not join the community or become Safī’s disciple. However, the fact that dance is a corporeal practice meant that it interfaced with other social norms pertaining to bodies, such as those concerning gender. A parallel situation occurred among men in the story about the disciple’s apprehension regarding Safī become naked in public. In this case, an unseen power saved the master from being deprived of his dignity while still being able to dance. To dance requires space, which makes the action a means for sanctifying locations. All the places Shaykh Safī is said to have inhabited, from temporary abodes to the site of his grave, were made sacred from what descended on him from God during his dance. Since all these venues acted as places of pilgrimage for his followers, his dance was a perpetual source of blessing during his life and after (Rizvi: 2010). In a similar vein, throughout the centuries, the establishment of Mevlevi hospices around the world has required creating spaces to dance. The Mevlevi community’s placement in the physical world has therefore been mediated through the practice (Journal of Ottoman Studies: 1994). Altogether, between the issues I have highlighted, the focus on dance is an important venue from which to understand and examine the history of Sufi ideas and practices.

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Bibliography Text Editions / Translations Ardabīlī, E.B. (1997), Safvat as-Safā. Dar Tarjomeh-ye Ahvāl va Aqvāl va Karāmāt-e Shaykh Safīoddīn Eshāq Ardabīlī, G. Tabātabā’ī Majd (ed.), Tehran: Zaryāb. Sipāhsālār, F. (1946), Resāleh dar Ahvāl-e Mawlānā Jalāloddīn Mawlavī, Sa‘īd Nafīsī (ed.), Tehran: Eqbāl.

Secondary Literature Ambrosio, A./Feuillebois, E./Zarcone, T. (2006), Les Derviches Tourneurs. Doctrine, Histoire et Pratiques, Paris: Cerf. Avery, K. (2004), Psychology of Early Sufi Samā‘. Listening and Altered States, New York: RoutledgeCurzon. Barber, X.T. (1985), Four Interpretations of Mevlevi Dervish Dance, 1920–1929, Dance Chronicle, 9 (3), 328–355. Bashir, S. (2011), Sufi Bodies: Religion and Society in Medieval Islam, New York: Columbia University Press. Bashir, S. (2006), Shah Isma‘il and the Qizilbash. Cannibalism in the Religious History of Early Safavid Iran, History of Religions, 45 (3), 234–256. Behar, C. (2014), The Show and the Ritual. The Mevlevî Mukabele in Ottoman Times, in A. Öztürkmen/E.B. Vitz (ed.), Medieval and Early Modern Performance in the Eastern Mediterranean, Turnhout: Brepols, 515–532. De Zorzi, G. (2015), In Constantinople among Music and Dervishes. Reports by European Travellers from the Sixteenth to the Eighteenth Century, Mawlana Rumi Review 1, 36–66. Elias, J. (2020), Sufism and Islamic Identity in Jalaluddin Rumi’s Anatolia, in J. Elias/B. Orfali (ed.), Light upon Light: Essays in Islamic Thought and History in Honor of Gerhard Böwering, Leiden: Brill, 291–315. Gronke, M. (1993), Derwische im Vorhof der Macht. Sozial- und Wirtschaftsgeschichte Nordwestirans im 13. und 14. Jahrhundert, Stuttgart: F. Steiner Verlag. Hamilton, M.J. (2016), A Work of Two Registers. Mukabele, Private and Public, Dance, Movement & Spiritualities, 3 (3), 263–278. Journal of Ottoman Studies/Osmanli Araştirmalari (1994), Issue 14 (Sixteen articles on Mevlevi hospices around the world). Lewis, F.D. (2014), Rumi. Past and Present, East and West. The Life, Teaching and Poetry of Jalal al-Din Rumi, London: Oneworld Classics. Lewisohn, L. (1997), The Sacred Music of Islam. Samā‘ in the Persian Sufi Tradition, British Journal of Ethnomusicology, 6 (1), 1–33. Mazzaoui, M. (1972), The Origins of the Safawids. Šī‘ism, Sūfism, and the Ġulāt, Wiesbaden: F. Steiner Verlag.

Dancing the Islamic Way

Rizvi, K. (2010), The Safavid Dynastic Shrine. Architecture, Religion and Power in Early Modern Iran, London: I.B. Tauris.

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Moving with the Sound of the Story Dance and Religion in West Africa with Special Consideration of the Epe-Ekpe Dances in Togo

But knowing now the awesome power of memory, how it can open a blue door from one world to another, how it can move us from mountains to meadows, from green woods to fields caked in snow, knowing now that memory can fold the land like cloth, and knowing, too, how I had pushed my memory of her into the ‘down there’ of my mind, how I forgot, but did not forget, I know now that this story, this Conduction, had to begin there on that fantastic bridge between the land of the living and the land of the lost. Ta-Nehisi Coates, The Water Dancer1

Dancing actualises presence in the world. Movement of bodies constitutes the strongest expression of being human. Across cultures, religions and societal contexts, moving one’s body rhythmically carries an undeniable existential dimension. It demonstrates not only the condition of being alive, but more importantly, the denial of accepting any statuary condition of existence. Dancing hence means being alive and being alive with an aspiration of communication and transformation. Nothing could be more valid for the context of dance and religion in West Africa. Dancing has a public, ritual and self-actualising relevance. Through dancing the invisible, transcendent world is made visible for all, the communal bonds are revitalised and the identity of the individual connected with the collective story. The present paper endeavours to use a contextual lens to revisit the nexus of dance and religion. The epe-ekpe festival of the Ge people of Southern Togo is taken as the setting for this investigation. The dances performed at the occasion of this suite of rituals lend themselves to study dance and religion afresh from within a specific context and practice. The aim is to offer a critique to the habitual pattern of reducing dance in West African religion to tradition. The result of this reductionist approach is a too narrow vista on the creative potential of dance. Following Cox, Jaffee and Williams’ theoretical assumption of innovation in religious tradition, (cf. Williams/Cox, et al.: 1992) the present article endeavours to develop a framework of understanding for dance as a continuum of ritual expression, which is both

1 Coates: 2019, 3–4.

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anamnestic and future-oriented. Through dancing the Ge people are reviving the collective memory of their migration in the seventeenth century from the region of Elmina to the South-Eastern region of Glidji-Anèho, and at the same time, they offer a physical form of engagement with who they imagine to be tomorrow in the New Year’s festivities carried out according to the lunar calendar. The argumentation on the hypothesis of dancing as anamnestic and futureoriented ritual expression will be pursued in four movements. First, the meaning, origin and relevance of the dances will be located within the epe-ekpe festival itself. This first contextual perspective will serve as a background for revisiting the framework of dance and religion in the second part. This will help to situate a second layer of investigation of the epe-ekpe dances from the perspective of how the dances contribute to a collective work of memory and imagination. Finally, in the fourth part, I will consider the significance of dance and religion for the field of intercultural studies. How can dance be understood and interpreted in the context of the encounter of religions and cultures? What bearing has the experience of dancing for the description and interpretation of religious practice beyond traditional religions? Which overarching themes does dancing provide for further investigation into religious phenomenology and epistemology? These and other questions will be indicative for relating the study of a specific societal setting, in which dance is practised for religious purposes to research desiderata in the study of religions in general. The investigation we are proposing is a first step into this direction. It does not attempt to provide a comprehensive discussion, nor does it suggest any kind of universalising perspective from the material extrapolated from a specific cultural and religious context. It aims however, at broadening the subject matters and the methodological scope of intercultural religious studies. This relates to the recently growing attention to materiality in religious studies, as well as to the critical-sensitive usage of ethnographic methods to deepen knowledge about the dynamics at the intersection of religiously relevant objects, performances and meaning-making (cf. Houtman/Meyer: 2012; Vasquez: 2011; Chidester: 2000, 367–379). The present contribution argues, against the totalising approach emerging from the turn to the body in religious studies, that dance and dancing can offer a context of investigation, which assists in paying attention to the body as a location for a religious expression in time and space, and at the same time for its intersubjectivity (cf. Merleau-Ponty: 1964).

Moving with the Sound of the Story

1.

The Ritual Context of the Epe-Ekpe Dances

1.1

The Historic and Mythological Location of the Epe-Ekpe Dances

The epe-ekpe festival is crucial for the understanding of the Ge people’s selfunderstanding. The Ge of South Togo is an ethnic group originating from the former Gold Coast (actual territory of Ghana) at the end of the 17th century. The implantation of several clan groups in the South Eastern costal region of Togo, in a triangle between the towns Agbedrafo, Anèho and Glidji, with Glidji as the chief location and royal see, is reported to have been completed in 1662. The name of the Ge people can be traced back to the Ga people in the actual region of Ghana (region around the capital Accra). It is the term used in the language of the Ge, whereas in the literature one can often encounter the designation of Mina. This term is derived from the Elmina Castle, established by the Portuguese in the 16th century. The exile of the Ge from this region eastwards was motivated among other reasons by inter-ethnic conflicts with the Ashanti and related ethnic groups. Oral tradition has it that the epe-ekpe rituals go back to a commemorative feast at the occasion of the end of a period of famine (cf. Kouavi: 1985). Hence, the Ge people of Togo are a migrant population with a historic consciousness and collective identity strongly reposing on this migratory story. Epe-ekpe marks the New Year according to the lunar calendar for the Ge people, usually celebrated in the months of August or September. It is at the same time the moment of collective remembering of their exile and establishment in the new lands and the attempt to revitalise this memory for the well-being of the entire ethnic group through acts of reconciliation. The festival constitutes a series of rituals embedded in a polytheistic religious system, in which several divinities (vodun) ensure the well-being of all people and bridge the distance to the creator God (mawu). Epe-ekpe centres about three main rituals, which the Ge brought to their new location: the selection of the sacred stone (kpessossor), the communal meal (yeke yeke), and the return of the divinities into the sea (vodun dje apu), which have been expanded by other rituals after the exile. Several cosmological myths have been collected on the genesis of the cultic rites of Epe-Ekpe. According to a version narrated by Adjévi Klougan of Akoda: […] every year at the same time, three divinities emerged from the sea, and transformed themselves into humans; this took place at the former Gold Coast. […] The divinity Sakumo was their guide, who steered their boat. One day, a human discovered the three as they were disembarking and recognised them. They metamorphosed into rocks, which one can still see today in the sea. The place is deemed holy and dangerous. The human took the divinities in their shape of rock unto which they had transformed, and among

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the rocks was a stone, which had the capacity to change its colour every year following this incident. According to the colour the year would be prosperous or challenging. […] Sakumo, Kole, Kpessu and the other divinities took residence in proximity of the humans, and every year at the same lunar period they made them discover a stone which would announce the future, and they would at this occasion provide recommendations for their hosts.2

This mythological basis bears significance for the interpretation of the ritual dances, performed at the climax of the festival, prior to the public presentation of the holy stone and during the subsequent festivities in all Ge households around the meal of reconciliation or unity, yeke-yeke. There are six main phases of the ritual which mark the preparation of the Ge people and those initiated to the cults of the three divinities in particular: a period of fasting and interdiction (sedodo), during which the population is called to observe a modest and withdrawn lifestyle. Mourning, as well as celebration, is not allowed during this period. This period is followed by the clearing of the paths (emon tata) leading to the sacred forest, from where the holy stone is fetched. Thereafter the ceremony of situtu, the blessing through water, takes place. It is a purification rite, which prepares people for the ultimate aim of peace building and reconciliation between humans and between humans and their divinities. The fourth phase (ekpe sosso) marks the ritual climax with the public presentation of the holy stone. Subsequently, the Ge families invoke the trespassed (nuanlin yoyo) through a procession from one compound to another with dancing and music. Finally, the families gather to share a convivial meal (yeke yeke dugbe) and to greet friends and neighbours in a spirit of reconciliation. It is noteworthy, that the epe-ekpe rituals also include symbolic actions like the counting and distribution of corn grains to visualise the approaching highlight of the festival, the presentation of the holy stone. 1.2

Epe-Ekpe Dances as the Enactment of a Reciprocal Messaging

The epe-ekpe dances, are performed by the adherents of the three cults dedicated to Ata Sakumo, Ata Kpessu and Mama Kole. After a period of seclusion they appear for the first time publicly in presence of a large attendance. The day of the presentation of the holy stone has become over the three centuries of its existence an important occasion of communion for the Ge people, but also for other ethnic groups, who join the festivities as guests. The dancing of the Gewesi, and the mostly female epe-ekpe dancers, are animated by rhythmic chants and sounds of the shells worn around wrists and ankles. The dances are performed in rows, and the dancers advance

2 De la Torre: 1991, 83f. Translation from the French original by the author.

Moving with the Sound of the Story

procession-like in small movements, while responding to the priest’s chants. The mainly white skirts, the bare torsos and ornaments, the exquisite hairstyles are in honour of the divinities. The analysis of the dance performances bears three characteristics: a) Body posture: the dancers lower the upper body and keep their faces oriented towards the soil/ the earth underneath their bare feet. The posture demonstrates an attitude of reverence to the respective divinities believed to inhabit the earth, and the lowering of the dancer’s bodies indicates their proximity to them. b) Rhythmic inner body movements or contortions: following the call of the priest, the dance is composed of a pattern of sequences. Slow counter-rhythmic arm and feet movements, interwoven with swift inner body movements, alternating chest and arm contractions. The inner body movements are typical features in West African dances, particularly in this sub-region. They bring to the fore the vibrancy of the dancers’ ritual experience, sometimes observable in form of a status of trance. c) Forward movements into the space: Finally, the epe-ekpe dances are characterised by small forward movements into the space in a pair formation or in rows. The movements are poised and carried out with attention for every gesture. At times the movements are paused, retarded and directed backwards. The dancers appropriate the space, they enact a kind of reciprocal messaging: their dancing is the physical expression of their readiness to receive the holy stone and the New Year’s message for the Ge, and at the same time they give a message of continuity in the linage of their ancestors, who relocated and whose movements, language, chants and rhythms are re-enacted.

2.

Revisiting the Framework of Dance and Religion

2.1

On Aesthetics and Semiotics in the Study of Dance and Religion

Posture, movement and space are the main structural features in a provisional taxonomy for the epe-ekpe dances. How can these features be made fruitful for revisiting the framework for dance and religion in the West African context? We propose three lines of thought. First, we will investigate the link between the aesthetic and semiotic dimensions of dance and religion, before we embark on dance as multiple experience of reality. A final reflection will consider dance as bodily expression of two contrasting and intertwined performing actions. The epe-ekpe dances illustrate how aesthetic and semiotic dimensions are intrinsically interwoven in the dance performance. This is relevant in a religious context, in which the proximity between humans, God and divinities is continuously established or re-established. Through dancing this experience of proximity

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can be exteriorised, made visible and shared. The semiotic value of the dance is that it is like a language, which – once spoken – extends from the body to another body. The semiotic value of the epe-ekpe dances as language can be understood as a continuous process of a rhythmical movement that gains meaning within the ritual context. The dances represent the blend of real and visible movements and the meaning they gain within the ritual context. The epe-ekpe dancers acquire the ability to dance through learning to move their bodies according to a specific rhythm, and at the same time they embody what Charles Sanders Peirce describes as ‘intelligent consciousness,’ (cf. Peirce: 1991) through which the dancer is enabled to relate the movements performed to the ritual context in which they gain their full meaning. The epe-ekpe dances can be interpreted within a triadic framework of object, sign and interpretant. The dance movements are the ‘objects’, who become through the dancers, as interpretants, signs for the relationship sought to be re-established with the divinities and with the foundational story of the people. Dancing can be perceived on the semiotic level as the attempt to seek communion with the divine and to demonstrate the force vitale derived from this union through physical means of expression. On the aesthetic level, dancing celebrates the beauty of the movement, the body and the radiance that emanates therefrom to re-create continuity. It is important to preserve the unity of the semiotic and the aesthetic dimensions for the understanding of the epe-ekpe dances. Dancing in this specific context is not self-referential. This is valid in as much as the dancers understand themselves not so much as performers of the dances than as channels through which the entire ethnic group can participate in the ritual invocation of the divinities. The dancers are habitually adherents of the respective cultic groups at the heart of the epe-ekpe celebrations and considered as the legitimate interpreters of the ritual commemoration. Their dancing represents a kind of “immediacy of being-in-theworld,”3 and at the same time it is the attempt to disclose the veil behind which the culturally and religiously encoded meaning of the ritual – the re-enactment of the collective story – is hidden. This connects to the helpful avenue Nicoleta Popa Blanariu offers towards the development of a semiotic framework for dance when she states: “Dance is a particular configuration of the time-space-energy system and in contrast to the linear nature of spoken language the nature of movement and body language is a multi-dimensional expression” (Blanariu: 2013, 8).

3 Fraleigh: 1998, 135–143.

Moving with the Sound of the Story

2.2

Dance as Multiple Experience of Reality in Lived Religion

In the case of the epe-ekpe dances, the focus is on the synchronisation of body movements with chanting. In absence of instrumental accompaniment, the dances highlight the movements and, most importantly, the story of the Ge people, which is a narration of movement in itself. With Mahalia Lassibille (cf. Lassibille: 2004, 681–690) one is prompted to ask the question if the term of dance is appropriate, or whether it is a category to deconstruct. The question is pertinent, because dance/dancing evokes a universalising idea of its characteristics. This is particularly relevant for dances in the West African context labelled as ‘traditional African dance’ with the stereotypical associations of polyrhythmic dances accompanied by percussions. The epe-ekpe dances in their atypical performance style invite to broaden the terminological and conceptual realm of dance in the ritual and religious context. What appears as traditional dance and has been designated as such may be contested within a more dynamic understanding (cf. Mudimbe: 1988; Hobsbawm/Ranger: 1983; Williams/Cox et al.: 1992). Against the background of our analysis dancing for the Ge people is perceived as an embodied story or as a text in motion. The story or the text, which is brought to life through the movements, allows the performers a multiple experience of reality in the religious milieu. The chants initiating the movements evoke the myths and the transmitted legacy of the ancestors, as well as their experiences in the land they once left. At the same time, the dancers live entirely the reality of their time. The synchronic and diachronic experiences overlap, and what would escape ordinary verbal communication – the bridge between past, present and future – is enabled through a mediated physical expression. The multiple experiences of reality are further accentuated by the call into proximity by the divinities, manifested by periodic sequences of trance. In seemingly sharp contrast stand those rituals, which aim at social cohesion and communion among the Ge people. The union meals following the presentation of the holy stone, are shared in every Ge household and with guests. They constitute the public-inclusive facet of the epe-ekpe festival, whereas the dances represent the public-exclusive dimension for the initiated. 2.3

Dance as Bodily Expression of Remembering the Past and Imagining the Future

Another crucial observation pertains to the creative potential of the epe-ekpe dances. Their unique feature resides in the space they offer to the performers to intertwine memory of the past and future-oriented imagination. They uphold the collective identity by commemorating the migration from the Elmina region of the former Gold Coast through the dance’s ritual and linguistic continuity. In this perspective,

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the dances represent semanticizing expressions, by way of offering meaning to the collective identity and presence. However, according to the Ge worldview, this memory of the past, perceived as indispensable for the survival of the ethnic group, needs to be coupled with caring for the future. The invocations of the divinities and the creator-God for protection and the ritual ceremonies around the search and presentation of the holy stone, predicting through its colour the fate of the ethnic group and the nation as a whole, stands for this intertwining of time and space. Dance contributes to expanding the notion and understanding of collective memory. Dancing is a specific form of narration which transcends the habitual repositories of memory which are either oral, visual or textual. With Paul Connerton it has to be underlined that: “Culturally specific postural performances provide us with a mnemonics of the body” (Connerton: 1989, 74; cf. Ianì: 2019, 1747–1766). The epe-ekpe dances are rhythmic bodily movements in service of such a social and ritual memory. Central to the understanding of the kinetic process of the dances is that postures, gestures and movements are not choreographed but performed within a societal and ritual context that privileges and cultivates bodily expression as one mode of engagement with time and space. This engagement with time and space is not a dualistic one, as it aims at making visible the normally invisible continuity of the collective ethnic and ritual past into the present and future.

3.

Epe-Ekpe Dances and the Collective Imagination

3.1

Epe-Ekpe Dances as Embodied Anamnesis

One dimension in the study of dances in the West African sub-region may have been so far underscored. It relates to particular memory contents the dances evoke. While the commemoration of the relocation of the Ge within the sub-region is openly articulated and translated into the narrated movements, the stories of the enslaved Ge and other ethnic groups in this coastal region have not yet been the subject of much investigation. Nicole Monteiro (Monteiro/Wall: 2011, 234–252) writes about African dance as healing modality visible in and outside the African continent. In the Ge region however, the slave history is still a painful and often silenced reality. The transatlantic slave trade constitutes undoubtedly the most incisive period with an estimated number of 22 million persons4 deported from sub-Saharan Africa to other regions of the world, mainly North and South America,

4 (Ogot: 1998, 86; cf. Ki-Zerbo: 1978). The challenge of accurately estimating the numbers of enslaved and deported Africans is subject of an ongoing scholarly debate, which, for the sake of brevity, cannot be explicated in this article.

Moving with the Sound of the Story

as well as to the Caribbean. This part of the West African coast was named the Slave Coast due to a series of ports from where enslaved African were deported, including Lagos, Ouidah, Aneho (Petit Popo), Grand Popo, Agoué, Elmina, and other places. The effect of the enslavement of Africans in this region of the continent has to be perceived within the context of a political and economic expansion by several European nations between 1700 and 1850. Portuguese, Dutch, Danish and British fortresses on the West African coast line are vestiges of a foreign presence on the continent with the interest to supply demand in labour force through enslaving and deporting local populations to regions, mainly in the Americas, to assist building wealth in the plantations abroad (cf. Rodney: 1972; Patterson: 1982). Far more impactful for a contemporary societal and religious analysis, and for the topic under discussion in this article, is the intergenerational traumatic legacy and the transmission of the cultural trauma to present generations. Jeffrey Alexander (cf. Alexander/Eyerman et.al.: 2004) has contributed alongside other scholars in the humanities to foundational work on the significance of trauma for collectivities. He stresses: “Trauma is not the result of a group experiencing pain. It is the result of this acute discomfort entering into the core of the collectivity’s sense of its own identity” (cf. Alexander/Eyerman et.al.: 2004, 10). Such a theoretical proposition would lend itself to be further explored in the context of the enslavement experience in West Africa and the possibility of broadening the scope of its effect on the collective identity by analysing not only the cognitive, verbal and material impact, but also bodily forms of expressions such as dance. In the past decade former locations, where enslaved people were forcibly held prior to their deportation, have been identified in Togo and some of these have become protected sites. One of these locations is Wood Home, built in 1835, only around 9 miles away from Glidji and 18 miles from the capital Lomé. Its owner John Henry Wood, a Scottish salesman, used it until 1852 for illegal slave trade, after the British abolition in 1807. It is part of the complex and painful history of the former West African ‘Slave Coast’ that Ge people have been involved in the trade of enslaved people (cf. Gayibor: 1990; Agbanon II: 1991). A few meters afar from Wood Home towards the coastal line, one can find the remainders of a well, the ‘well of the enchained’, around which the enslaved people were forced to move, seven times – as per the local oral history – in order to forget their divinities, whose supernatural powers the slave traders were afraid of. In light of this historical strand, one can imagine, how movement and being in movement can take a highly disruptive connotation. Epe-ekpe dances did take place in this era,

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and hence the assumption of dance as an embodied anamnesis, as a way by which bodies dance in and through the painful memory, takes contours.5 Scarce are the evidences related to local family history, which indicate that members of ethnic groups from the Northern regions of the country have been enslaved and deported on the coast. Oral history has it that some of the deported intermarried with Ge people, and hence the analytical category of dancing as ‘story in motion’ may lend itself for further investigation in other dimensions of the region’s collective memory. 3.2

Epe-Ekpe Dances as Creative Spaces of Collective Imagination

Against the background of a multi-layered story and experience, dance creates spaces of collective imagination. For the Ge people the dances have both an exclusive and an inclusive character. They invite to reflect upon identity as continuity with the ancestors and their divinities, and they place the welfare of the community under the guardianship of these divinities. The dances accentuate and exteriorise what would otherwise remain invisible: the need to relate and to be in relation with others in order to maintain the collective unity. Sometimes, these spaces of collective imagination can be compromised and the dances provide insight into the vulnerability of the ritual and religious system. Recently, the Ge people have experienced that the epe-ekpe festival can also become a public arena for power struggles among political leaders and religious function-holders. Questions of authority, legitimacy and right of ritual leadership in the tightly knit societal and religious organisation have stirred up conflicts. It is proposed to understand the epe-ekpe dances also as means to contribute to conflict resolution in this type of situations, when internal and external influences have been, as Monteiro and Wall state: “[…] disruptive not only to individuals, but to entire communities and regions.” (Monteiro/Wall: ibid., 238). Dancing can orient the collective imagination to recovering lost anchors for commonality. Through movement in rhythmic cadences a restorative process on a symbolic level of action can be initiated.

5 There is research evidence in other contexts for such an interpretation of the function of dance as anamnestic bodily expression (cf. Mendoza: 2000), who refers to Peruvian ritual dance, when she states that dance is a means “through which people contested, domesticated and reworked signs of domination in their society” (Mendoza: 2000, 39), (cf. Callaghan: 2012).

Moving with the Sound of the Story

4.

Exploring the Intercultural Relevance of Dance in the Encounter of Religions

4.1

Dance as Contestation against the Missionary Conflict of Loyalty

An investigation about dance in West African religious context would be incomplete without consideration of the cultural and religious encounters and contestations that provoked controversy around dance in its assumed traditional shape. At the end of the 19th century a sharp conflict of loyalty resulted from the missionary encounter in the sub-region. Particularly Protestant missionaries considered dancing as dangerous for its connection with local divinities. Dancing was hence seen as a potential threat to the evangelisation. The reports of local missionary assistants (cf. Westermann: 4 1952) give testimony to this conflict of loyalty, when they describe how people hesitated to abandon ritual practice, including dancing, for fear of losing the ancestral and divine protection. For the European missionaries, in contrast, dancing was giving the devil the opportunity to take over and to jeopardise salvation (cf. Meyer: 1999). For a long time, the denial of dance as legitimate religious expression, alongside drumming and other local music instruments was present in the missionary churches. It was only in the late 1960s when the holistic missionary initiative The Whole Gospel for the Whole Human Being (cf. Nomenyo: 1967) was started, that local music, instruments and dance-movement was introduced as liturgical elements in the worship life of mainline Protestant churches. It is interesting to observe how contemporary worship life has incorporated dancing in a very specific form, which resembles the movements of the epe-ekpe dances. One specific type of dance-movement can be found in Protestant mainline churches, as well as in charismatic and Pentecostal/Neo-Pentecostal churches, which is a rhythmic dance characterised by slow movements carried out by individual worshippers, often in long rows throughout the church building, particularly for the offering. Although there is no direct influence and certainly no ritual connection between the epe-ekpe dances and these dance movements in the context of churches, it is striking to note the resemblance with some of their main features: a) Slight forward inclination of the body: the noticeable difference is the upwardoriented6 face and/or slowly moving head. b) Slow forward movements with arms and feet: the feet are set in slow and rhythmic movements one after the other, with very little disconnection from the ground.

6 Cf. Ravn: 2017, 57–82, on verticality of dancing bodies.

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c) Movement by way of formation in rows or in pairs: Often, the dance movements are encouraged by calling upon specific groups (e.g. for the offering, when all those born on the same week day are invited to come forward). However, the similitude is limited to the formal continuity on the level of the body movements. The meaning of the dancing is incorporated in and subtly developed within the Christian symbolic system and within a framework of worship transmitted by the missionaries. In the context of investigation the legacy of missionary societies from Europe, the Wesleyan Methodist Mission, the Society of the Divine Verb of Steyl, the Basel Mission Society and the North-German Mission Society has left a lasting imprint on the interpretation of Christianity and the conduct of Christian worship. Whereas in the local ritual practice the rhythmic movement of the body is seen as essential, following the missionary contact, churches in the regions have inherited a strict dichotomy between the body and the soul. In the Protestant churches, the proclamation of the Word has been accentuated over against any corporal movements or dancing. The liturgical centre of the Protestant worship was the sermon, in which the story of Jesus Christ is interpreted in view of the salvation of the soul. The body, by contrast, was seen as too closely connected with the local culture and the danger of subtle intrusions of witchcraft and the devil. The Christian symbolic system was introduced in the local context with an emphasis on the liberating message of the Christ event, which was received by a population with whom this message resonated and found valid anchor points, particularly with regard to the gratuity of Christ’s self-giving – a life given for all – which offered a lasting critical comment on the cultural practices of reciprocity. However, the strict separation between body and soul resulted in the exclusion of corporal articulations in the worship. As we have seen, this distinction is important against the background of the missionary encounter with the local cultural and ritual context. Dancing in churches represents a relatively recent and gradual form of inculturation7 in contestation of the initially described missionary conflict of loyalty. 4.2

Dance as Negotiating Denied Space

The integration of dance in the missionary, and particularly in the instituted, charismatic and Pentecostal churches, where more forms of bodily expression are embedded in the worship, (cf. Asante: 1994) appears as a feature through which space and

7 “The role of the choir director in the BAPRESCA choirs in Cameroon” (Riva: 2015, 1) offers valuable indications for such a process of inculturation in a musical culture influenced by the missionary encounter, using the example of choir conducting techniques (cf. Riva: 2015).

Moving with the Sound of the Story

physical presence is negotiated in a liturgical order, which otherwise emphasises the proclamation of the Word and provides not much space for forms of physical articulation. In this sense the dances in Christian communities are an ‘inculturated’ dancing, a body language, which connects with familiar patterns of movement without relating to the collective narrative and to the religious underpinnings. Dancing is linked, instead, with the new story at the heart of the Christian symbolic system. In the context of Christianity dancing may be perceived as liberating metaphor for living faith out of the gratuity of God’s grace, whereas the epe-ekpe context provides space for dance as part of a strictly reciprocal and polytheistic system. The study of dancing and dances offers the opportunity to deepen the conception of how people encounter other people, engage with the world around them and create meaning in more than cognitive and verbal manners. The example of dancing in South Togo shows that it can be anchored in different semiotic contexts. Dancing may refer on the one hand to the intention of re-enacting the presence of the divine in people’s actual lives and to give shape to their aspiration for a life lived in prosperous continuity with the ancestors, while it intentionally disrupts this continuity according to a worldview and symbolic system, in which dancing is emerging as an expression of gratitude for being alive through divine initiative which purposely does not have to and cannot be reciprocated. 4.3

Dance and Body Politics across Boundaries

Finally, this inquiry has to be complemented with a reflection on how dancing influences the perception of the body/bodies. In the epe-ekpe dances the partly naked bodies are indicative of purity and preparedness for the encounter with the divine. This may give rise to critical questions, such as how bodies are perceived, engendered, made visible/invisible and interpreted. In the epe-ekpe ritual, for example, women dance together with men, who dress themselves like women, can be discussed against the background of how dancing, as practice and as mode of engagement with the world, provides opportunities for exteriorising cultural re-arrangements of gender roles, gendered attributions and worldviews that forerun other cultural and linguistic forms of expression. More intercultural research needs to be conducted to offer supporting empirical evidence for cultural re-arrangements, negotiations or change.8 Although the epistemological standpoints may be different with regard to the power relationships attributed to bodies in various cultures, it seems unavoidable to consider bodies as political, and therefore as potentially hierarchical, in any

8 The research project on the development of geocentric spatial language and cognition of Dasen/ Changkakoti et al. (2006) offers some useful methodological insights for this investigation.

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case structural element in the study of dance and religion. In our case study, we would have to ask questions on the way bodies as moving and dancing bodies are seen as the moving/dancing person, how their relationship with other bodies and with the space, in which the performance of the dance takes place, impinges upon dimensions of sovereignty, autonomy and the perception of wholeness as pre-requisite for the performance of the movements in view of their ritual intention to reconnect with the past, engage with the present and provide a collective vision for the future. In this regard the research of Andrée Grau9 is valuable, as she explores how dancing brings different understandings and contrasting concepts of the body to the fore. She carefully engages with ethnographic material highlighting the emic perspective and avoiding in her comparative analysis of dancing in different cultures the extrapolation of insights from one milieu to another. In her analysis of body perceptions in dancing among the first nations people of Tiwi in Australia, she discovers a dimension that is also instructive for the study of the epe-ekpe dancing. Grau explains how the Tiwi create through dancing “[…] complex webs of relationships between land and lineages” (Grau: 2005, 148). This is valid, as per Andrée Grau, because the Tiwi understand their bodies not as bounded (cf. Grau: 2005, 157). She also hints to an interesting analogy between the body which has no name in the local language and the many names for different body parts, as well as the unnamed geographical space, in which the Tiwi found their home and the many names for the sacred sites at which dancing takes place. A direct comparison between the Tiwi and the Ge people in terms of their interpretation of the body may not be established, however the analytical lenses and categories Grau secures for decoding dancing at the borderline of boundedness and unboundedness both in terms of space and time is indicative also for the epe-ekpe dances. The first major analytical lens which can be made fruitful here is the concept of bodies that create kinship models through dancing: “Through these dances, bodily exploration and theorizing of kindship possibilities can take place” (Grau: 2005, 157). As we stated earlier, the epe-ekpe dances provide such opportunities for the imagination of relationships with regard to the ancestral continuity, the living in the present and the aspired collective future. The bodies in dancing do not, and factually cannot, reproduce but rather create movements performed with and for others with whom the kinship is endeavoured to be manifested and fostered: the fellow kin-people, the ancestors and divinities.

9 For the context of our discussion I particularly draw upon the following two publications Grau (2011, 5–24) and Grau (2005, 141–163).

Moving with the Sound of the Story

The second analytical lens bears extensive potential for further exploration both in terms of understanding deeper layers of the ritual and social underpinnings of the epe-ekpe dances. Grau offers the stimulating perspective that dancing in the context of her research appears also as a specific form of relating to the land (cf. Grau: 2005, 158–159). This connects to the setting into which the ritual dancing of the Ge is embedded. The dances are not only performed at different locations bearing significance for the re-enactment of the migratory story of the Ge people and their spiritual life (sacred forest, river, ocean, places of gathering in the Ge villages and towns). The dancers merge into the land through their dancing. The dancing does not only take place in a specific space, but the space is integral part of the dancers’ unbounded body movements, similar to what Andrée Grau states for the Tiwi dancers: “For them the land is a living entity. Landscapes were created through the movement of the ancestors, and, since they are descendents (sic) of these beings, the land links them together” (Grau: 2005, 158). One may say that the landscape bears marks of the presence of the ancestors which is recalled through the dancing in a kind of movement continuum, a politics of the moving bodies across boundaries, through which “[…] the landscape is made flesh” (Grau: 2005, 159).

5.

Conclusionary Remarks

The case study of the epe-ekpe dances in South Togo has brought to the fore an understanding of dancing as a kind of text in motion, where the dancers perform rhythmic movements with the intention to re-enact an ancestral story for the continuity of the collective memory and identity. However, we have elaborated how the danced movements contribute to diverse and multi-layered amnestic forms, which are not solely directed to the past, but also to the future. Therefore, dancing appears to form rather a continuum of overlapping similarities between different types of dancing with ‘family resemblance’, which in turn invites to the deconstruction of the designation of African dancing as traditional. The article proposes to read dancing, through the lenses of a contextual micro-study, at the intersection of corporeality, spatiality and sensibility (Grau: 2011, 18) within a ritual framework in which the collective memory plays a major role. The exploration has shed light on different dimensions of the form and contents of the dances analysed. Different methodological insights have been made fruitful for this discussion of the significance of a specific ritually embedded dancing from an emic perspective that can offer impulses for further analysis. The salient findings can be summarised and organised around four lines of thought. First, the specific dancing studied in this contribution has a specific cultural and ritual context which determines its semiotic or meaning-making relevance.

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Secondly, at the heart of the meaning-making process in dancing lies an amnestic and future-oriented purpose. Thirdly, the kinetics of the dancing reposes on gestures, postures and movements of the body in an allocentric perception of space (Grau: 2011, 14). Fourthly, the dancing bodies seem to offer a particular ‘permeability’ for connecting the dancers with the kinship lineage, the land they are dancing upon and which is reflected in their dancing bodies and for creative imagination on possibilities for relationships, interactions and societal cohabitation. Furthermore, the inquiry showed how dancing opens a novel field for interdisciplinary, intercultural research at the intersection of an anthropology of the body and religious studies, for which by way of example the new attention for materiality and the sensorial experience in religious studies stands. For the Ge people dancing is moving with the sound of their story. This may be a valid starting point for further investigation across cultures and religions. Or, to reiterate Ta-Nehisi Coates’ words: “I know now that this story, […] had to begin there on that fantastic bridge between the land of the living and the land of the lost” (Coates: 2019, 4).

Bibliography Agbanon II, F. (1991), Histoire de Petit Popo et du Royaume Guin (1934), Paris, Lomé: Karthala Editions HAHO. Alexander, J.C./Eyerman, R. et. al. (2004), Cultural Trauma and Collective Identity, Berkeley, Los Angeles et al.: University of California Press. Asante, K.W. (ed.) (1994), African Dance. An Artistic, Historical and Philosophical Inquiry, Asmara: African World Press. Blanariu, N.P. (2013), Towards a Framework of a Semiotics of Dance, in CLCWeb (15.1). Callaghan, M. (2012), Dancing Embodied Memory. The Choreography of Place in the Peruvian Andes, in Journal Media-Culture 15 (4). Chidester, D. (2000), Material Terms for the Study of Religion, in JAAR (68) 2, 367–379. Coates, T.-N. (2019), The Water Dancer, New York: One World. Connerton, P. (1989), How Societies Remember, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Dasen, P./Changkakoti, N. et al. (2006), Geocentric Gestures as a Research Tool, in A. Gari/C. Mylonas (ed.), Quod Erat Demonstrandum, From Herodotus’ ethnographic Journeys to Cross-Cultural Research, Athens: Pedio Books, 115–122. De la Torre, I. (1991), Le vodu en Afrique de l’Ouest. Rites et traditions, Paris: Editions l’Harmattan. Fraleigh, S. (1998), A Vulnerable Glance. Seeing Dance through Phenomenology, in A. Carter (ed.), The Routledge Dance Studies Reader, London: Routledge, 135–143. Gayibor, N.L. (1990), Le Genyi. Un Royaume Oublié de la Côte de Guinée au Temps de la Traite des Noirs, Paris, Lomé: Karthala Editions HAHO.

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Grau, A. (2005), When the Landscape becomes Flesh. An Investigation into Body Boundaries with Special Reference to Tiwi Dance and Western Classical Ballet, in Body & Society (11) 4, 141–163. Grau, A. (2011), Dancing Bodies, Spaces/Places and the Senses. A Cross-Cultural Investigation, in Journal of Dance & Somatic Practices (3) 1; 2, 5–24. Hobsbawm, E./Ranger, T. (ed.) (1983), The Invention of Tradition, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Houtman, D./Meyer, B. (ed.) (2012), Things, Religion and the Question of Materiality, New York: Fordham University Press. Ianì, F. (2019), Embodied Memories. Reviewing the role of the body in memory processes, in PBR (26) 6, 1747–1766. Ki-Zerbo, J. (1978), Histoire de l’Afrique Noire. D’Hier à Demain, Paris: Hatier. Kouavi, A.B.M. (1985), Yaka Mia Kin (Yeke Yeke), Lomé et al.: Les Nouvelles Editions Africaines A.C.C.T. Lassibille, M. (2004), ‘La Danse Africaine’. Une Catégorie à Déconstruire, in Cahiers d’Études Africaines (2004/3) 175, 681–690. Mendoza, Z.S. (2000), Shaping Society through Dance, Mestizo Ritual Performance in the Peruvian Andes, Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Merleau-Ponty, M. (1964), Le Visible et l’Invisible, Paris: Gallimard. Meyer, B. (1999), Translating the Devil, Religion and Modernity among the Ewe in Ghana, Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. Monteiro, N.M./Wall, D.J. (2011), African Dance as Healing Modality Throughout the Diaspora, The Use of Ritual and Movement to Work Through Trauma, in JPAS (4) 6, 234–252. Mudimbe, V. (1988), The Invention of Africa, Gnosis, Philosophy and the Order of Knowledge, Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Nomenyo, S. (1967), Tout l’Evangile à tout l’Homme, Yaoundé: CLE. Ogot, B.A. (1998), Histoire Générale de l’Afrique, Vol. V: L’Afrique du XVI au XVIII ème siècle, Paris: UNESCO/ Présence Africaine. Patterson, O. (1982), Slavery and Social Death. A Comparative Study, Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Peirce, C.S. (1991), On Signs, Writings on Semiotic, James Hoopes (ed.), Chapel Hill: North Carolina University Press. Ravn, S. (2017), Dancing Practices. Seeing and Sensing the Dancing Body, in Body & Society 23 (2), 57–82. Riva, N. (2015), Beating Time, Gesticulating and Dancing, Maggie Jones (trans.), Transposition (2015) 5. Rodney, W. (1972), How Europe Underdeveloped Africa, London: Bogle-l’Ouverture Publications. Vasquez, M.A. (2000), More than Belief. A materialist Theory of Religion, Oxford: Oxford University Press.

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Westermann, D. (4 1952), Afrikaner Erzählen Ihr Leben, Berlin: Evangelische Verlagsanstalt. Williams, M.A./Cox, C. et al. (ed.) (1992), Innovation in Religious Tradition. Essays in the Interpretation of Religious Change, Berlin/New York: Mouton de Gruyter.

Inga Scharf da Silva

Beyond the Gaps of Archives Transfer and Transformation of Knowledge in Ritual Dance in Afro-Brazilian Religions Preto Velho para mim é um amor Preto Velho [a Black old, masculine puro e infinito. Uma representação spirit]2 for me is pure and infinitive de um amor, a sua materialização. love. A representation of love, its É carinho, afeto, também materialization. It is fondness, 1 sabedoria, inteligência. […] Eu affection, also wisdom, intelligence. diria que é uma alegria triste de […] I would say it is a sad joy of a um escravo. […] Minha preta slave. […] velha me mostra isso, sendo My Preta Velha [a Black, old, escrava. feminine spirit] shows me that, being Mas a questão maior disso é: a slave. Porque eles trazem tanto amor But the bigger question is: Why do para gente? Em vez de praga, they bring so much love to us? vingança? Apocalípse! Isso é que Instead of plague, revenge? mais me supreende! Apocalypse! That surprises me the Como você volta como espírito most! para uma terra que te fez tanto How do you return as a spirit to a mal? Voltar para uma menina rica, land that has done you so much branca como eu, porque o preto harm? Go back to a rich, White girl velho vai me ajudar? Isso é o que like me, why will the old Black [spirit] mais me deixa surpresa como esses help me? espíritos são elevados. Esse amor This is what surprises me most about incrível e inconditional só dando how high[ly developed] these spirits para você! are. This incredible and Inclusive para os europeus unconditional love just giving to you! colonialistas! Eles vão dar o mesmo Even for colonialist Europeans! They amor para todo mundo em will give the same love to everyone, qualquer lugar do mundo que eles anywhere in the world they are called. forem chamados. (Fernanda Arrighi Czarnobai, medium and musician in the Gira Berlin of the Ilê

1 Omission here and in the following by the author.

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Axé Oxum Abalô in an interview with Inga Scharf da Silva3 , Berlin, 2018–03–06, cited in Scharf da Silva: 20214 ) Entering a multi-layered spiritual world, with the reflective words about unconditional love of her spirit of a Preta Velha, a religious actor (interviewed by me for my doctoral thesis fieldwork) recalls the archives of the colonial era. Fernanda is a young Brazilian woman that lives and works in Berlin. Contrary to the presentation of spirits, being malicious or even ‘devilish’ (as a Christian category) in horror films, other technical media and some social contexts afflicting ‘good’ people, the spirits in the Umbanda5 are understood as being caring and loving (cf. Scharf da Silva: 2021). This is their reason to visit incarnated people on earth and in this worldview, they search a communication through personal, human mediums. Because of their stigmatized position in one of the largest Christian countries in the world, which since the colonial era has systematically oppressed all African or indigenous religions and marginalized them in the sense of demonization, even today (or again) many members of the Afro-indigenous religions in Brazil hide behind a Christian facade. Hence, in contemporary Brazil, the Afro-Brazilian religions distinguish themselves above all from the rapidly growing neo-Pentecostal churches, which are characterized by religious intolerance of Afro-Brazilian religions. Vagner Gonçalves da Silva relates this sociopolitical struggle and violence to the controversial and contested place of the human body as a mediator between the material and immaterial worlds in both religions (cf. Gonçalves da Silva: 2016, 490f). However, in Brazil the spiritual entities of the Umbanda and their iconographic presence in everyday life are well known. The identification with these spirits is so dense that they are perceived as a self-evident part of Brazilian culture and not merely as a segregated sphere of a religion. The Brazilian believers of Umbanda however treat the spiritual entities like their own beloved ancestors and pay them respect for their suffering (cf. Scharf da Silva: 2021).

2 I use the ethnic terms ‘Black’ and ‘White’ in the sense of a ‘critical whiteness research’ in capital letters, because I understand them not as phenotypical, but as socially effective categories (cf. Eggers/ Kilomba/Pische/Arndt: 2005, 13). Addition in brackets by the author. 3 I am a White, disabled, female researcher. 4 Upcoming publication of my doctoral thesis ”Trauma as an archive of knowledge. Postcolonial memory practice in the sacral globalization in the contemporary Umbanda in German-speaking Europe” in 2021. 5 Umbanda is an Afro-indigenous religion originated from Brazil that worships spirits.

Beyond the Gaps of Archives

1.

Preta Velha

One of the many spirits in the Umbanda religion are the so called Pretas Velhas, the spirits of very old Black enslaved African women that lived during the colonial era in Brazil. There are also the spirits of indigenous (Caboclas/Caboclos), sailors (Marinheiras/Marinheiros), gypsies (Ciganas/Ciganos), children (Crianças) and folks of the streets (Pombagiras/Exús) that are venerated through trance and sacred dance. The Pretas Velhas, and their masculine companions, the Pretos Velhos, represent the spiritual personification and stereotypes of ‘the slaves’. In the ritual they show themselves (embodied in trance mediums) as old, wise, experienced, warmhearted and down-to-earth. They walk stooped with age, sometimes dance in a slow and joyful way, then sit on a wooden stool, and drink hot, sweet coffee. They like to converse, give advice for everyday life situations, calm and affirm those who ask questions for their life plans. They comfort and embrace the visitors of the rituals. Since there are many different kinds of female and male spirits as well as divinities (the Orixás) – and such beyond binary categories – in the Umbanda, she here serves as an example to illustrate the following argument of embodied postcolonial memory practice.

2.

Dance and Trance as an Access to the Holy in Afro-Brazilian Religions

Music and dance are an integral part of the Umbanda religion as well as in other Afro-American religions such as the Candomblé, the Santería and the Vodún – to name a few. They find their matrix in the most diverse African cultures and have been dispersed in the course of the more than 400 years of European colonial rule in the Americas, for example the dominance from 1500 to 1888 in Brazil and the enslavement of Africans in the diaspora. Umbanda finds its origins in Bantu and Yorùbá religions, indigenous Shamanism, as well as European Kardecism. They narrate a founding myth in Brazil on November, 15th of 1908 in Cachoeira do Macacu in the state of Rio de Janeiro. In this narration an indigenous spirit, called the Caboclo das Sete Encruzilhadas (Indigenous spirit of the seven crossroads), proclaims a new religion. Therefore, this religion goes beyond defining itself as an African religion on Brazilian soil, but rather proclaims itself as a “newborn” religion, through a so called “syncretic” dialogue of diverse cultural and religious elements (cf. Bastide: 1971, 419–471; Villas Boas Concone: 1987). In order to establish contact and exchange between the material world of people and the immaterial world, called as Aruanda in the Umbanda religion, the body and the human language are necessary in the trance practices. In the rituals spiritual

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entities are called and incorporated, by specially trained personal mediums. They talk through their bodies to external guests, who are invited to the festivities. In the trance the medium no longer moves and behaves like its bearer, but like the spiritual entity that has entered the body, carries its personality traits and behavior. Young mediums suddenly move like old people, women unexpectedly speak in the voice of a man, shy people move agile and openly. Actually the medium is becoming a spirit or a deity in this moment of dance and trance. Since the human body in the Yorùbá variants of the Afro-Brazilian religions represents the religious and symbolic universe and thus reflects the world as a microcosm, the individual spirits and deities are also noticeable in the physiognomy and in diseases of each person. Hence the front of the body represents the future, the back the past and the legs the ancestors. The left side of the body is considered female and the right side is male. In the giras (the ritual dances) the mediums always dance barefoot, because the feet create the connection to the earth, from which the initiated mediums receive the strength of the divine energy Axé. The hands of the visitors of these celebrations are often openly extended and stretched towards the incorporated spirits, since they are considered the door of the entrance and exit of the Axé (cf. Amaral: 2002, 70–72). The ‘Bate cabeças’ (banging the forehead to the ground), a religious gesture of throwing down, is an expression of the connection of the bodies of the spirit mediums to the earth. These are greetings and homages of the initiated mediums in front of the Peji (the altar), for which they lie on the floor with their full length and arms outstretched and face down, so that the forehead touches the earth. After that, by singing sacred chants together for the spiritual entities and through the associated dances, an energy field (called corrente) is built up. This corrente (chain) of energetic connection builds up the sacred space, together with the songs, the drum sounds and the presence of the believers – and not so much created by an architectural structure (cf. Scharf da Silva: 2021). Various sensory stimuli such as drumming, dancing and the development of energy fields by a group of people can trigger a trance in an Umbanda ritual, but require an inner disposition (cf. Eliade: 2012 [1951], 421; Goodman: 1994 [1988]). Hence dance is not mandatory for the religious trance experience as an access to the sacred (cf. Rouget: 1985 [1980]), but it is nevertheless usually part of a religious ceremony called a gira. The word gira is derived from the word “girar” from the Brazilian Portuguese and means to turn around and to dance. It can be derived from African words such as Xirê from Yorùbá or Chila/Tjila from Umbundu and refers also to dance to evoke the coming of the deities and spirits (cf. Lopes: 2006). The way of learning about the spirits and deities is through the effects of music, dance and the inner knowledge of one’s own body. The initiates are given the opportunity to observe the movements of the hands and feet as well as the whole body to follow the rhythm of the drums in the dance that leads to the states of

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trance. So dance is a potential for religious practice because it can be a catalyst for trance, but is only one factor among many other triggering moments. The effect varies with the quality of the adept, especially with age, experience and an unspecified willingness, which could explain why uninvolved viewers do not fall into a trance (cf. Rouget: 1985 [1980]). Nonetheless, the respective rhythm helps to call the specific spirits to come to earth to incorporate in the mediums and thus dance can embody the divine. Usually these trance states only occur in ritual situations and not outside of them in everyday life (cf. Bastide: 1973, 293), even if exceptions confirm the rule. Since there is no use of hallucinatory substances in Umbanda, it is a matter of a sense category as a perception or awareness training. The American anthropologist and dancer Katherine Dunham, who was one of the first to deal with the socio-cultural significance of the dance of Afro-diasporic religions in Europe (both as a scientist and through embodied research as a dancer) sees the body as a medium of cultural memory and knowledge. According to her the body preserved, carried forward, conveyed and always being updated in the performance of dance. She understood dance furthermore not only as a form of art, but also as a medium for non-verbal transmission of the past (cf. Dunham: 1983 [1974]; Diederichsen/Franke: 2019). Dance plays another role in the Umbanda religion in Brazil as in Central Europe. During the colonial era in Brazil, dance had been one of the few forms enslaved Africans could secretly practice their religion, because music, dance and religion are so profoundly entangled in the worship of their deities and spirits. Up to the contemporary days dance in a general sense also is an integral part of everyday life in Brazil and still is a form for creativity and resistance. Dunham’s suggestion of understanding dance as a medium for non-verbal transmission of the past raises the question, which history is passed on if the Umbanda in German-speaking Europe is not only transmitted by Brazilians, but also embodied by central European religious actors, who have no kinship with Africa and the Americas. What is understood in this notion of embodiment? Are the experiences of Black people being incorporated in the ritual context into White bodies – as shows my example of the Preta Velha? I suspect, the appearance of spirits of slaves (such as the Preta Velha), which are respected and loved in a religious manner, can bring one of the main concerns of Umbanda into action: the practice for healing. It seems that it is a matter of collective healing in the sense of Walter Mignolo’s decolonialization of the mind (cf. Mignolo: 2011).

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3.

Transfer of Religious Knowledge: Umbanda in German-speaking Europe

In the course of history, the Umbanda has not only been recreated in Brazil in the beginning of the 20th century and proclaimed itself as a typical, national Brazilian religion. It has also spread to German-speaking Europe. Until the 1990s, AfricanAmerican religions were limited to certain countries and were classified as marginal. However, in the past three decades, they have spread from the primary to the secondary diaspora, including various European countries, particularly Portugal (cf. Kummels: 2011, 366). The global spreads of Umbanda are therefore cultural practices that have developed as a grassroots movement “from below” (cf. Akaraki: 2013, 255). They have grown organically and have been described as social and religious fields or “religious flows” (Frigerio: 2013, 165) in the process of a sacral globalization that crosses national borders (cf. Csordas: 2009; Rocha/Vasques: 2013). Cristina Rocha and Manuel Vasquez affirm, “We are now witnessing the emergence of a new religious cartography. Religions are exported from Brazil to Europe and to other ‘Western’ countries’ in which the ‘Global South’ plays the protagonist role” (Rocha/Vasquez: 2013, 1). These authors argue that in the diasporas, a process of romanticizing through a nostalgic discourse (in the sense of Orientalism according to Edward Said) is paradox in the case of Brazilian religions. It only emphasizes the abstract cultural and religious appropriation of indigenous cultures and ignores the suffering of the Brazilian indigenous and Afro-Brazilian people (ibid., 15). My research differentiates itself from this assumption, by thinking that suffering is also transported and reflected through religious imagination (cf. Scharf da Silva: 2021). Umbanda, which I researched for my doctoral thesis, spread in German-speaking Europe in the 1990s and developed from small groups into communities. The two larger houses Ilê Axé Oxum Abalô/Terra Sagrada as well as the Casa St. Michael/ House of Pure Water (with a main house in Cologne and a branch in Weimar since 2019) are to be mentioned. Each comprises of ca. 40 to 80 members. Both of these Umbanda houses in German-speaking Europe have been founded in 2006 (ibid.).

4.

Methodology in the Anthropological Fieldwork of Religion

I was first exposed to and researched the Umbanda in the late 1990s in the context of my master degree in ethnology.6 As part of my studies, I lived and studied in

6 Magistra Artium (M.A.), while studying at the Free University of Berlin (FUB).

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Brazil for two years.7 My new research approach from 2014 to 20198 was based on ethnological field research, including 38 interviews with activists of my case study as a basis for a polyphonic access and close observation in a multi-sited ethnography (cf. Marcus: 1995). I constantly traveled to different places in Switzerland, Austria, Brazil. Furthermore, I was living and researching in Berlin for about five years in an Umbanda community in Central Europe with a mother-house called Ilê Axé Oxum Abalô (also known as Terra Sagrada) in the Swiss mountains in the Canton of Appenzell. This house (Ilê in Yorùbá language) is spread as a transnational network over the German-speaking countries that consists of seven locations in Switzerland (Stein, St. Gallen, Zurich and Bern), Austria (Graz and Vienna) as well as Germany (Berlin). Their members travel yearly to a Brazilian assembly in Cumuruxatiba (State of Bahia, Northeast of Brazil). In 2019, there were 88 members in the community, who did ritual healing-work for about 950 people9 – so there were eleven times as many visitors as practitioners (cf. Scharf da Silva: 2021). The name Ilê Axé Oxum Abalô derives from the Yorùbá language and designates the house of the vitality (Axé) of Oxum. The goddess of fresh water is called Oxum and in this specific case holds the proper name or the quality (‘qualidade’) Abalô. Abalô denominates the impact of the water of a waterfall at the moment after falling down. The other name of the mother house, Terra Sagrada, comes from Brazilian Portuguese, and means ‘Holy Earth’ in relation to the sheltering of a culture of knowledge that has already taken many journeys, ways and forms (ibid.). In the Brazilian context it is common to speak of “mediums”, but in the context of German-speaking Europe this term is not used. Instead, they are called ‘Inkorporationstänzer*in’. This could be translated as ‘dancers of incorporation’. Here incorporation relies on incorporating another spiritual dimension. In emic terms the spiritual entities in the Ilê Axé Oxum Abalô community are understood in an ontologically different and new way. The Christian perception of reduced personal and individual ‘souls’ or ‘spirits’ is rejected, and these forces are conceived in an apparently ahistorical and depersonalized way. The Umbanda spirits are not seen as the spirits of deceased people (as is common in the Brazilian imagination), but rather as a kind of ‘ancestral field’ of a distant religious dimension. Yet it makes sense, because its spiritual leader, Habiba de Oxum Abalô, just as the first founders of her religious Umbanda house, are of central European origin and have no direct kinship with Brazil. The sense of belonging to natural forces, which is one

7 I studied at the Federal University of Bahia in Salvador (UFBA), University of São Paulo (USP) and Federal University of Pernambuco in Recife (UFPE). 8 I undertook field work while working as a research assistant at the Humboldt University Berlin, supported by PROMI of the University of Cologne. 9 That is the membership status as of 2019–03–20.

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pillar of the faith in Afro-Brazilian religions, is therefore emphasized rather than understanding the spirits as historically and socially firmly defined (ibid.). The therapeutic work of nature therapy has helped to complement the religious network of the Ilê Axé Oxum Abalô in the different offshores of this Umbanda house. Their ritual actions also include the local landscape and natural areas, such as forests, seas, rivers and mountains. In their vision humans are part of nature and nature is an expression of divine powers (ibid.). During the course of my research I became a member in this community, acting as a medium and receiving spiritual entities into my body, through trance-rituals twice a month in rented premises in the Umbanda center of my hometown Berlin. My point of view therefore provides both – a scientific and an emic look on the European Umbanda. Hence in what follows I am opening parts of my field diary, in which I observed myself auto-ethnographically in the moment of religious trance: Meine Preta Velha erscheint das erste Mal. Sie ist eine sehr alte und sehr milde, dafür energiegeladene und starke Person, die da durch mich agiert und immer wieder lustige Dinge tut. Sie ist sehr sozial, geht herum und begrüßt erst einmal alle Entitäten (die Menschen sind ihr vorerst egal). Doch zuerst geht sie – sanft und energisch mich lenkend – in eine Richtung, die ich nicht erwartet hätte, da sie alles hört und gar nicht schwerhörig wie ich selbst ist. Sie geht zu den Trommeln, begrüßt sie wie innige Freunde und doch sehr ehrerbietig, voller hingebungsvoller Liebe. Nimmt das weiße Band, das ihnen in Schleifen um ihre Bäuche gebunden wurde, in die Hand und freut sich über die Sorgsamkeit und Liebe, mit der sie geschmückt worden sind. Sie bleibt so lange vor den Trommeln stehen, hört ihre Vibrationen und ihrem Gespräch genau zu […].

My Preta Velha appears for the first time. She is a very old and very mild, but energetic and strong person who acts through me and does funny things over and over again. She is very social, walks around and talks to all the other entities present (and ignores the human beings for the time being). But first she goes – gently and energetically guiding me – in a direction that I would not have expected, because she hears everything and is not Deaf as I am. She goes to the drums, greets them like close friends and yet very respectfully, full of devoted love. She takes hold of the white ribbon tied around their bellies and is happy about the care and love with which they have been decorated. She stops in front of the drums for so long, listens carefully to its vibrations and conversations […].

Beyond the Gaps of Archives

Mir schien, als seien die Trommeln das Wichtigste und vielleicht das einzig Wichtige überhaupt. Von dort kommt die Kraft, die meine Preta Velha braucht, nur von dort. Ich wundere mich und meine, dass ich als Schwerhörige doch nichts mit Musik zu tun habe. Da schüttelt sie eigensinnig den Kopf und zeigt mir die Trommeln: ‘Guck, sie leben! Sie sind heilig!’ Und ich spüre ihre Liebe für die Trommeln, ihre Bewunderung.

It seemed to me that the drums were the most important and maybe the only important thing. From there comes the power that my Preta Velha needs, only from there. I wonder and think that I being Deaf have nothing to do with music. Thereupon she stubbornly shakes her head and shows me the drums: ‘Look, they’re alive! They are holy!’ And I feel her love for the drums, her admiration.

(Ethnographic vignette based on a field note, ISdS, 2013–09–10, cited in Scharf da Silva: 2021) With this brief narrative of an ethnographic research situation, I try to mediate an understanding of my methodic access to my field of religious ethnology. Since the trance in the Umbanda is a semi-conscious one, I can observe my body, used in the manifestation of the spirit which behaves differently than my own self. I seem to internalize the world of experience of my Preta Velha. The trance is perceived as a double perception, in which the personal medium is aware of itself and feels overlaid by the force or consciousness present in its own body, a kind of parallelism of perception (ibid.). Although a religious affiliation to a researched group is a taboo within German ethnology (cf. Hegener: 2013), I understand the Umbandistic states of trance as an archive about history, religion and culture like libraries, museums, a state archive like a building or institution or other places of documentary material, following the definition of Michel Foucault about archives as hidden and subtle fields of knowledge beyond the accumulation of scientific knowledge (cf. Foucault: 2015 [1969]). In recent years, the concept of the archive has been discussed in a wide variety of academic disciplines and has caused that new places such as catalogs, camps, family heirlooms, films, design or dance have been declared archives. In the sense of disobedience and overcoming Western epistemology scientists, curators, artists and other activists are increasingly working on the decolonization of archives (cf. Knopf/Lembcke/Recklies: 2018).

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Hence the trance, in my interpretation, is a living archive of experienced emotional knowledge. In choosing this methodic path, I hereby face the intellectual processing of my own bodily experiences and multisensory observations in the sense of ‘Living Fieldwork’ by changing my perspectives and positions (cf. Kubes: 2016). Tanja Kubes explains: Living fieldwork ist also eine Methode, mit der leiblichen Erfahrungen am und im Körper selbstreflexiv für die ethnographische Untersuchung fruchtbar gemacht werden können. Ihr Hauptanliegen ist dabei nicht, die Erlebnisse während der Forschung in einen ich-gesättigten autoethnographischen Text zu überführen, sondern durch die tiefe Erfahrung einen emischen Zugang zur Lebenswirklichkeit der Beforschten zu erhalten und so kulturell beeinflusste sensorische Dynamiken an Leib und Körper besser verstehen zu können.

Living fieldwork is a method with which bodily experiences on and in the body can be made self-reflective for the ethnographic examination. The main concern is not to transfer the experiences during the research into an ego-saturated auto-ethnographic text, but to gain emic access to the realities of life of the researchers through a deep experience and to be able to better understand culturally influenced sensory dynamics on the body. (Italics as in the original version) (Tanja Kubes: 2014, 123)

Marc Wagenbach considers archives of the colonial period as translations of cultural heritage in dance. He approached it through a personal observation protocol, as “silent history” as well as “archives of the repressed, the invisible and absent” (Wagenbach: 2018, 192–202). Following this, I became more aware of my own dance experiences in trance (especially my own indigenous spirit of a Cabocla) because she danced in a space that, as a disabled person, I would not have taken. In dance I was able to experience taking up a new space (cf. Scharf da Silva: 2021). I am concerned with a new sense of reflection in the ethnological method of field research that allows and brings together analytical and rational thoughts as well as sensuality, experience and perception. Beyond their tonal similarity, sense, the senses and sensuality belong together, because sensuality and the senses create meaning and sense. The absence of the senses (or one of them), which is common in disabled persons, opens up new doors of other kinds of awareness or sensitivity. Through dance or painting they are expressing themselves without words, but nevertheless they carry knowledge in the bodies of the dancers (ibid.). Contrary to the assumption that body knowledge is short-lived and ephemeral, as the discussions about intangible cultural heritage suggest, it is extremely resilient and its mobility makes it independent of external conditions. For centuries, African religions, as a body-mediated and traditional practice, were able to survive in a

Beyond the Gaps of Archives

colonialist and repressive society not only in the primary diaspora in the Americas, but also in the secondary diaspora in a cosmopolitan city like Berlin. Nina Graeff sums up concisely that the transfer of intangible cultural heritage in Afro-Brazilian religions is preserved in the practitioners themselves (cf. Graeff: 2017, 11f). I would like to emphasize that in my research not only Brazilians practice their religions in a new cultural context and thereby open up new spiritual and social spaces within central European societies. These are also shared by European religious actors and thus constitute a post-migrant society (cf. Hill/Yildiz: 2018) as an interweaving of migration experience, history and incorporation of knowledge. Thus, a theology of dance must be seen in this complex social context.

5.

The Gaps of the Archives

The spirit of the Preta Velha in the Umbanda might be an exemplification of whom Saidiya Hartman refers to as Venus in her studies about the gaps of archives of Atlantic slavery and their structural afterlife. As Hartmann points out in her study about the presence of women in the archives of Atlantic slavery, the historic narration reaches the limits of the unspeakable and the impossibility of talking about the violence of the archives (cf. Hartmann: 2008). Frantz Fanon stated in his book ‘The Wretched of the Earth’ (1961), which is considered as the manifestation of anti-colonialism, that “a study of the colonial world must understand the phenomenon of dance and obsession” (Fanon: 1981 [1961], 48) as a way to express the aggressiveness and violence in the process of doubling and dissolving the personality in the ritual trance. He says that “the little hill that one has climbed, as if to be closer to the moon, the shore that you have slid down as to express the equivalence of dance and washing, cleaning, these are sacred places” (ibid.) Fanon devalues trance as a stabilizing and immobile process in the sense of maintaining the colonized world, versus a rebellion against injustice that makes people “impatient, fidgety, nervous. On the way back, the peace returns to the village, the peace, the immobility” (ibid.). This positioning of reassurance through religion is to be questioned in the general sense. The opposite can also be assumed: that ritual trance makes uncomfortable questions visible and conscious (cf. Scharf da Silva: 2021). In the Umbanda trance sessions in the Ilê Axé Oxum Abalô, however, this awareness does not take place as a kind of presentation or drama of personalized spiritual entities, in which a personal argument could be elaborated between enslaved people and their colonial masters, similar to how Jean Rouge showed in his ethnological film ‘Le Maitres Fous’ from 1954 about a ritual of the Hauka-movement in West Africa. Instead, the memory of the trauma, such as the death of people and the destruction of their culture, is placed in the room and being processed. This

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arrangement is not accompanied by a presentation of suffering, but a symbolic reassessment and revaluation. The spiritual transformation takes place through the positive perception of these spirits and being mediated through love and kindness that the mediums experience through them (ibid.). My point of view is that they give agency to the spiritual entities themselves, talking to them and getting their inner view through trance experiences. What they do is to remember in their simple presence, narrating their life stories in slavery times through the bodies of mediums in this European region (cf. Espirito Santo: 2014; Wagenseil: 2018). In Brazil, documents related to the slave trade were deliberately burned by abolitionists under the initiative of the minister Ruy Barbosa in 1851 from the state archives of Rio de Janeiro prior to the historic moment in 1888. This symbolic act together with the abolition of slavery was to erase the collective memory of this period of violence and power during the colonial period in the hope of a new era and was intended to protect the victims (cf. Cossard: 2008 [2006], 25; Verger: 1987 [1968], 16). Whereas the gaps of archives and memory in Europe are that of offenders. In Brazil this destruction of archives meant a loss of historical knowledge about the origin and life of the enslaved Africans and their religious traditions that could have been important for their identity in future decades. The question of historical gaps is much too complex to state a comparison in general. Nonetheless it will help to understand, what is happening in remembering the exemplified Preta Velha by singing and dancing her specific rhythm. Hence knowledge in this Afro-Brazilian religion is passed on through perception along with oral history because of the lack of other sources. Perhaps it is no coincidence that the transmission of knowledge takes place through spiritual entities that have been reduced to the essence of slaves who, as a possible expression of their own self-confidence, do not speak their own language of Yorùbá, Kimbundu or another African language in the rituals of Umbanda, but rather the European languages of their colonizers like Portuguese or German? They may have been forced to adapt to speak foreign languages instead of their own by their status of dependency, or it may not matter to them, because they convey their knowledge not through the spoken language, but through the body language of dance and trance (cf. Scharf da Silva: 2021). What lies beyond the gaps of archives – its cuts from history through violence, destruction and loss of memory in colonial times – is the transmission of an emotional knowledge through the body and manifested by dance and trance as an access to the divine in Afro-American religions. Especially in the diaspora in German-speaking Europe, this access to a body knowledge is being explored beyond the usual archives such as documentary material, museums or libraries. Also in this countries there is a loss of spiritual everyday practice due to the break in civilization of the Nazis (cf. Diner: 1988) as perpetrators of history. In order to enable a humanistic and at the

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same time spiritual concern in Germany, a new way is sought, which is pursued through the basic human experience of dance. In analyzing the spirits of Umbanda in this manner, I do not want to reduce the Umbanda in central Europe to coping merely with collective trauma, but also to accentuate its liveliness and its affirmation of life. I believe that this kind of mental processing of collective concerns can follow Rosi Braidotti’s ‘Politics of Affirmation’, in which she intensively addresses the question of suffering in her ethics of positivity. She emphasizes that it “is not about avoiding pain, but rather about another way to process it, towards sustainability as affirmation” to respect an “affirmed otherness” to redefine the ethically good (cf. Braidotti: 2018 [2006], 11ff; Scharf da Silva: 2021). I am concerned with the absence of the spiritual presence and the knowledge of colonized and murdered people, which has been preserved for generations as if in an archive. It has been passed down in the collective memory and bodies, the physical absence of which has left a collective wound in the societies in Brazil and also resonates in the Umbanda in German-speaking Europe. The murdered people should be remembered. Judith Lewis Herman recalls the popular meaning by emphasizing that the intangible world of the spirits of people, who have been murdered, does not give peace to the generations to come, until their story has been told and understood (cf. Lewis Herman: 2014, 9). I called that a “Trauma als Wissensarchiv” (Trauma as a knowledge archive, cf. Scharf da Silva: 2021).

6.

Postcolonial Memory Praxis through Dance and Body Knowledge

From a general Brazilian point of view, the Germans, Austrians and Swiss cannot dance. My Brazilian colleague Marcello Múscari (who is also a cultural anthropologist and has been researching the German Umbandas for years), says that they have neither rhythm nor flexibility and are limited in their corporal expression. Only people who would dance and sing are accepted in this spiritual community. However, it does not matter so much, how they actually dance, but that they dance at all. It is a rather slow, intuitive and personal way of approach beyond any dance traditions or lections that distinguishes their dance.10 The Umbanda has only existed in German-speaking Europe for a short time and has not existed as a practiced religion of a community or group of people in

10 In this contribution, I am not referring to professional dance workshops such as in the Candomblé of the Ilê Axé Obá Silekê of the spiritual leader Murasimbile in Berlin. These are held as an extra offer outside the religious ceremonies in the same house and by the spiritual leader himself, who is also a dancer (cf. Graeff: 2019). I refer on sacral dances of the religious actors.

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Berlin before 2009.11 This made it necessary to work energetically with the earth and dance the ground in a sacral manner. The Brazilian Umbandists bring their religion with them and support this development of a new energetic space, but the German religious actors need a protected and slow kind of spiritual development. The spiritual leader Habiba de Oxum Abalô emphasizes the need for a careful and slow spiritual learning in secular environments, because “the rational, the logical has prevailed here in a special way and has led to a powerful hubris that also triggers a lot of fear”12 (Kreszmeier, spiritual leader of the Ilê Axé Oxum Abalô, in an interview with Scharf da Silva, Skype Stein/Appenzell – Berlin, 2014–11–05, cited in Scharf da Silva: 2021). She explains the existential basis of the body in the Umbanda practice: Die Vorbereitung für den Kontakt mit der geistigen Weltdimension geht in der Umbanda über den Körper. Das, was in anderen Traditionen über Meditation oder Gebet bewirkt werden will, läuft hier über die Wahrnehmung des Körpers. Seine Präsenz, seine Bewegung, sein Tanz wird – wenn er gelernt hat, sich auf sein Wesentliches zu zentrieren, sich leer zu machen und zu öffnen – zum Gefäß, zum Werkzeug und zum Landeplatz für geistige oder gar göttliche Kräfte. Er gibt sich hin, setzt sich aus, nimmt in sich auf, lässt sich nehmen von der Welt jenseits der Grenze, wird ihr Sprachrohr, ihr Ausdruck. Dem Körper wird – anders formuliert – alles zugemutet, weil er auch als „alles“ angesehen wird, als unmittelbarer und ganzer Ausdruck allen Lebens.

In the Umbanda the preparation for a contact with the spiritual world dimension goes through the body. What other traditions want to induce through meditation or prayer is here through the perception of the body. Its presence, its movement, its dance – when he has learned to focus on his essentials, to empty himself and to open up – becomes a vessel, a tool and a landing site for spiritual or even divine powers. The body surrenders, exposes himself, absorbs himself, lets himself be taken away from the world beyond the border, becomes her mouthpiece, her expression. In other words, everything is expected of the body because it is also seen as “everything”, as an immediate and complete expression of all life.   (Astrid Kreszmeier: 2004, 132)

11 The oldest Umbanda house in Berlin, which existed between 1999–2009 (and is no longer active), is the Casa de Oxum in Berlin-Neukölln, owned by the Brazilian spiritual leader Dalva Rzepka. In contrast to the existing religious houses, it didn’t consist of a community, but of one person (cf. Spliesgart: 2011 [1997], Bahia: 2015). 12 In the original: „Das Rationale, das Logische hat sich hier in besonderer Weise durchgesetzt und zu einer mächtigen Hybris geführt, die auch viel Angst auslöst.“

Beyond the Gaps of Archives

This learning process within the community of Terra Sagrada also requires stays and rituals in the mother-house of the Ilê Axé Oxum Abalô in the foothills of the Alps in Eastern Switzerland that last for days and are still and wordless – except the drums – in order to be able to concentrate on the movements of the body and to create knowledge from experience (cf. Scharf da Silva: 2021). Many of the new Umbandists religious actors in Germany are the children of the generation of contra-culture of the 1968 generation, who had liberated themselves from a traumatic past and no longer felt in need of a religion. The generation of the “Kriegsenkel” (the so-called “grandchildren of the war”) in Germany however feel a spiritual and emotional gap and emptiness (cf. Bode: 2014; Meyer-Legrand: 2016). For them it is no longer possible to continue with old traditions in Germanspeaking Europe because of the historical break in civilization of the Nazi regime without recalling the emotionally repressed political contexts. The only interior way to get back into communication with a spiritual world for the religious actors of my case study in Berlin is through another cultural path – for example that of the Afro-Brazilian religions like the Umbanda. So they can withstand their feelings of ambiguity, avoid conflict and remain in solidarity with their parents in being humanistic and anti-fascist, while also seeking a spiritual connection. Umbanda offers them an anti-racist and postcolonial spiritual system, in the sense that it is not burdened with the old power constellations of nation and religion, but rather manifests ‘from below’. Defining their turn to a religious life as a ‘Lernweg’, a ‘path of learning’ – that is in constant motion without any hierarchical or demagogic definitions – evades their fear being dominated and seduced by power structures and feel as political passive followers, as ‘Mitläufer*innen’, while also generating a (previously taboo) sense of belonging to a group. Thus, they have undergone a process of an inner globalization, whereby historical and current narratives do not come only from their own cultural group, but are also shaped by knowledge acquired from Brazilian culture. Dance serves here as a way to feel on the move, and discover, from petrified and traumatized attributions, a sense of positive agency (cf. Scharf da Silva: 2021). Although the situation in Switzerland and Austria is not the same, many of them are just as critical as their German companions. Nelly Granado, a religious actor of one of the Swiss groups of the Umbanda community Ilê Axé Oxum Abalô underlines this searching for a new ideal home:

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Und ich hatte keine Ahnung, dass es so einen großen Wissensschatz gibt. Dass es Traditionen gibt, die schon so subtil wahrgenommen hatten und so viele Informationen hatten auch über die Natur der Menschen. Das war faszinierend, das war Heimat für mich. Der Tanz, die Gira, diese Form von Wahrnehmungen […]. Da […] war so viel Verstehen mit dem Körper, auch wenn man im Kopf lange nicht nachkam und auch heute nicht mit allem nachkommt.

And I had no idea that there was such a treasure of knowledge. That there are traditions that had been perceived so subtly and had so much information about the nature of the human being. It was fascinating, it was home to me. The dance, the gira, this form of perception […]. There […] was so much understanding with the body, even if you couldn’t keep up with your head for a long time and you still can’t follow until today. (Nelly Granado, medium of the Gira Herisau of the Ilê Axé Oxum Abalô in an interview with Inga Scharf da Silva, Stein/Appenzell, 2014–08–15)

On the way of learning, how to dance in a new way by embracing religions from non-Western origin, like the Umbanda, can serve as a contribution to the decolonization of knowledge. The Umbandistic embodied mind of a more than human consciousness or (to refer to an emic category) an ‘incorporation’ of knowledge, can possibly correspond to Rosi Braidotti’s Ontological Pacifism. She describes a shared experience of living people with their bodies and senses (cf. Braidotti: 2018, 11). „Ich möchte die Aktivität des Denkens an die Mobilität und die Fluktuation eines verkörperten Geistes rückbinden, der ununterbrochen Verknüpfungen herstellt, sich verändert und dennoch stabil bleibt, der eine Zugehörigkeit hat und gleichzeitig fließend ist.“ [“I would like to tie the activity of thinking back to the mobility and fluctuation of an embodied mind that continuously establishes connections, changes and yet remains stable, that has an affiliation and is fluid at the same time.”] (ibid.) Hence the emic word ‘incorporation’ of embodying spirits in personal Umbanda mediums seems to fit to a possible Umbanda theology. This has not been written down since the Umbanda is an oral tradition that aims to include as well as recreate culture, as the Manifesto Antropófago of Oswald de Andrade proclaims. This manifesto from 1928 defined the modernism in Brazil just in the moment the Umbanda was ‘born’ as a provocation against the European modernism. It saw no contradiction to religions, but merely a repetition and recurrence of religions in the plural sense (cf. de Andrade: 1996 [1928]; Scharf da Silva: 2021).

Beyond the Gaps of Archives

Bibliography Amaral, R. (2002), Xirê! O Modo de Crer e de Viver no Candomblé, Rio de Janeiro, Pallas. Arakaki, U. (2013), ‘Japanese-Brazilians Among Pretos Velhos, Caboclos, Buddhist Monks, and Samurais: An Ethnographic Study of Umbanda in Japan’, in C. Rocha/M. Vásquez (org.), The Diaspora of Brazilian Religions, Leiden, 249–270. Bahia, J. (2015), E o Preto Velho fala Alemão: Espíritos Transnationais e o Campo Religioso na Alemanha, Warschau: Revista del CESLA, 18, 181–212. Bastide, R. (1971 [1960]), ‘Nascimento de uma Religião’ em As Religiões Africanas no Brasil, Contribuição a uma Sociologia das Interpretações de Civilização, São Paulo, 419–471. Bastide, R. (1973), ‘Macumba Paulista’, em Estudos Afro-Brasileiros, São Paulo, 193–247. Bode, S. (2014), Kriegsenkel. Die Erben der vergessenen Generation, Stuttgart. Braidotti, R. (2018 [2006/2008]), Politik der Affirmation, Berlin. Cossard, G.O. (2008 [2006]), Awô. O mistério dos Orixás, Rio de Janeiro. Csordas, T. (ed.) (2009), Transnational Transcendence. Essays on Religion and Globalization, Berkeley. De Andrade, O. (1996[1928]), Manifesto da poesia pau-Brasil/Manifesto Antropófago/O rei da vela, Rio de Janeiro. Diederichsen, D./Franke, A. (ed.) (2019), Liebe und Ethnologie. Die koloniale Dialektik der Empfindlichkeit (nach Hubert Fichte), Berlin. Diner, D. (1988), Zivilisationsbruch. Denken nach Ausschwitz, Frankfurt a.M. Dunham, K. (1983 [1974]), The Dances of Haiti, Los Angeles. Eggers, M./Kilomba, G./Piesche, P./Arndt, S. (Hg.) (2005): Mythen, Masken und Subjekte. Kritische Weißseinsforschung in Deutschland, Münster. Eliade, M. (2012 [1951]), Schamanismus und archaische Ekstasetechnik, Frankfurt a.M. Espírito Santo, D./Blanes, R. (2014), ‘Introduction. On the Agency of Intangibles’, in R. Blanes/D. Espírito Santo (ed.): The Social Life of Spirits. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1–32. Fanon, F. (1981 [1961]), Die Verdammten dieser Erde, Frankfurt a.M. Foucault, M. (2015 [1969]), Archäologie des Wissens, Frankfurt a.M. Frigerio, A. (2013), ‘Umbanda and Batuque in the Southern Cone: Transnationalization as Cross-Border Religious Flow and as Social Field’, in C. Rocha/M. Vásquez (org.), The Diaspora of Brazilian Religions, Leiden, 165–195. Gonçalves da Silva, V. (2016), “Crossroads: Conflicts between Neo-Pentecostalism and Afro-Brazilian Religions”, in B. Schmidt/S. Engler, Handbook of Contemporary Religions in Brazil. Leiden: 490f. Goodman, F. (1994 [1988]), Die andere Wirklichkeit. Über das Religiöse in den Kulturen der Welt, München. Graeff, N. (2017), Oxum’s Mirror. Candomblé Embodying Transculturally, Berlin. Hartmann, S. (2008), ‘Venus in Two Acts’, in Small Axe, A Carribean Journal of Criticism, 12 (2), 1–14.

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Hegner, V. (2013), Vom Feld verführt. Methodische Gratwanderung in der Ethnographie. Forum Qualitative Sozialforschung, (14) 3, no page no. Hill, M./Yildiz, E. (2018), Postmigrantische Visionen. Erfahrungen – Ideen – Reflexionen, Bielefeld. Knopf, E./Lembcke, S./Recklies, M. (Hg.) (2018), Archive dekolonialisieren. Mediale und epistemische Transformationen in Kunst, Design und Film, Bielefeld. Kreszmeier, A.H. (2004), ‘Vom Segen des Körpers. Intuition, Invokation und Inkorporation in spirituellen Traditionen Brasiliens und Querverweise zur Magie von Aufstellungen’, in: G.L. Baxa/C. Essen/A.H. Kreszmeier (Hg.), Verkörperungen. Systemische Aufstellung, Körperarbeit und Ritual, Heidelberg. Kubes, T. (2016), ‘Die Methode der Living Fieldwork – Autoethnographische multisensorische Erfahrung als Basis des Verstehens’, in: R. Hitzler/S. Kreher/A. Poferl/N. Schröer (Hg.), Old School – New School? Zur Optimierung ethnographischer Datengenerierung, Essen, 285–296. Kubes, T. (2014), ‘Living Fieldwork – Feeling hostess. Leibliche Erfahrungen als Erkenntnisinstrument’, in: L.M. Arantes/E. Rieger (Hg.), Ethnographien der Sinne. Wahrnehmung und Methode in empirisch-kulturwissenschaftlichen Forschungen. Bielefeld, 111–126. Kummels, I. (2011), Globale Heilige. Transnationalisierungen des Religiösen in Lateinamerika, in: A. Paul/A. Pelfini/B. Rehbein (Hg.), Globalisierung Süd. Die blinden Flecke des Globalisierungsdiskurses, Heidelberg, 360–381. Lewis Herman, J. (2014 [1992]), Die Narben der Gewalt. Traumatische Erfahrungen verstehen und überwinden, Paderborn. Lopes, N. (2006), Dicionário Escolar Afro-brasileiro, São Paulo. Marcus, G. (1995), Ethnography in/of the World System: The Emergence of Multi-Sited Ethnography, in Annual Review of Anthropology (24), Palo Alto, 95–117. Meyer-Legrand, I. (2016), Die Kraft der Kriegsenkel. Wie Kriegsenkel heute ihr biographisches Erbe erkennen und nutzen, Berlin. Mignolo, W. (2011), The Darker Side of Western Modernity. Global Futures, Decolonial Options, London. Rocha, C./Vásquez, M. (org.), The Diaspora of Brazilian Religions, Leiden. Rouget, G. (1985 [1980]), Music and Trance. A Theory of the Relations between Music and Possession, London. Scharf da Silva, I. (2021), Trauma als Wissensarchiv. Postkoloniale Erinnerungspraxis in der Sakralen Globalisierung am Beispiel der zeitgenössischen Umbanda im deutschsprachigen Europa, Marburg: Büchner (forthcoming). Spliesgart, R. (2011[1997]), ‘IX–26 Brasilianische Religionen in Deutschland’, in: M. Klöcker/U. Tworuschka (Hg.), Handbuch der Religionen. Kirchen und andere Glaubensgemeinschaften in Deutschland/im deutschsprachigen Raum, München. Verger, P.F. (1987[1968]), Fluxo e Refluxo. Do Tráfico de Escravos entre o Golfo de Benin e a Bahia de todos os Santos dos Séculos XVII a XIX, São Paulo. Vilas Boas Concone, M.H. (1987), Umbanda. Uma Religião Brasileira, São Paulo.

Beyond the Gaps of Archives

Wagenseil, C. (2018), Orixás in den Alpen. Interview mit Inga Scharf da Silva [online], https://www.remid.de/blog/2018/02/orixs-in-den-alpen-eine-teilnehmendebeobachtung-innerhalb-von-umbanda-gruppen-in-brasilien-und-europa. Marburg: Religionswissenschaftlicher Medien- und Informationsdienst [2018–06–05].

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Part IV Dance in Christian Theologies

Ángel F. Méndez Montoya

Flesh, Body, and Embodiment: Surplus of Corporeal Becoming Theology and Dancing Bodies To dance is to assert the body – even when dancing is a protest against that which subordinates, denies, and erases the body, or treats it like a commodity. Dance is a creative affirmative force that expresses itself, even in its evanescent ephemeral ‘present’ that cannot be totally grasped. To dance is to venture into expressing an ephemeral corporeal excess that goes beyond all objectification, containment, and determinism. Through the dancing body, theological imagination rises above rigid categories and resists paralyzing concepts. Such is the irreducible aspect of the logos of Christian theology: divine excess impossible to be completely contained, a gift to be shared. God exceeds the body, any body, every body, yet paradoxically participates in incarnation, in and of everybody’s human corporeality, becoming part of the flesh of the world. To create and practice theology is to affirm the body. As in dancing bodies, theology finds itself in perpetual movement between self and otherhood, yet without leaving the body or materiality behind, but rather envisioning a corporeal poetics (an expression exceeding rational discourse) of the self, a never fully grasped sense of flesh, affirming embodiment in the flesh. Both dancing bodies and theological bodies are embedded in a flux of corporeal entanglements between self and the other; time and space; flesh, body, and spirit; affect and intellect; immanence and transcendence; and so forth. This complex intertwining emerges as corporeal excess that creates such fissures in our selfidentity that it intimates profoundly dynamic and relational patterns of being. Dance, indeed, reveals such density, inscribed in the plural corporeal impulse of relational being. Herein, in this corporeal pulsing assertion in excess of itself, not only theology and dance resonate with each other, but a theology of dance can also be poetically envisioned. Furthermore – without nullifying their differences and specificities – theology can be seen as dance and dance as theology.

1.

Flesh, Body, and Corporeality: Embodying Excess-Filled Presence

The statement ‘The Word became flesh’ (John 1:14) is at the core of Christian theology, but it can also be a metaphor, evoking the poetics of dancing bodies. The Word is God’s self-expression and creativity, a dynamic movement of divinity embody-

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ing materiality as its most essential, sensory, and vulnerable living aspect. God’s Word becomes flesh, so that flesh may become divine Word. Dance is movement becoming flesh and flesh becoming movement: a most elementary life impulse that integrates the whole intellectual, emotional, bodily, material, and even ‘spiritual’ experience of the performing dancer. Dancing flesh is kinetic, transformative, the intense experience of bodily becoming, a transformative flesh in flux. Dancing bodies perform moments of stillness and suspended movement, yet there is never total stasis. Dancing evokes the spatial and temporal excitement of the in-betweenness of motion and stillness in moving flesh, the dancer’s flesh. When it is most effective, dance has the power to viscerally move the spectators’ very flesh to the point of somehow integrating them into the dance. Theology may be evoked by such collective envisioning of co-participatory dancing flesh. Indeed, God is com/passionately moved by incarnation as an event, desiring to be embraced by carnal and corporeal dance, simultaneously embracing and integrating us into a divine dance. In the Gospel narratives, flesh is transformative, trans-corporeal, always transforming and moving beyond self-reference: Christ’s flesh becomes bread and nourishment, dies, transforming death into life eternal. His flesh becomes one yet diverse body, becoming ‘present’ in the midst of a communal sharing of the gift of eternal love. Moreover, the Word becomes flesh, the flesh of the entire world and cosmos, without annulling divine nature, or transcending humanity. Incarnation narrates a corporeal becoming that hybridizes divine and human flesh, transcendence and immanence, matter and spirit. In the flesh, the line of demarcation between matter and spirit becomes very porous – both in dance and theology. Sadly, the metaphor of dancing flesh in many different Christian theological traditions is not much appreciated, but has too often been condemned. There is a tradition that depicts the flesh as intrinsically sinful, lustful, a place of fragility, decay, and death. For instance, Camille Lepeigneux, in this anthology, explains that a negative view of dance started since early as the 2nd century AD, with some Christian authors in Late Antiquity, such as Tertullian, Origen of Alexandria, John Chrysostom, Anthanasius of Alexandria, and Ambrose of Milan, among others. Flesh has been feminized, considered a subordinate category to be disciplined and exploited. So as well the dancing flesh is also considered to be ‘feminine’, an object under men’s gaze and control. Western Christian hetero-patriarchal society, culture, and epistemology most often convey suspicion towards the flesh and bodily experience, which has been translated into a negative depiction of dancing bodies (cf. Foster: 1998). Despite the fact that Western and intercultural Christian liturgies as well as rituals have included dancing bodies as part of their worship, most often dance has been unwelcome, or has remained invisible, erased, or just censored. I concur with the postcolonial Latina feminist theologian, Mayra Rivera Rivera, that flesh is an ambivalent term that needs to be deconstructed in order to critique the

Flesh, Body, and Embodiment: Surplus of Corporeal Becoming

hegemonic control by supremacist hetero-patriarchal determinations, and recapture the poetics of creativity and positive affirmations, affectivity, resistance, and resilience of flesh (cf. Rivera: 2015). Contemporary critical dance studies and theory affirm the body – both rendering the poetics of bodily becoming as well as discerning its ephemeral impermanence (cf. LaMothe: 2004). Knowledge, culture, and power are affirmative inscriptions embedded in dancing bodies, which dance theorists take seriously in their research and writing. But also other disciplines, particularly within the field of the humanities (including theological studies) are paying more attention to dance theory in order to learn more about corporeal discourses, symbols, and systems of signification in society, culture, politics, religion, and many other aspects of implicit or explicit bodily life (cf. Brandstetter/Klein: 2013; Foster: 1996; Lepecki: 2004; Thomas: 2003). This can provide a great momentum for provoking theological imagination, in order to revisit the long tradition that considers flesh, body, and corporeality to be intrinsic to Christian discernment and practice. This momentum additionally takes an affirmative stance on behalf of the poetic and creative dancing entanglement between divinity and humanity, immanence and transcendence. A movement beyond dichotomies and univocal supremacist categories. We are bodies and as such the body is not external to ourselves. The body is flesh made tangible and visible as an entity, becoming a principle of individuality and self-hood, while integrating the body of the other. The body is relational, inter- and trans-corporeal. Bodies inhabit otherness, are formed by indwelling in the world, transformed by it, yet also capable of transforming the world. As with the flesh, the body shows the marks of the other: bodies are gendered, sexualized, racialized as well as tabooed by social, cultural, religious, economic, and political inscriptions. Dance is nothing other than a human body, inscribing a performance of sensory and kinetic intention, either as choreographed bodily movements, or as spontaneous improvisational corporeal experimentation – or both. At the same time, the dancer performs the body of the other, resonating with the kinetic expression of the bodily inscription of myriad thoughts, beliefs, feelings, emotions, imagination. This could be secret and invisible, or bodily becoming that represents and symbolizes the concrete situatedness of a particular idea, context, milieu, or daily life. A dancer’s body is the performer, but it is also the other’s performing body, a trans-corporeal and kinesthetic resonance of being in the world. Theology should take seriously and learn from dance studies that insist on the urgency of affirming the individual, social, and planetary body, as one diversified corpus. From a theological horizon, one complex and dynamic corpus dancing within a divine embrace can be envisioned. Phenomenologists – particularly in the mid-twentieth century, following Gabriel Marcel, Jean-Paul Sartre, and Maurice Merleau-Ponty – have declared that rather than having a body, more correctly, we are a body (cf. Sartre: 1956; MerleauPonty: 1962; Sheets-Johnstone: 2015; Sheets-Johnson: 2021, 39–57). Even the most

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intellectual and abstract process of cognition takes place in our body. Therefore, all knowledge is ultimately embodied. Our body is a constitutional aspect of our being: we are in the world as embodied beings. The world shapes our body as we also bodily shape the world. However, what does it exactly mean to be a body? Are we all ontologically similar because of this embodied reality? After the elucidation of phenomenology, sociologists started to take the body more seriously, suggesting that the body is not a mere pre-social or biological entity, but rather is constructed, shaped, and even ‘invented’ by society. The body is ‘socialized’ by a series of social constructs such as gender, race, class, age etc. We behave bodily according to these social constructs that are relative to specific localities, and thus, the body’s universal or essential character is eclipsed. In a way, sociology challenges the pre-modern common assumption that the body is a simple natural factor of life. According to sociological research, the nature/ culture divide has become more radicalized, and cultural determinism, as well as social relativism have taken over. As a social construct, the body can also be seen as a symbol of society: a social microcosm. After sociology, anthropologists and cultural theorists started researching the body from the point of view of symbol construction, which ultimately mirrors society’s beliefs. Particular communities and social groups construct symbols and concepts that directly and explicitly have to do with the body: body symbols such as male/female, sacred/profane, nature/ culture, normal/disabled, and so on (cf. Brown: 1998). Looking at the body as a symbol has advantages, but it may also imply some disadvantages. One advantage is to understand the body as a complex reality that lacks essentialist determinisms. Rather than making universal assumptions that tend to homogenize the body’s heterogeneity, it results from conceptions and constructs pertaining to particular societies and local communities. The disadvantage of this view, however, is that it considers the body as a mere ‘blank slate’ upon which social symbols and constructs are imprinted without considering (for instance, the body’s (pre)linguistic and genetic configuration, which is also an important factor of embodiment and cannot be so easily ignored). It serves to speak of different ‘models’ of the body for better typologizing the complexity of speaking about the body. This idea of different body models is taken from Helen Thomas’ book, entitled ‘The Body, Dance and Cultural Theory’ (cf. Thomas: 2003). She follows several theorists and talks about ‘six body models’: individual, social, political, cosmic, consumerist, and medical bodies. She briefly explains these models as follows: The individual body refers to the lived subjective experience of the body, while the social body, […] refers to the ways in which the body is used in systems of representation as symbol of nature, culture and society. The body politic, echoing Foucault, refers to

Flesh, Body, and Embodiment: Surplus of Corporeal Becoming

the regulation and control of bodies […]. The world’s body […] relates to the human proclivity to anthropomorphise the cosmos, which means to give it a human shape […]. The consumerist body refers to the creation and commodification of new bodily needs generated by a consumer-oriented culture in which the use of goods stand as markers of self-identity. The notion of medical bodies refers to the medicalisation of the body whereby, with the development of new technologies, more and more aspects of the body come under the scrutiny of the medical gaze (Thomas: 2003, 23).

What is most amazing about dancing bodies is that they resonate with this myriad of experiences as embodied beings, creating and recreating new networks of corporeal typologies, bodily being in and belonging to the world. At times we are confronted with critical mirrors reflecting bodily symbols of societal and cultural roles, while at other times we may simply delight in the poetics of the body performing and communicating a corporeal language of choreographic and kinesthetic creativity. Even with these representational and non-representational choreographic and kinesthetic creations, the dancer’s body is always an excess than cannot be totally fixed as an object fully ruled by mere thinking. Like many contemporary thinkers, theologians understand the body not as static and total, but as being engaged in ongoing re-shaping. Always exceeding univocal articulations and scientific reductions, always a surplus of homogenizing concepts. Like the ‘flesh’, bodily motions are also full of contradictions and ambiguities: The ‘body’ is sexually affirmed, but puritanically punished in matters of diet or exercise; continuously stuffed with consumerist goods, but guiltily denied particular foods in aid of the ‘salvation’ of a longer life; taught that there is nothing but it (the ‘body’), and yet asked to discipline itself from some other site of control; flaunted everywhere, yet continuously disappearing on the cybernet (Coakley: 1997, 7).

Such contradictions, ambiguity, and malleability express the poetical (aesthetic evocation) and poietical (crafting or making) aspect of the body, which becomes more evocative with dancing bodies. Like dance, Christian theology expresses the complexities, contradictions, and paradoxes of bodily becoming. From birth to death, from earthly life to eschatological consummation, theology envisions the body as never being in a total state of stasis, for it is moved by ek-stasis – which is to say, going beyond itself, yet in and from the horizon of corporal experience. For both dance and theology, corporeality is, then, not a natural or absolute fact, but a somatically crafted physical, emotional, rational, cultural, social, political, ecological, and spiritual experience. The world inscribes its multiple signs of corporeal experience in the body, just as the body is capable of inscribing corporeal intimations in the world.

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As the dancing body moves in and beyond corporeality, shaping and being shaped by time and space and by other bodies, so Christian thinking and practice shed light on this poetic and poietic bodily becoming. Christ’s flesh and body take a stand on our own human body and flesh. He is born, grows up, experiences hunger and thirst, loves and cries, becomes tired, suffers, and dies […] within the reality of his human body. God is not indifferent, but shares divinity within our own corporeal narratives. From within, God walks our historical pathos with us and further transforms it into a present and future story of resurrection and deification. This identity with humanity is radicalized in Christ’s identity with the excluded one (cf. Matt 25). Rather than presenting himself as the ‘perfect’ human, he takes the form of a body in the diaspora. He identifies with the other that – far from experiencing rejection – is desired and loved by God. The other is not an abstraction, but a concrete body that is excluded, ‘othered’ by exclusionary social circles. Christ reverts this violent social cycle and reveals a paradox, wherein self and other are mutually constituted by virtue of divine kenosis, God’s self-sharing. Christ’s reversal announces and brings peace and reconciliation in a world of violence, exclusion, and destruction. For Christian thinking, this reality reaches its climax and is enacted in the Eucharist: the body of Christ that, in its act of nourishing, transforms us into Christ’s body. At the Eucharist, the body of Christ becomes a corpus Christi, reaching beyond the Eucharistic body (the unity of humanity and God) that speaks of a unified body as a sign of sharing differences. Hereby, difference is not eliminated but celebrated as one corpus: people of all races, class, gender, sexual orientation, the healthy, the disabled etc. – all are united by the one and excessive same divine, perpetual love that nourishes body and soul.1 Under this Eucharistic construct, the ‘alien other’ is no longer rejected but included. The Eucharist evokes a metaphor of trans-corporeal dance of commensality and divine sharing at the heart of the world’s flesh. Christian theology regarding the Eucharistic body envisages a corporeal chiasmus: as the body of each eating companion at the Eucharistic table constitutes one body in Christ, so the Eucharist generates the same corporeal communion. The body constitutes the Eucharist and the Eucharist constitutes the body. Therein an analogy can be made with the chiasm of dancing bodies: as time, space, and situatedness generate particular bodies dancing in a concrete performance, so the bodies of the dancers generate time and space. Dance is a world-making activity,

1 Because of the limited length of this paper, it will not be possible to discuss the relationship between soul and body. In the Catholic tradition, this non-dualistic relationship is of extreme importance and actually serves towards re-intensifying and celebrating body and matter – thus becoming a solid foundation for sacramental theology. For an interesting analysis of this non-dualistic understanding of soul-body relationship and an integration of a theological aesthetics, cf. Milbank (2003), 1–34 and cf. Méndez Montoya (2012).

Flesh, Body, and Embodiment: Surplus of Corporeal Becoming

both poetics and poiesis, insofar as the dancing body – as with the Eucharistic body – partakes both of the performing body aesthetics and the creative and critical making of other possible worlds. Such complexities are just some theopoetics and theopoiesis that discern what or who the body is from the perspective of Christian theology, which resonates with the many perplexities provoked by dancing bodies. Theology takes the body at its extreme experiential dimension, highlighting the body’s perplexing reality as the locus of the primal, indeed hybrid, encounter with God. As the dancing bodies mediate and express the interstices between self and other, immanence and transcendence, so theology recaptures a discernment of the in-betweenness of divine-human relationality, echoing a metaphor regarding the personal, social, and cosmic dancing corpus. Furthermore, such implicit corporeality, both in dance and theology, embodies the experience of excessive presence. This is more evident, when dancing bodies are discerned, but also when inquiring into the practice of writing about theology and dance. The paradox of writing about theology, but also about dance and performance considers that, which exceeds representation and cannot be made fully presence. Theology may be envisioned as an ineffable dance, for God cannot be tamed into a written form and absolute theoretical elucidation. One needs to make a Kierkergaardian leap of faith, transcending mere rationality in order to be moved by that, which resists and transgresses totalizing and therefore paralyzing theories (cf. LaMothe: 2004, 85–102). This continuous openness, necessary to theological experience and writing, is analogous to writing about dancing bodies, which continuously plunge into the past, into evanescence, since the moving body cannot be stilled in ‘presence’. We only find fleeting ‘traces’ of choreographic, photographic, and cinematic notations, or any written texts on dance. The philosophical deconstructive provocations by Jacques Derrida greatly influenced dance theory and a theology, proposing a critical stance counter to a metaphysics of presence, understood as preexisting essential interiority under the gaze of a supremacist subject. Instead, following Derrida, both dance and theology may further explore the paradox of the presence of (dancing) bodies and a theological corpus, which, despite being indeterminate and in perpetual flux, do not vanish into pure ontic negativity, vacuity and absence, but perpetually emerge as poetic affirmation and resistance. This intimate relationship between theology and dance does not seek to undermine their differences and autonomy. Theology is not dance per se, just as dance is not intrinsically theology. Moreover, difference and autonomy in both, dance and theology, enable a relational dialogue, mutual learning and transformation. This distance makes relationality possible. Dance, particularly given its corporeal expression and communication, offers infinite possibilities for theology to recover the body’s relevance and great epistemic impact, its complexities, and its mysteri-

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ous incarnational poetry. Likewise, theology may also contribute to dance studies, opening up the imagination to the alterity, transcendence, and ek-stasis of corporeal performance, which resonate with incarnational imagination, experience, and practice. These theological articulations of the body’s otherness do not overcome or transcend the material immanence of flesh and body. On the contrary – as mystics and dancers know – both dance and the theological experience of ecstasy, for instance, are paradoxically corporeal, profoundly incarnational. Flesh and body become corporeal and material discourses both in dance and theology, given that corporeality regards the embodiment of being in the world as a bodily becoming within time and space, and amidst a complex network of multiple significations, myriad symbolic corporeal excesses unfold. Both in theology and in dancing bodies, there is a desire for ‘acuerpamiento’, the mutual and collective embodiment of bodily becoming one communal body of solidarity and resilience.2 Therein, in such symbolic corporeal excesses, a theology of the body and dance can be intimated. Such choreographic corporeal excesses are the prima materia for imagining the body and the dance of theology.

2.

Enduring Resistance, Inscribing Resilience: Queer Theopoetic Embodiment Choreographies

The rhythm is infectious, the crowd of women exuberant as they pump their fists and move their feet. Their voices rise as they chant the chorus line, translated from the original song in Spanish3 : “It wasn’t my fault; not where I was, not how I dressed” (Hinsliff: 2020). How many women would guess, from those words alone, that this is about rape? Moreover, it is that visceral, shared understanding that has helped a song and dance, devised by a little-known Chilean feminist collective called Las Tesis, spread across the globe. Since November 2019, Un Violador en Tu Camino (A Rapist in Your Path) has been sung everywhere from France and Mexico to Kenya and India, as a protest against the systemic use of sexual violence to repress women. Most recently, it was performed outside the New York courtroom, where Harvey Weinstein was on trial for rape (ibid.).

2 Acuerpar/Acuerpamiento is a category used by comunitarian feminists in Latin America, particularly Lorena Cabnal, an indigenous Guatemalean thinker and activist, refering to the personal and collective (political) action of bodies that express resistance and indignation because of all the violence and injustice that women and other marginal people suffer on the daily basis, while offering solidarity and healing to diasporic bodies. Cf. https://www.eldiario.es/desigualdadblog/acuerpamiento-orgullo_ 132_3304181.html [18/1/2021]. 3 Translation by the author in the following.

Flesh, Body, and Embodiment: Surplus of Corporeal Becoming

Gaby Hinsliff wrote a report in ‘The Guardian’ about the public performance of ‘A Rapist in Your Path’, thousands of women around the world resorting to their body to perform resistance and resilience. Despite and amidst women’s subordination, rape, and sexual abuse under the violent fist of colonial and patriarchal systems, these singing and dancing bodies viscerally affirm corporeal life. Women – particularly from the Global South – of different ages, races, sexual preferences, social classes, disabilities, some of them victims of rape as well as physical, sexual, and emotional violence, came together to make a powerful performative statement. This performance affirms the body by resisting sexual and other forms of violence in the flesh of dancing and chanting bodies, but also by a collective incarnation of resilience. With the acuerpamiento of women around the globe, they are publicly reclaiming justice and agency with their own flesh and body. This affirmation of the body is political. Women assembled publicly to perform a corporeal protest against the body-politics of systemic heteropatriarchal mechanisms of bodily control, subordination, and precarization. At the same time, this performance resignified, twisted, and ‘queered’ the body by suddenly intervening in a public square in order to manifest the political potential of bodies in alliance.4 Las Tesis, the Chilean feminist collective that created this corporeal intervention of public space, displays a body politic that reclaims the transformation of diasporic bodies demanding a more livable life – particularly for women everywhere. What can theology learn from the dancing body that endures resistance and inscribes resilience with corporeal power and desire for transformation? Current dance theory is inspired by women’s, feminists, and queer studies, in which the body is understood as performative, material, and corporeal reiterations and practices shaped by social discourses that reflect society’s assumptions about nature, biology, gender, and sexuality, among other concepts.5 The body can be read as a text, often dominated by power and hierarchical relationships, in which the female body and other bodies in the diaspora (LGBTTTIQ [lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, transsexual, travesti, intersex, and queer], migrant, indigenous, and disabled people, etc.) are often constructed as a subordinate objectified subject, measured and ruled by hetero-patriarchal systems. Discursive practices, regarding biological difference and the notion of the biological body, are not only a social invention, but the body is also a cultural, historical, and political construct (cf. Butler: 1993). Dance theory and performance studies can also be a source of inspiration to women’s and queer studies. Postmodern dance theorists and choreographers see

4 For the political potential of bodies in alliance, cf. Butler, J. (2015), Notes Toward a Performative Theory of Assembly, Cambridge: Harvard University Press. 5 For dance studies that concentrate on gender, sexuality, and politics of identity, cf. Foster (1998), 1–24; Burt (1995). Also see various articles in ‘Politics’ a section in the anthology by Brandstetter/Klein (2013).

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dance as creativity in motion, performing, and often subverting the expectations of slender, youthful bodies, and hetero-normative bodies. Dancing is embodied action, a somatic mode of attention to and within space and time that includes emotion and visceral expression, beyond mere technique. To dance is to fiction the body, to immerse it into a kinesthetic performance that evokes myriad narratives, poetics, unending worlds of imagination regarding the ceaseless process of embodying the self. Our search for understanding, what the body is, oscillates from one notion to another, from one identity to another, from location to location, from time to time. As several queer theologians state, the body in excess is multidimensional with signs of different, sexual, ethnic, and class identity or gender: a multi-vocal symbol expressive of social inventions and negotiated cultural, political, and historical practices. In time and space, the body performs practices in perpetual transition, without a final fixity or absolute determination, in never-ending flux (cf. Knauss/ Mendoza-Álvarez: 2019). The body, as part of the created cosmos, can be seen as God’s embracing inclusiveness – dancer and dance co-existing. From the horizon of Christian critical theory, the body can be envisioned as a mystical encounter: perpetually creating a human-divine dance, the union of desires in living flesh in space and time. Given that mystical and religious experiences are ultimately divine desire, embracing God’s stillness sets the tempo for this desire-infused choreography. Rather than a random virtual condition, repeated ad infinitum, which runs the risk of de-concretizing the body, a particular reading of some Christian traditions envisions each individual body as a locus of a holy embrace in the concrete midst of a contingency, paradoxically exceeding itself. Desire – lying in God – far from evoking stasis is a source of action, a playful infinite movement between stillness and motion. It could be argued that Christian theology is already in itself ‘queer’ (cf. AlthausReid: 2003). It proclaims a God, who became flesh, died, and resurrected. A God who, contrary to the ‘normal’ cycle of religious violence, reverses that cycle from within, rather than from the outside by offering peace, reconciliation, and hospitality instead of destruction and hostility. God is queer, for God cannot be subsumed within a linguistic description, a deep mystery and infinite love that cannot be fully grasped by human insight or reasoning alone. That is why faith becomes an extravagance, the locus of receiving divine grace, a divine gift that moves us to the desire to get to know God. Our desire for God reveals His/Her being already present among us, desiring us first, fulfilling in our present the original divine desire to be near us. A desire that comes from a primordial past, but also promises a future eschatological union (cf. Méndez Montoya: 2019, 91–99). It endows meaning to a search for God in the present, nourishing our human appetitus for God. Such a union of human and divine desire illustrates our perpetual state of bordering our human condition, the border between divine and human agency. However, on the

Flesh, Body, and Embodiment: Surplus of Corporeal Becoming

other side of the human frontier, we find a hospitable and inclusive God, always ready to welcome us and share divinity with us, transforming us into participants of His/Her divine dance of love. God’s incarnation is queer. It reveals self and other as no longer antagonized or mutually excluded, but co-existing in reciprocity, an eternal movement echoing a prior intra-Trinitarian perichoresis, a Trinitarian dance. Human flesh dances this eternal and divine choreography that sets the rhythm and movement of the extravagant history, embodied in each individual and communal body. The profound experiential and performative somatic dimension of the body in motion, explored by dance theories together with the religious experience of incarnation, can evoke a primal encounter with God: an actual hybridity, a love and desire that is an all-inclusive dance. The body’s contingencies are also a locus of divine transcendence, a celebration of difference. Some Christian narratives, rituals, and liturgical traditions envision God’s presence as flesh to be ingested, as food and drink, a communal banquet of a nourishing gift, an invitation to share and dance together. The Eucharist performs a communal motion, a collective dance that nourishes and invites to nourish others, particularly those who hunger. The body can be envisioned as a queer Eucharistic practice of embodiment: a bodily performance dancing within matter, showing divinity embracing matter, displaying the epiphany of a God that matters. Nonetheless we find millions of hungry bodies, who are also victims of violence. The politics of hunger disguises a logic of domination and greed, particularly toward women, who suffer the effects of the feminization of hunger, but also carry the wounds of every form of physical and emotional violence. Can we see God in the body of those, who are victims of violence and hatred? Can we see God in the body of those, who grieve and suffer, and be moved by compassion and divine caritas to transform the claim for global and ecological harmony into a creative and transgressive joyful dancing, echoing the political intervention of women publicly performing ‘A Rapist in Your Path’?

3.

Conclusionary Remarks

The suspicion against dancing in general and liturgical dancing in particular, expressed by many Churches and theological positions, might be the result of an ancient denial of the body and its moving passional qualities. Dance takes the body’s extreme sensual and ‘fleshy’ reality only to reveal that the flesh is never static but dynamic and in constant movement. Dance can even be looked upon as a queer intra-Trinitarian movement within God: the perichoretic celebration that perpetually dances the love and desire of the persons in the Trinity. God opens this Trinitarian dance to all creation. However, the long tradition of rejecting and

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condemning the body throughout the history of Western Christianity has been unable to cope with this extravagant desire that subverts and moves bodies. Dance teaches theology that the body is not a commodity nor an object to be rejected or subordinated, but affirmative corporeal excess embodying resistance, creativity, and transformative relationality. Moreover, a theological perspective on dancing bodies can teach that our bodies are queer, extravagant, destined to deification. We are co-creators with the divine creative act. God’s love and desire for creation is expressed and taken to the extreme in the event of incarnation: the Word made flesh (cf. John 1:15). In this event, self and other are no longer antagonized or mutually excluded, but rather co-exist in a reciprocal, although asymmetrical relationship. For theology, this co-implication sets the rhythm and impulse – a dance indeed – of the corporeal excess embodied in each individual and communal body.

Bibliography Althaus-Reid, M. (2003), The Queer God, New York: Routledge. Brandstetter, G./Klein G. (ed.) (2013), Dance [and] Theory, Bielefeld: Transcript Verlag. Brown, P. (1998), Body and Society, Men, Women, and Sexual Renunciation in Early Christianity, New York: Columbia University Press. Burt, R. (1995), The Male Dancer, Bodies, Spectacle, Sexualities, New York: Routledge. Butler, J. (1993), Bodies That Matter, On the Discursive Limits of Sex, New York: Routledge. Butler, J. (2015), Notes Toward a Performative Theory of Assembly, Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Coakley, S. (ed.) (1997), Religion and the Body, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Hinsliff, G. (2020), ‘The rapist is you!’: why a Chilean Protest Chant is being sung around the World, The Guardian, https://www.theguardian.com/society/2020/ feb/03/ the-rapist-is-you-chilean-protest-song-chanted-around-the-world-un-ioladoren-tu-camino, [8.10.2020]. Knauss, S./Mendoza-Álvarez, C. (ed.) (2019), Queer Theology: Becoming the Queer Body of Christ, Concilium, 2019 (5) London: SCM Press. LaMothe, K.L. (2004), Between Dancing and Writing, The Practice of Religious Studies, New York: Fordham University Press. Foster, S.L. (ed.) (1996), Corporealities, Dancing, Knowledge, Culture and Power, New York: Routledge. Foster, S.L. (1998), Choreographies of Gender, in Signs (24) 1, 1–33. Lepecki, A. (2004), Of the Presence of the Body, Essays on Dance and Performance Theory, Middletown: Wesleyan University Press. Méndez Montoya, Á.F. (2012), The Theology of Food, Eating and the Eucharist, Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell.

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Méndez Montoya, Á.F. (2019), Love in the Last Days: The Eschatological Marking of Bodies Resembling an Infinite Queer Desire, Concilium (2019) 5, 91–99. Milbank, J. (2003), ‘Beauty and Soul’, in J. Milbank, Theological Perspectives on God and Beauty, London: Trinity Press International, 1–34. Rivera, M. (2015), Poetics of the Flesh, Durham: Duke University Press. Thomas, H. (2003), The Body, Dance, and Cultural Theory, London: Palgrave Macmillan.

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Dancing to the Rhythm of Analogia Entis Exploration of Dance as a Christian Theological Category The five-day international and interdisciplinary conference, held at Augustana Theological Seminary in March 2020, was a highly innovative attempt, proposing an active collaboration between Christian theology and dance, a combination considered highly controversial until recently. The title of the conference says it all: ‘Dance with God or the Devil?’ In the European Christian tradition, dance has long been treated more as a temptation to sin than a spiritual path to reach God. A dichotomy between dance and Christian faith has been assumed and consequently the Christian use of dance has been extremely limited until recently. Dance is unique in comparison to other forms of art in the sense that no other form of art has had to suffer such a dichotomy in its relation to Christianity. In the end, the participants of the conference seemed to agree more or less that such a dichotomy is false and unjustified, and that collaboration with dance could actually enrich many areas of Christian theology by providing fresh insights and new approaches1 , especially allowing for what one might call a more ‘inclusive’ version of Christianity. In the concluding panel discussion at the conference, one student asked, “So where do we go from here?” I took the question personally and translated it as ‘exactly how can we effectively spread the ‘good news’ that dance can (or even should) actually have a bigger place in Christian theology while dispelling the long-standing suspicion that dance tends to lead us away from God the Creator rather than bring us closer to Him?’ This paper is an initial attempt to respond to this question. Sticking to the minimal working definition of dance given by Heike Walz at the beginning of the conference, that is, “rhythmic body movement, mostly to music,”2 this paper will explore the principle or rather the ‘rhythm’ of Analogia Entis (analogy of being) as a potential basis for developing a Christian theology of dance. Analogia Entis, which defines the analogical relation between God the Creator and creature, was most famously developed as a fundamental Catholic principle by the PolishGerman Jesuit theologian Erich Przywara (1889–1972) in the early 20th -century. It was once called “the invention of Antichrist” by the reformed theologian Karl Barth

1 As it is clear from various contributions to this volume, dance could work, for example, as a source of knowledge and cognition, as an encounter-point in interreligious dialogue, or as a means for peacemaking, while encouraging postcolonial or feminist perspectives in Christian theology. 2 Cf. Heike Walz, “Dance as Third Space” in this volume, 27–67.

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(1886–1968) (Barth: 1975, xiii), and has been discussed widely among Catholic and Protestant theologians alike. Analogia Entis seems to be a good starting point for our exploration of the significant role of dance in Christian theology, because, as creaturely metaphysics, it helps us to see all the intra-divine, divine-human, and inter-creaturely relations as fundamentally ‘rhythmic’ dynamic movements. Accordingly, this will allow us to explore dance theologically as a proper creaturely response to or participation in this universal rhythm. It is true that a metaphor of dance has already been used by some Christian authors to explore the mystery of the Trinity, as well as the creaturely participation in the divine movements (perichoresis) of the Trinity (cf. e.g. Fiddes: 2000).3 However, while the image of dance can be helpful to explore the mystery of the divine communion and emphasize the dynamism of the divine-human or inter-creaturely relations, there is also a risk of reducing God to the level of creature, thus ultimately compromising divine sovereignty, if such a metaphor is used carelessly.4 In order to reduce such a risk, the principle of Analogia Entis understood as a ‘rhythmic’ dynamic movement can make a contribution by providing a theological framework to explore dance as an activity or phenomenon to sharpen our awareness of creatureliness instead of placing us on the same level as God. This could be done specifically by emphasizing the “ever greater dissimilarity” between the Creator and creature, which, according to the principle of Analogia Entis, is supposed to be experienced within the very “similarity” between the Creator and creature (Przywara: 1955, 278). This paper will first present an exposition of the principle of Analogia Entis developed by Przywara while referring to Barth’s criticism against it, and then explore dance, especially the dancing body, as a means to experience the delicate tension of creaturely “ever greater dissimilarity” found within “every similarity, however great” (Przywara: 1955, 278). In the final analysis, this paper tries to achieve two things: 1) to present dance as a concrete way of living out what the metaphysical principle of Analogia Entis teaches us about our creatureliness, and at the same time 2) to suggest Analogia Entis as a theological criterion to determine what kind of dance is ‘dance with God’ or ‘dance with the Devil.’

3 This image seemed to be assumed more or less throughout the conference at Augustana as well. God was described as dance or dancer, and we creatures as His dancing partners. Even though etymologically the term perichoresis has nothing to do with dancing, it does not necessarily mean that dancing is an unsuitable metaphor for exploring the mystery of the Trinity. 4 Apparently, this is one reasonably theological reason why some people are reluctant to use this metaphor.

Dancing to the Rhythm of Analogia Entis

1.

The Principle of Analogia Entis understood as ‘Rhythm’

First of all, what exactly is Analogia Entis?5 Let us see first Przywara’s own simple explanation of the principle: Analogia Entis, as it is given its classical expression in the decree of the Fourth Lateran Council of 1215 (cap. 2): Inter creatorem et creaturam non potest tanta similitudo notari, quin inter eos major sit dissimilitudo notanda – God and Creation are like one another, and yet even in this resemblance completely unlike (Przywara: 1935, 31).

In short, it is the principle to define the ‘analogical’ relation between God the Creator and His creation.6 Since the way we think about the relation between God and His creation affects everything in life, we can eventually say that the principle of Analogia Entis can be applied for everything, including the art of dancing. In his later work, Przywara further clarifies the principle as follows: Thus analogia entis in no way signifies a “natural theology”; on the contrary, it obtains precisely in the domain of the supernatural and the genuinely Christian. Nor does it signify a “theological-philosophical doctrine, according to which the created world is directed to God”; still less does it signify a comprehensible ontological nexus between Creator, creation, and creature. On the contrary, analogia entis signifies that what is decisive in “every similarity, however great,” is the “ever greater dissimilarity.” It signifies, so to speak, God’s “dynamic transcendence,” i.e., that God is ever above and beyond [je-über-hinaus] “everything external to him and everything that can be conceived,” as was stressed in the “negative theology” of the Greek fathers and transmitted like a “sacred relic” from Augustine to Thomas to the [first] Vatican Council. My dear friends – from Karl Barth to Söhngen to Haecker to Balthasar – have apparently never grasped that “analogia,” according to Aristotle, is a “proportion between two X” (see my Analogia Entis!) (Przywara: 1955, 278).7

For Przywara, Analogia Entis has the following two basic meanings: 1) that the finite being of the creature is grounded in and derives its being from the infinite being of God (hence the moment of proximity and ‘similarity’), and 2) that the finite being of the creature cannot be equated with the infinite being, but remains 5 For Przywara’s own development of Analogia Entis, see Przywara (1935; 2014). For a most concise exposition of Przywara’s Analogia Entis, see Betz (2016). 6 Certainly, Przywara did not invent this principle. It is a term, which contains a long history, going back to the Thomistic tradition, so Przywara calls St Thomas Aquinas the teacher of the Analogia Entis (cf. Betz: 2016, 77). 7 The English translation here (including the brackets) is John R. Betz’s (2014, 113).

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essentially separate and distinct from it as well as infinitely transcended by it (hence the moment of distance and ultimate ‘dissimilarity’). It is noteworthy that Przywara wrote the summary quoted above after this principle had been widely discussed, criticized, and defended by various theologians from Karl Barth to Gottlieb Söhngen to Theodor Haecker to Hans Urs von Balthasar, as he mentions at the end of the quote. Especially, the statement at the beginning of this quote that “analogia entis in no way signifies a ‘natural theology’” was most probably written with Barth in mind. Analogia Entis has drawn attention not only from Catholic but also Protestant theologians, largely because of Barth’s initial harsh criticism against it. Most famously, Barth called the principle of Analogia Entis (or more precisely what he thought was represented by it) “the invention of Antichrist” in the preface of his Church Dogmatics (1975, xiii).8 According to Barth’s own description of Analogia Entis, “everything that is exists as mere creature in greatest dissimilarity to the Creator, yet by having being it exists in greatest similarity to the Creator. That is what is meant by Analogia Entis” (1986, 33).9 In another place, Barth also said: My criticism of the analogia entis consisted in that the analogia entis – as Thomas understood it – calls for a common ground between God and human beings; and this ground was found in the concept of being. God is, the human being also is. To this extent there is an analogy between God and world, etc. And it was against this concept that I had to fight (Barth: 1995, 294; cf. Betz: 2014, 87).

John R. Betz, one of the most prominent defenders of Przywara’s theology, admits that “if this really were the teaching of Thomas (and Przywara), then Barth’s vigorous rebuttal would not only be understandable, but called for” (2014, 87). Barth’s concern is that Analogia Entis could mean an ontological equilibrium between God and creature with a risk of stressing ‘similarity’ rather than ‘dissimilarity’ between God and creature. However, Przywara’s intention is exactly the other way around, that is, to make us acutely aware of “ever greater dissimilarity”10 between the Creator and the creature, which is found exactly in “every similarity, however great” (Przywara: 1955, 278). The debate between Przywara and Barth and whether Barth’s criticism can be justified has been widely discussed in the theological scholarship ever since,11 and 8 “I regard the Analogia Entis as the invention of Antichrist, and I believe that because of it is impossible ever to become a Roman Catholic, all other reasons for not doing so being to my mind shortsighted and trivial.” 9 Italics by the author. 10 Italics by the author. 11 For a helpful review and assessment of this debate, see Betz (2014).

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has been described as “the single most important ecumenical controversy of the twentieth century” (White: 2011, 1). Among their own contemporary theologians, the most influential argument concerning the debate came from Balthasar, who was Przywara’s protégé and Barth’s close friend. He argued that Barth’s own Christocentric Analogia Fidei and Przywara’s Analogia Entis are, in fact, not incompatible, because the analogy itself is nothing other than the provisional and abstract expression for the ultimate truth of the Incarnation. In other words, a Christocentric universe can be realized fully only within Analogia Entis, not without it (Balthasar: 1992). To put it differently, Balthasar thought that Barth had called Analogia Entis “the invention of Antichrist” (Barth: 1975, xiii) because he had misunderstood it, that is, when Barth heard the concept of analogy of being between the Creator and creatures, he confused it with the doctrine of ‘pure nature’ (which had been used by Tridentine Catholic theologians to theorize a virtual reality emptied of grace), and thus incorrectly imagined that Przywara was trying to found a real theology on this graceless and Godless concept (cf. Long: 2014). In the current English-speaking theological scholarship, Betz has given one of the strongest defenses for Przywara’s Analogia Entis, and it is partially built on a harsh critique of Barth that he had never really understood Przywara’s principle of Analogia Entis (Betz: 2005; 2006). The position that Barth failed to understand Przywara has been shared by other theologians.12 On the other hand, one of the strongest defenses for Barth concerning this matter has been presented by Keith L. Johnson, who clearly states that Barth’s rejection of the Analogia Entis was based not on his failure to understand it correctly (far from it!) but on Barth’s and Przywara’s (and accordingly Protestantism’s and Catholicism’s) different views of the nature of divine revelation, creation, and justification (Johnson: 2010). In his concise summary of Barth’s concern, Johnson writes, Barth rejects Przywara’s Analogia Entis because he is unwilling to accept the notion that what we can know of God from God’s act of creation stands in continuity with what we know of God through God’s justifying act in Jesus Christ. This kind of continuity is unacceptable, he believes, because it overlooks the effect of sin (2010, 642).

In other words, according to Johnson, Barth’s concern was that Przywara’s Analogia Entis fails to take seriously the reality of human sin, “because Przywara sees the human relationship with God as a constantly-available feature of human existence

12 For example, David Bentley Hart writes, “Karl Barth’s notorious, fairly barbarous rejection of the analogia entis as the invention of antichrist, and the principle reason for not becoming Roman Catholic, was directed at Przywara’s book – a verdict that, frankly, speaks only of Barth’s failure to understand Przywara” (2004, 241).

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that occurs because humans have their created being by participation in God’s being” (Johnson: 2010, 641). A detailed discussion of whether Barth really misinterpreted Przywara’s Analogia Entis is beyond the scope of this paper, but we can note two things for our purpose; firstly, at least Barth’s concern not to underestimate the fallenness of creature or not to bring down the Creator to the level of creature should be kept in mind when we attempt to use Przywara’s Analogia Entis as a theological framework for Christian use of dance. Certainly, we will have to be careful not to undermine divine sovereignty in any way (as such a concern has already been mentioned at the beginning of this paper regarding careless use of dance as a metaphor for God or the creator-creature relation). Secondly, Barth or his defenders like Johnson do not seem to appreciate the dynamism of Analogia Entis as ‘rhythm’ sufficiently. This would seem to support the argument that Barth misinterpreted Przywara’s Analogia Entis after all, because Przywara describes Analogia Entis as ‘rhythm’ exactly with the purpose of emphasizing “ever greater dissimilarity” between the Creator and the creature found in “every similarity, however great” (cf. Przywara: 1955, 278). It is significant not to reduce Analogia Entis to a static principle, which would be the exact opposite of Przywara’s intention. Rather, the ‘principle’ of Analogia Entis should be understood as ‘rhythm.’ In Przywara’s own words: In no way […] is it [Analogia Entis] a “principle,” if one supposes this to mean something originally static, “from which” everything else could be deduced or “to which” everything else could be reduced. On the contrary, it is essentially the primordial dynamic: defining the swaying of the intra-creaturely, the in-between-God-and-the-creaturely, and the intra-divine itself, the hyper-transcendent expression of which is the theologoumenon of the intra-divine “relations” (relationes), which are the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The “being” – Sein – which all philosophies take to be the primordial question and primordial datum with respect to everything else, does not (subsequently) “have” analogy as an attribute or as something developing from it; rather analogy is being, and thus thought is (noetically) analogy. As this primordial dynamic, analogy is a rhythm – just as, according to Pythagoras, the cosmos vibrates with a “resonant rhythm,” and just as, according to Plato, God is the “measure of all things and all actions.” Only in the sense of such a rhythm and such a measure is analogy a “principle.” Ontically as being and noetically as thought, it is “principally” the mystery of the primordial music of this rhythm […] (2014, 314).13

Here we can see that the analogy of being is described as “the primordial dynamic” and a “rhythm,” which involves all the intra-divine, divine-human, and inter-creaturely relations. Analogia Entis is called a principle only in the rhythmic

13 The italics in the last three sentences are added by the author.

Dancing to the Rhythm of Analogia Entis

sense of the primordial dynamic. We should try to hear the rhythm of Analogia Entis “with a musical ear” instead of just “seeing the notes of a musical score, the major and the minor keys” (Betz: 2014, 86). The ever-greater dissimilarity between the creator and the creature is explained in terms of identity and non-identity between essence and existence based on St Thomas Aquinas’s conception; while essence and existence are identical in God, they are not identical in creature. As a consequence, the creaturely being is characterized by “becomingness.” In Przywara’s own words: There remains then, in view of the undeniable character of ‘becomingness’ in the creaturely, which excludes the idea of an identity between essence and existence (for this would involve the complete reality of essence and so its incapacity to ‘become’ anything) – there remains then no other alternative than the completely open tension between essence and existence; essence as inward process essentially within existence, and yet never as complete essence, essentially over or above existence; essence in-over existence (1935, 32).

In addition to the characterization of the creaturely being as “becomingness” understood as “open tension between essence and existence,” it is noteworthy that Przywara writes here that the essence is both within and over existence. Because of this point and the analogy of being between God and His creation, Przywara further concludes that “God in us and over us is […] the synonym of Analogia Entis” (1935, 33). Here Przywara is applying his reading of St. Augustine in order to reinterpret the Thomistic concept of analogy of being in terms of divine immanence and transcendence.14 In short, for Przywara, the Analogia Entis functions on two different levels: 1) the level of the immanent tension between essence and existence within the creaturely being, and 2) the level of the transcendent relation between the Creator and the creature held in open tension. The creaturely being is characterized by “becomingness,” that is, as a process or dynamic movement, and ultimately as “endless striving toward God” (Przywara: 1935, 56), but such a dynamic process of Analogia Entis is made possible only because “its essentially super-creaturely absolute fixed point is found within Deity” (Przywara: 1935, 38). It is also described as “the unrest of the ‘endless striving towards God’ with the ‘endless striving in the presence of God’” (Przywara: 1935, 56) who Is and is ‘ever greater.’ The expression “absolute fixed point” here could be Przywara’s version of the Aristotelian Unmoved

14 As Betz says, “though the basic structure of Przywara’s Analogia Entis comes from Thomas, who lays bare the original structure of essence and existence, the rhythmic, beating heart of it comes from Przywara’s reading of Augustine. Indeed, only by dint of this creative synthesis does it become clear how the Analogia Entis is the original dynamic of created being” (2016, 86).

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Mover. It means that movement is initiated from the side of God, that is, from above downwards. Przywara stresses, “precisely by reason of the nature of the Analogia Entis, the relationship between God and man is not a function of man’s activity, but of God’s condescension” (1935, 40). In Przywara’s Analogia Entis, two movements, which he calls “ana” and “ano” respectively, revolve around each other (Przywara: 2014, 314; cf. Murphy: 1993, 518–519). While the “ana” is the horizontal transition of essentia towards ens, which is the ascendent movement towards God, the “ano” is the vertical descending movement towards the creature. Analogia Entis is the rhythmic movement from the “ano” to the “ana” (cf. Przywara: 2014, 314; Murphy: 1993, 518–519). It is also noteworthy that, as the model for his interpretation of Analogia Entis, Przywara refers to the fugues in Bach’s Art of Fugue which, in his words, “interweaving one another, pass beyond themselves into ‘great silence.’ The ‘resonant analogy’ is fulfilled in this ‘silent analogy’” (2014, 314). In a sense, Przywara’s Analogia Entis belongs to the genre of negative theology. Going back to the dogmatic formula of Lateran IV, Przywara himself preferred to interpret it as follows: “No matter how great the similarity of God to creatures, the dissimilarity is always greater” or “the greater the similarity, the greater the dissimilarity” (Murphy: 1993, 518). After all, Przywara’s analysis and development of Analogia Entis is intended to encourage creaturely humility and love. Przywara writes: Analogia Entis denotes […] (1) the release of the creaturely being from all absolutizing by bringing it to the consciousness of a universal transitoriness in relation to a Deity who alone is Absolute; and therein also (2) the rending of the artificial barrier between creature and creature by bringing each and all to the consciousness of that common creatureliness transcending spatio-temporal limitations, which in God’s presence is the common property of them all (1935, 63).

On the one hand, the rhythm of Analogia Entis should make us humble because of the awareness of the dissimilarity between us the creature, who is finite and transitory, and the Creator, who is infinite and absolute. On the other hand, such a humble awareness should lead us to an awareness of and respect for the common creatureliness of others, which is supposed to be the foundation for community. Apparently, Przywara intended his analysis and development of Analogia Entis to be a basis for wide areas of Christian life, that is, not only as a topic for speculative discussions among theologians, but also as something to be applied to arts, practices of piety, and spirituality, though it apparently remains a mere discussion topic among academic theologians. Could we bring in the approach of dance to this highly theological topic and somehow propose a concrete way of living it? In addition, could such a practical or aesthetic application of creaturely metaphysics

Dancing to the Rhythm of Analogia Entis

not enrich our discussion of dance as well? This is what we will explore in the next section.

2.

Experience the Rhythm of Analogia Entis with the Dancing Body

In the recent theological scholarship, the rhythmic dimension of Analogia Entis has received greater attention. For example, Lexi Eikelboom has attempted to construct a unique theology of rhythm by largely drawing from Przywara’s Analogia Entis (2018; cf. 2015). Eikelboom shows that Pryzwara’s Analogia Entis should be understood as the unpredictable rhythm located at the intersection between the rhythms of creaturely life and the rhythms of God’s interaction with and presence in the world. By using Pryzwara’s analogy, Eikelboom tries to strike a delicate balance between what she calls “synchronic” and “diachronic” perspectives on rhythm (according to her definitions, the former tended to take a God’s-eye-view perspective, and the latter inclined towards a sharp division between the Creator and creature) (2018; cf. 2015), thus ultimately preserving the delicate tension between the absolute ‘dissimilarity’ and ‘similarity,’ or ‘otherness’ and ‘intimacy,’ between the Creator and creature. Most importantly for our purpose, Eikelboom’s research already suggests a transition from a Christian theology of rhythm to a Christian theology of dance based on the rhythm of Analogia Entis. Though it is mainly theories of poetic rhythm that she refers to, Eikelboom also mentions the works of the philosophers of dance such as Gerardus van der Leeuw (1890–1950) and Kimerer LaMothe as some of the similar attempts to acknowledge the significance of non-written and non-discursive dimensions of Christian practice and expression for theology. For example, it is noteworthy for our purpose that, as Eikelboom points out, there is a profound similarity between the way Przywara describes the rhythm of creaturely being as “essence in-over existence,” in other words, as “becomingness,” (Przywara: 1935, 32) and the way van der Leeuw and LaMothe describe dance, as they show that in dance the creature’s becoming takes place both through their own movements and through participation in the movements of something beyond them (Eikelboom: 2015, 237). In other words, dance could show us how we could actually experience the rhythm of Analogia Entis in a concrete, bodily way. For example, van der Leeuw declares that “every movement of the world is rhythmically ordered; the same principle reigns in the dance as in the cosmos. Every movement can be derived from a primal movement, the primum movens” (Van der Leeuw: 1963, 28). He analyzes the process in which a dancer discovers a rhythm which surrounds themselves, and then responds to it in their own unique way, and then all the movements end up becoming one as a whole:

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In the dance, man discovers the rhythm of the motion that surrounds him, just as it surrounds another man or an animal or a star. He discovers the rhythm and invents a response, but it is a response that has its own forms, that is stylized and ordered. He does with motion the same thing that he does with a shape when he carves or chisels, draws or paints. He places his own movements and those of the creatures which surround him into an ordered whole (Van der Leeuw: 1963, 14).

Van der Leeuw laments that Western Christian civilization has almost lost “the feeling for rhythm” and denounces it as “a theological mistake,” for, after all, “God is movement,” which, for van der Leeuw, means the same thing as “God is love” (1963, 74). He further writes, “the dance is the discovery of movement external to man, but which first gives him his true, actual movement. In the dance shines the recognition of God, himself, moving and thereby moving the world” (Van der Leeuw: 1963, 74). Further, with her philosophy of “bodily becoming” (cf. LaMothe: 2015), LaMothe helps us to see how the creaturely becoming can take place through rhythms, with a stronger emphasis on the rhythmic ‘sensory’ experience of the human body. She describes the three basic elements of dance as follows; firstly, to dance, “at a most basic level […] is to exercise this capacity of a human bodily self in creating and becoming patterns of sensation and response. It is to participate in what I call a rhythm of bodily becoming” (LaMothe: 2015, 5); secondly, to dance is to participate in such a rhythm of bodily becoming “in ways that cultivate a sensory awareness of our participation in it” (2015, 5); and thirdly, to dance “is to participate consciously in this rhythm of bodily becoming by using this sensory awareness as a guide in creating and becoming patterns of sensation and response that realize our potential to move” (2015, 6). Even a quick look at van der Leeuw’s and LaMothe’s descriptions of dance informs us that when we dance, we both dance and are “danced” (using the expression of van der Leeuw [1963, 15; 25]). We move ourselves consciously while being moved by the rhythms surrounding us. LaMothe suggests that these two contrastive responses to rhythm in dance are two directions of a double-movement, that is, one from unity to individuation, and the other from individuation to dissolution (cf. LaMothe: 2004, 196; Eikelboom: 2015, 52). In other words, in dance, we can both hold and let go of our self through bodily movements. Going back to the rhythm of Analogia Entis, which Przywara describes both as “essence in-over existence” and “God in us and over us” (1935, 32–33), in other words, a dynamic interplay of divine immanence and transcendence, we see that dance may be able to make us acutely aware of the ‘rhythm’ of Analogia Entis in a uniquely bodily way, as dance can provide a moment where immanence and transcendence are paradoxically intertwined in the body.

Dancing to the Rhythm of Analogia Entis

This is most probably related to the ‘in-between’ nature of the body, which is the primary “instrument” for dance.15 It is with the body that we experience our internal and external worlds. In the last analysis, the body is “sacrament in ordinary” (cf. Brown: 2007), and as St. Paul called the human body “a temple” where the Holy Spirit dwells within us (1 Cor 6:19), it is the place where the divine and the human meet.16 It is in the body that we as creature experience the rhythm of the “ever greater dissimilarity” found in “every similarity, however great” (cf. Przywara: 1955, 278). It is in the body that we, as creatures, become acutely aware of both our creaturely limitations and possibilities to reach beyond, towards God. Further, as a Christian theologian, David Brown has discussed dance and various types of dancing bodies in his exploration of how the body might mediate the experience of God (2007, 61–119).17 What he discovers from this exploration is “a terrible irony: the secular theatre sometimes conveys truth about God more effectively than the Christian Church” (Brown: 2007, 119). In relation to such an irony, Brown points out “the power of movement itself to express the capacity for change: change that refuses to be bounded by the world as it is and so offers another world, potentially that of the divine” (2007, 118–119). In other words, as Brown correctly observes, dance and the dancing body has the power to point us towards the divine in a unique way, because, in Brown’s words, dance like ballet “suggests the possibility of bridging the material divide that separates us from God” (2007, 104). On the other hand, Brown is also aware of the potential “danger” of such ecstatic power of dance, especially from a Christian point of view (2007, 104). As he observes, when a dancer feels the power, which their movements have in communicating the possibility of experiencing the divine, they may be tempted to feel themselves like a god, as if they were the agent of their own religious experience (cf. LaMothe: 2012, 134).18 Therefore, Brown seems to suggest that it is important to maintain the delicate tension “between perceived self-transcendence and a sense of being graced from elsewhere” (2007, 104), in other words, the double awareness of making our own movements (dancing) and being moved from outside (being “danced” (cf. van der Leeuw [1963, 15; 25]). However, this tension is apparently difficult for many dancers to maintain, and Brown critically observes that “the inevitable result is

15 Van der Leeuw writes, “to dance, one needs nothing, nor paint, nor stone, nor wood, nor musical instrument; nothing at all except one’s own body. […] The dance is its own articulation. In the greatest simplicity it remains constant, century after century. In this respect, too, the dance occupies a special place among the arts” (1963, 12–13). 16 For a theological exploration of the human body as the ‘in-between’ place for humanity and divinity, immanence and transcendence, see Ángel Méndez Montoya’s contribution in this volume. 17 As a response to Brown’s discussion of grace found in dancing bodies, see LaMothe (2012). 18 Perhaps this danger could explain (at least partially) why Christianity has historically been suspicious of, and even hostile to, dance.

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incomplete transcendence, or else reversion to an earlier condition. […] That is also perhaps why so many ballets end unhappily. […] They warn viewers that human ambition can destroy as well as create” (2007, 104). Could the Analogia Entis, as ‘rhythm’ to preserve the delicate dynamic tension between divine transcendence and immanence, not help dancers to maintain such a delicate tension by always reminding them of their creatureliness? Further, going back to the question of what kind of dance is to be considered as ‘dance with God’ or ‘dance with the Devil,’ could we not try to answer it by referring to the rhythm of Analogia Entis? That is, if a given type of dance is danced faithfully to the rhythm of Analogia Entis, accordingly sharpening our awareness of the creaturely “ever greater dissimilarity” found within “every similarity” (cf. Przywara: 1955, 278), it can be a ‘dance with God.’ On the other hand, if a given type of dance seems to be out of the rhythm of Analogia Entis and to stress the ‘similarity’ more than the ‘dissimilarity’ (somehow in the direction Barth feared that the ‘analogy’ should lead us to think), then should we not suspect that it may be inclined towards a ‘dance with the Devil’?

3.

Conclusionary Remarks

In this paper, we have examined the principle of Analogia Entis developed by Przywara as ‘rhythm’ and briefly explored dance and the dancing body as a possible means to experience it. What is the point of making such a connection between Analogia Entis and dance at all? We can note two implications from both sides: 1) By associating the principle of Analogia Entis, which is so abstract and metaphysical, with something so common as dance, we may be able to make Analogia Entis more relevant for our daily life of faith. Considering its enduring importance for Christian theology, it would be meaningful to bring Analogia Entis out of the theoretical sphere and make it alive in a concrete, bodily way. Dance could provide a way to experience the ‘rhythm’ of Analogia Entis in the body consciously, as dance shows us a way we become the rhythms and movements which we make for ourselves and discover beyond us. 2) Seen from the side of dance, considering that dance has not yet received the amount of serious attention it deserves in the so-called ‘mainstream’ theological scholarship, an association with the principle of Analogia Entis as creaturely metaphysics could provide an opportunity to appear on the ‘center stage’ of theological scholarship. It might also help to dispel the long-standing suspicion against Christian use of dance by providing a theological framework to argue that dance could actually sharpen our awareness of creatureliness (rather than the other way around), thus allowing us to serve God more faithfully. Let us dance to the ‘rhythm’ of Analogia Entis as creature of Our Creator!

Dancing to the Rhythm of Analogia Entis

Bibliography Balthasar, H.U. v. (1992), The Theology of Karl Barth, Exposition and Interpretation, E.T. Oakes (trans.), San Francisco: Ignatius. Barth, K. (2 1975), Church Dogmatics I/1, G.W. Bromiley (trans.), Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark. Barth, K. (1995), Gespräche, 1959–1962, Zürich: TVZ. Barth, K. (1986), The Way of Theology in Karl Barth. Essays and Comments, H.M. Rumscheidt (ed.), Eugene: Pickwick. Betz, J.R. (2005), Beyond the Sublime. The Aesthetics of the Analogy of Being (Part One), Modern Theology (21) 3, 367–411. Betz, J.R. (2006), Beyond the Sublime. The Aesthetics of the Analogy of Being (Part Two), Modern Theology (22) 1, 1–50. Betz, J.R. (2014), ‘Translator’s Introduction’, in E. Przywara, Analogia Entis, Metaphysics, Original Structure and Universal Rhythm, J.R. Betz and D.B. Hart (trans.), Grand rapids: Eerdmans, 1–115. Betz, J.R. (2016), ‘Erich Przywara and the Analogia Entis, a Genealogical Diagnosis and Metaphysical Critique of Modernity’, in K. Oakes (ed.), Christian Wisdom Meets Modernity, London: T&T Clark, 71–91. Brown, D. (2007), God and Grace of Body. Sacrament in Ordinary, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Eikelboom, L. (2015), Establishing Rhythm as a Theological Category, Experience, Metaphysics, Salvation, Ph.D. Dissertation, Oxford University. Eikelboom, L. (2018), Rhythm. A Theological Category, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Fiddes, P.S. (2000), Participating in God, A Pastoral Doctrine of the Trinity, London: Darton, Longman and Todd. Hart, D.B. (2004), The Beauty of the Infinite. The Aesthetics of Christian Truth, Grand Rapids: Eerdmans. Johnson, K.L. (2010), Reconsidering Barth’s Rejection of Przywara’s Analogia Entis, Modern Theology (26) 4, 632–650. LaMothe, K.L. (2004), Between Dancing and Writing, the Practice of Religious Studies, New York: Fordham University Press. LaMothe, K.L. (2012), ‘“I am the Dance”: Towards an Earthed Christianity’, in R. Macswain/ T. Worley (ed.), Theology, Aesthetics, and Culture, Responses to the Work of David Brown, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 131–144. LaMothe, K.L. (2015), Why We Dance. A Philosophy of Bodily Becoming, New York: Colombia University Press. Leeuw, G. v. d. (1963), Sacred and Profane Beauty. The Holy in Art, D. Green (trans.), London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson. Long, D.S. (2014), Saving Karl Barth. Hans Urs von Balthasar’s Preoccupation, Minneapolis: Fortress Press.

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Murphy, F. (1993), The Sound of the Analogia Entis, Part I, New Blackfriars (74) 876, 508–521. Przywara, E. (2014), Analogia Entis, Metaphysics, Original Structure and Universal Rhythm, J.R. Betz and D.B. Hart (trans.), Grand Rapids: Eerdmans. Przywara, E. (1955), In und Gegen. Stellungnahmen zur Zeit, Nürnberg: Glock und Lutz. Przywara, E. (1935), Polarity. A German Catholic’s Interpretation of Religion, A.C. Bouquet (trans.), London: Oxford University Press. White, T.J. (2011), ‘Introduction, The Analogia Entis Controversy and Its Contemporary Significance’, in T.J. White (ed.), The Analogy of Being: Invention of the Antichrist or the Wisdom of God?, Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1–32.

Jasmine Suhner

Dancing From Doing Theology to Dancing Theology Dance-theological Sketches Based on Tango Argentino We cannot be physical. Despite this fundamental insight, the Occident and, to a large extent, for centuries Christian theology have tended to express themselves in a body neglecting or bodily hostile way. However, the current research on embodiment also shapes theology and religious education studies as well as their methods. This debate on embodiment now meets a rising concept of theology: doing theology. In connection with children’s and youth theology, this procedural understanding of theology and religious education method as well has been successfully applied in practice. Nevertheless, doing theology is still mostly understood as a word and conversation focused method. The present article builds on this concept and extends it with a stronger focus on the physical. It starts with an introduction to the relevance of the current interdisciplinary debate on embodiment, including different highlights on this topic and aspects of science theory and hermeneutics as well. The second part of the article presents Tango Argentino as an improvising couple dance. In the third part, analogies and conclusions for a broad understanding of theology are drawn from this example. This analogy leads to two conclusions: – The first conclusion focuses specifically on the religious education context: This – concrete – conclusion is devoted to the question of how dance can be integrated into (inter-)religious education. – The second conclusion also focuses on the interreligious area, but further on the entire (self-)understanding of theology: Based on Tango Argentino as a metaphor, the concepts, requirements and embodied insights from Tango Argentino will be applied to contemporary theology (-tasks). From here, a plea will be made for an understanding of theology which – in a figurative sense – understands itself as a dancing one.

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1.

Body and Mind: The Great and the Small Reason1 “The body is a great reason, a plurality with one sense, a war and a peace, a herd and a shepherd. An instrument of your body is also your small reason, my brother, which you call ‘spirit’ – a little instrument and toy of your great reason.” (Nietzsche: 1982, 146)   “The body can become speaking, thinking, dreaming and inventing. It feels something all the time. It feels everything that is physical. It feels the skins and the stones, metals, herbs, water and flames. He feels incessantly.”   “Yet what feels is the soul. And the soul feels the body first. It senses it, which contains and holds it back, from all sides. If it did not hold it back, it would escape completely in hazy words that would get lost in the sky.” (Nancy: 2015, 58 Indications No. 12 and 13, trans. by the author)

We cannot not be physical. Physicality and creatureliness belong together. Stomach, fingernails, legs, genitals, skin and hair. The body is experienced as inescapable. It is also essential for humans as learning beings: For several decades scientific research in the context of Artificial Inelligence (AI), for example, has been pointing that the very physical contact and exchange with the world represents the basic, primary layer of intelligence.2 In short: The body knows. Over centuries, genetic information are collected in it. Over generations, habits have become established: implicit – intuitive – knowledge, which the body has come to, due to its embedding in and reflection of the world. For these bodily paths of knowledge, which are therefore eminent for human action, the sports scientist, pedagogue and philosopher Ingo Peyker developed the term “truth of the feet” (cf. Peyker: 2006, Book 3). Feet: That part of the body that (according to Greek mythology) distinguishes truth from lies (cf. Aesop: 1930). Only the mixture of implicit and explicit knowledge, the meeting of “mobilized world knowledge” (Habermas: 1988, 45) and cognitive abilities make humans capable of action. Body knowledge, great reason, is now gaining increased relevance, even urgency, in the view of various current social problems, such as space-specific questions

1 Nietzsche: 1982, 146. 2 On the debate about virtuality and embodiment, see e.g. Kasprowicz (2019).

Dancing From Doing Theology to Dancing Theology

with regard to migration, body-specific discussions about corona measures restricting freedom of movement, or the climate crisis. In the Occident, this increasing relevance meets a history of mentality in which, for centuries, essential lines of thought argued bodily neglect. In the Christian church view, in particular, the body was mostly perceived as a disturbance in the search for salvation.3 The predominant currents of science virtually denied the body any rational behaviour, the epistemological relevance of bodily feeling, sensation and feeling was cut off, as it were, with Ockham’s razor. If cognition is subordinated to small reason alone, a distance from the basis of great reason, nature, is inevitable. The need to remove this separation could not be more urgent at present, in civil society, politics and science. Body-thinking (understood as both reflection of the bodily and in the sense of the ‘great reason’ [Nietzsche: 1982, 146]) must be (re)integrated into humane educational and learning processes. Whatever serves by abolishing this separation, the ‘truth of feet’ is not new. Rather, in this respect, a perception of the embedding of man in his environment (which is quite lived in some stages and cultures of mankind) must be revitalized. Certainly, body-conscious thinking is not external to any academic consideration, as Peyker states (2006, Book 3, 1104). In philosophy, in the cognitive sciences and humanities, in education, theology and religious education, keywords such as ‘embodiment’, ‘embedded cognition’ or ‘extended mind’ have been in circulation for several years (cf. Lakoff/Johnson: 1999). These keywords conceal far-reaching theses on the nature of mind and cognition. In the context of these, it is claimed that they can fundamentally change the understanding of the psyche and thus of learning processes. In general terms, the term ‘embodiment’ is often used here. The common position is based on the assumption that cognitive states and processes of living beings are fundamentally embedded in coexistence. “It is the well-rehearsed and long-proven embedding of the body in a structured environment that is adapted to us that makes man an intelligent, learning, social being” (Fingerhut/Hufendiek et al: 2013, 9) At this point, another aspect of the embodiment debate must be mentioned: Embodiment is not just being taken up in numerous academic disciplines, but this very tendency is bringing the academics closer to art (and art studies) again. For this, the philosopher Peter Strasser states, that academic disciplines and the aesthetic sensibility of art share the aspiration to,

3 Pope Innocent III (1160–1216), e.g.: “Man is made of dust, excrement and ashes – and, even more cruel, of foul seed. The reason for his conception was the attraction of the flesh and the glow of desire: in the fullness of debauchery and under the stain of sin. Man is born to work, to be afraid and to suffer – that is more miserable than dying. […] Finally he falls to that fire which burns eternally and is unquenchable. He is at the mercy of that worm which always gnaws and feeds and does not die. His body finally turns into stinking and dirty mold” (Von Segni (Innozenz III.): 1990, 42f).

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expose and recognize the true form, idea or reality of the sensual world. […] Of course, in contrast to the scientific procedures of abstraction and formalization, the artistic method of depth is always one that makes use of phenomena in order to bring forth something remote from the phenomena – something absolute: the mystery of the whole, or whatever one wants to call it. This eludes all conceptualization and thus also all scientific knowledge […] the creative principle – the ‘idea’ of the work – [flows] from the subjectivity of the artist, from his good self (Strasser: 1993, 66f).4

Every idea of a work – including academic studies – is initially founded in such subjectivity and thus in the feeling of the researcher.5 Sensations are in turn physical. It is this very circle between big and small reason, that is taken into account in the last few decades: not only by the cognitive sciences and philosophy (cf. Fingerhut/Hufendiek et al.: 2013; Smith: 2017), cultural studies (cf. Etzelmüller/Tewes: 2016), psychology (cf. Storch/Cantieni et al.: 2017), but also in educational debates (cf. Brinkmann/Türstig et al.: 2019). Last but not least, approaches such as those of resonance pedagogy include the physical as an essential dimension in their understanding of education (cf. Rosa/Endres: 2016). It is precisely in so-called resonance moments that small reason gives way to the great reason. Thus, it can be comprehensively learned, taught, produced and formed on a physical level. Not with my hand alone I write: My foot wants to participate. Firm and free and bold, my feet Run across the field – and sheet. (Nietzsche: 1974, 63)

Nietzsche, who has devoted himself to the subject of the body, refers not only to the feet, but especially to their synthetic meaning6 : their function. In view of what lies between explanation and understanding, he argues that there lies a special truth in dancing: For truth to tell, dancing in all its forms cannot be excluded from the curriculum of all noble education:

4 Translation, omissions in brackets ([…]) and addition ([flows]) in brackets by the author. 5 From here, statements such as that of the computer scientist Christopher Langton can be understood: “I have the impression that […] there will be more poetry in the future of science.” (Horgan: 1996, chapter 8). 6 ‘Synthetic meaning’ means that the focus is less on the appearance of body parts than on their function (in relation to something: an activity, a counterpart, oneself). Significantly, the lexemes for body parts in the Old Testament e.g. often have a so-called “synthetic meaning” (Wagner: 2013, 2).

Dancing From Doing Theology to Dancing Theology

dancing with the feet, with ideas, with words, and, need I add that one must also be able to dance with pen – which one must learn how to write (Nietzsche: 2007, 47).

It is evident to reflect more about Nietzsche’s statement in an exemplary way – to ask what we can learn from dance for theology, religion and also religious pedagogy and education.7

2.

Tango Argentino “More than once, looking at a dancer one has illustrated what was once called empathy or intropathy: the reproduction of the other within oneself – the echo, the resonance of the other.” “This happens imperceptibly to this body: it is no longer a body in itself. It takes up space. It takes distance. It begins to think. It dances itself, it is danced by another.” (Nancy: 2015, 41 and 43)8

The current social debates essentially concern social interaction in heterogeneous societies and thus also intercultural and interreligious dimensions. In the following, therefore, not just any dance will be chosen as an example, but rather a (social) couples dance – which is also characterized by communication and interaction in every moment, i.e. it is an improvising dance. There are two more reasons why Tango Argentino is particularly suitable for this purpose: on the one hand, I bring personal experience as a tango dancer and tango teacher. Over years, I have experienced that it is hardly possible to talk about the different aspects of tango technique, to analyze and describe them without involuntarily activating a subtext with essential statements about life. This seems to characterize Tango Argentino. On the other hand, it seems to be the very experience of other tango dancers as well. I like to refer to quotations in corresponding publications as examples: Tango “is a philosophical dance” (Sartori/Steidl: 2010, 79). “Dance is far too essential and existential to reduce

7 Connecting religion, theology and dance is, of course, not a new approach. What is currently new is that body-practices are not just allowed and enacted, but also part of academic research, theory building and congresses. The benefits of this is on the one hand providing a legitimacy and conceptual framework to practices that have already been around. On the other hand, the research should shed more differentiated light on the relationship between dance and theology. Furthermore, it should provide further insights into the history, present and future of learning from dance as well as the metaphor of dance. 8 Translation by the author.

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it conceptually to physical movement. A true dancer cannot permanently avoid the task of developing his outer and inner being holistically” (ibid., 41). Tango is “rather a form of artistic self-development” (ibid., 79). Almost mystically, the experience of tango dancing is described as one “that eludes you when you reach for it, that unexpectedly grabs you when you playfully forget it, that you sigh while you keep it inside” (ibid., 52). The fact that the potentials of Tango Argentino are capable of producing such descriptions is, among other things, due to the fact that an open, at least openly formable non-verbal and at the same time dialogical communication system has developed with this dance, which is at least openly formable and reminiscent of some religious wisdom traditions. There is no getting around the fact that tango dance obviously embodies, in a certain sense, a way of accessing knowledge that goes beyond dancing. In a silent manner. At this point two essential aspects of tango shall be emphasized and differentiated.9 One aspect is considered the basic characteristic of Tango Argentino: the ‘walking together’. The other aspect transcends this in a specific way, which is especially interesting for a perspective that considers the unavailable. 2.1

Walking, Beyond Duality Tango Argentino es caminar, no correr. Tango Argentino is walking, not running.

This saying is the basic principle of tango. Walking is the basic movement of tango, at least according to the non-standardized movement architecture of the original tango. Strictly speaking, in tango there is only movement, no steps: Moments of putting the foot on the floor are not valued higher than any other moments in the flow of movement. If only the moment of touching the floor was to be evaluated, numerous possibilities for dialogue in dance would be lost, numerous moments in which the decision for an organic change of direction would become impossible. The walking takes place in pairs. The man leads, the woman surrenders to the leadership. This is how the observer sees it. But the leader (as it should always be) is rather the servant: In tango, it is up to the leader to adjust to the following.10 It is their well-being that is the focus of the guidance. Tango is a mindful-playful dialogue and not a drill show for finding out all technical possibilities. Also, the

9 It is to mention that a description of a dance always will reach its limits. In my opinion, this is also the difficulty of this chapter, namely to convey this emotion of three-dimensional experience with the one-dimensional medium of writing. For this purpose, an art form would be necessary as a supplement. 10 In this text, the male form is chosen for the leader, the female form for the following person. This is of course interchangeable, the roles in dance are not gender-specific.

Dancing From Doing Theology to Dancing Theology

role-related polarization that inevitably arises in the walking dance couple does not necessarily refer to man and woman as opposites. More comprehensively, this means first and foremost being aware of the duality created by two bodies per se. Since, even before the first step, a dancing couple in the posture (so-called embrace) cannot avoid perceiving the breath of the opposite person – in lifting and lowering the chest, in perceiving the back muscles etc. – the dancing partners can synchronize their breath from the very beginning. In the ideal case, the breath thus becomes a guiding instrument; the couple becomes a non-dual being with the same breathing flow. Finally, walking requires a high degree of conscious positioning on the floor on both dance partners’ sides. The principle behind this is very simple: To move forward, you have to feel where you stand. On a physical level, the dance thus promotes the perception of one’s own position and also a sensorium for the respective position and movement of the dance partners: The connection between the dancers is based on respect for the axis, the center of the partner and his balance. Everyone is responsible for their own balance and therefore also for the ‘you’, because this way there is no need to hold on to the other person (Sartori/ Steidl: 2010, 29).

Every movement is improvised, always in dialogue between the two dancers, and spontaneously changeable. Improvising means to confront oneself directly with the freedom of movement of oneself and the other dancer. The freedom of improvising does not consist in leaving every possibility open, but in “choosing which direction we go and also dancing the con-sequence” (ibid., 88). Based on these principles – the individual self-location, breathing and walking together in the awareness of possible organic changes of direction at any time – Tango Argentino is unlimited in dance improvisation and innovation. This improvising aspect can, in successful moments, lead to a high level of alertness for oneself and the other person, an alertness that is not strained but rests within – to a body experience that is also able to suspend the specific duality of movement and silence: Thus, in tango, one can temporarily fall into a state of highly fulfilled and fulfilling silence, if one gives oneself completely to each other in the music, without intention, but in keeping with the principles. This strange silence can never be achieved by rational action, but by letting go. […] This silence is never in contradiction to external activity and speed, but does not need it. This silence is also not in contradiction to complicated steps, but does not need them either. It is beyond the duality of external calm and external activity (ibid., 49f).

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2.2

The Third Volume: The Space Between the Dancing Couple

An experience that is also repeatedly stated in tango is the following Tango does not eliminate duality in oneness, but in the ‘third’. A tango dance couple typically stands on the right side of the man and the left side of the woman in a close embrace. There is more distance between the other sides of the bodies; here the connection is made by placing the hands together. If one looks at the couple from above, the space can be divided into three areas: the area occupied by the woman’s body, the space filled by the man’s body, and another volume […]. This is delimited by the arch of the arms – the left of the man and the right of the woman, who are holding hands. Thus there is in tango a game for three, not just for two (Dinzel/Dinzel: 1999, 86).

If this third volume is reduced by changing the position of the arms, the couple loses dramatic expression, if it is increased, “the drama becomes greater than the dancers, whereby they are devoured by the dancers” (ibid., 88). This ‘third’ is understood as ‘the unknown’ in the dialogue. It can stand for a third person who is not physically present. It can be interpreted psychologically as a projection, utopian as an ideal, theologically as something divine, basically as something unknown. Sartori interprets this third volume as a symbol of dialogue that allows development: Union of two is only possible in a third person. Here, the polar tension allows the human being to strive for the absolute and the highest, including the cosmos, which is constantly expanding in dialogue. In this cosmos all tension and restlessness only comes to an end, because here the opposites touch and merge into a whole (Sartori/Steidl: 2010, 91).11

All in all with Dinzel, open to interpretation: “The only thing we know for sure is that this third person is present” (ibid., 88).

3.

Dancing Theology “The sense of dance, the sense of dance is not a special sense, at least in the understanding that there are certain arts for the ‘sense of sight’, others for the ‘sense of hearing’ and so on. Rather, if it is to be so spoken of, it would be a sense before the opening of the senses; a sense

11 Possible metaphysical interpretations of Tango Argentino will not be discussed in detail here. The aim of this article is to analyze Tango Argentino as a dance metaphor for a (body-conscious) understanding of theology and provide some impulses for the concrete practice of religious education.

Dancing From Doing Theology to Dancing Theology

that has already pushed itself before them and into their unfolding itself, or rather as this unfolding. A turned sense, turned and unfolded towards the openings of the senses. A sense that unfolds the senses.” (Nancy: 2015, 53)12

At this point, only a few conclusions can be drawn from the previous statements. The focus is put on two areas: 1. Focus on religious education: In view of the insight into the necessary integration of the body in educational processes, the question is asked of how dance can be integrated into religious education in a very concrete way. 2. Focus on the (self-)understanding of theology: Based on the suggestion to revitalize dance as a metaphor, the concepts, requirements and embodied insights from the example of Tango Argentino will be applied to contemporary theology(-tasks). A plea is to be made for an understanding of theology which – in a figurative sense – understands itself as a dancing one. Overall, this leads to a plea for an understanding of interreligious doing theology as an art of living – which is an essential task of contemporary religious education studies. 3.1

Body Awareness and Dance Practice in Religious Education

The body-mind-reason and the ‘little work and toy’, the spirit, are never clearly defined in their relationship to the world around them and need the promotion of a lively exchange. This leads to various concrete consequences for religious education: Contextual Localisation

Embodiment-oriented religious education studies have been taking place in a certain way for many years: in its self-understanding as contextual religious education studies, also in the strong focus on relevance to life in the choice of topics and methods, it is now common practice in many countries. In an even more comprehensive sense, it can be inspiring to take the so-called didactic ‘change of perspective’ seriously here as well: Rather than asking how one can understand the world, letting oneself be addressed centres on a different question, namely the question what the world might be asking from me, what the world might be trying to say to me, which, in more educational terms, is the question what the world might be trying to teach me (Biesta/Hannam: 2019, 182).

12 Translation by the author.

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Interreligious Orientation

In a multicultural society, contextuality always means interreligious pedagogy (including non-religious and religiously indifferent positions). Adolescents are faced with the individual and public essential necessity of developing their own patterns of interpretation and interpretative skills within the given ideological plurality. A major goal of interreligious education must be that students learn to communicate in dialogue in an increasingly complex environment.13 In view of the religious education goal of an individual, mature ability to orientate oneself, doing theology is useful: understood as the actively supported search for each one’s own language for ideological and religious subjects and questions (cf. Schlag/Suhner: 2018). Why and How to Integrate Dance in Religious Education: Examples

Integrating the body, specifically dance in a concrete way into religious education practice, opens up its own challenges (developmental psychological, legal, etc.) – and can stir up ‘white fire’14 . Basically to the topic body in religious education Silke Leonhard (cf. Leonhard: 2006) shows impressively the focusing approach (Eugene T. Gendlin) as a religious pedagogical option. The focusing method is characterized by a walking between the current experience of a concrete situation and its symbolization through movements, images, gestures. In this way, the physical perception of religion and its communicative symbolization is promoted. Liturgical didactics can be recommended in the work of Julia Koll, who focuses on “Praying with Body” (Koll: 2007). Dance activates the body awareness in a very specific way. As an elementary human expression, it enables a unique multidimensional access to the self and the world. As an activity that opens up interstices (cf. Klein: 2013), dance is open to subjective patterns of interpretation and is therefore suitable for making room for the experiential dimension of religion in a non-absorptive way (cf. Schnütgen/ Frenk: 2017, 6–8). In religious education, improvisation or creative dance can be used to develop innovative texts and themes (e.g. Wuckelt: 2008). Petra Pfaff offers a theology of dance, including also some reflections to didactics of dance and with a focus on dance improvisation for the creative development of religious and other themes (cf. Pfaff: 2006). Also, the method of bibliodrama should be mentioned here (cf. Naurath: 2002). Overall, dance, i.e. wordless experience, can make a contribution to intercultural, and interreligious learning beyond cognitive approaches. Therefore, especially in an interreligious respect, the publication of Anne Hilpert is interesting, 13 On the topic of ‘truth’ in an interreligious-religious educational context, cf. Nord/Schlag (2017), in particular Dressler. 14 ‘White fire’ means a deeper and innovative understanding of Holy Scriptures, which can be revealed between the lines (cf. Pohl-Patalong: 2016).

Dancing From Doing Theology to Dancing Theology

with her focus on the paradigm of the performative: Dance is presented here – very concretely – as an option to make the depth dimension of reality physically experienceable and thus to ask the question about God (cf. Hilpert: 2020). Of course, general educational works and teaching materials on dance also provide inspiration for concrete methods of religious education. 3.2

Dance As a Metaphor in Theological Contexts

The basic insight of the embodiment debate can be concretized for religion and theology as follows: Religion and theology are embodied in the environment, are planted in the ground, in physical beings. For this very reason they can only be pressed into a concrete form partially and not easily. 3.2.1 Breathing Religion

With regard to religion this does not mean that religion is only pleasantly, gently embedded. Religion also interrupts,15 breaks in, into privately or socially unquestioned things. Religious experiences of the present (cf. Müller: 2019) and religious traditions can disturb, cannot always be understood at first sight: because they affect existential, individual and public, questions and issues, because they must not only inspire, perhaps even provoke. On the basis of some principles of the Tango Argentino this can be further concretized. Walking

At the beginning of religion, there is the longing for more. The sacred is often experienced not as what is, but as what is missing. Religion therefore shows itself as an inner movement. It drives man beyond himself, seeks the encounter with the other, and keeps alive the sense of the possibility of the other: the experience of the sacred counters the retreat into the worldly and finite with a potentiation into the infinite. Consciously Dealing with the Third Volume and Breathing

“Etsi deus daretur” (Dalferth: 1997, 56). Here, however, the embodied experience is valid: The idea of religion suffocates if it focuses on just this third volume, if it must only be faith. Another idea that could make religion more liveable is the one of a breathing religion. This means lived religion, but more profoundly one

15 The understanding of the religious (ritual, text, etc.) as something that interrupts everyday life, has also been taken into account in theory and practice in liturgy and homiletics for a long time, for example the recently published publication by Deeg/Lehnert (2020).

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that consciously deals not only with God, but also with one’s own self and one’s counterpart.16 Religion can breathe, which on the one hand gives room to sober pragmatics, but on the other hand does not give up intensive search, hope, and a sensitive existence. Finding the Own Axis and Improvising from there

Improvised tango is based on technique – and improvising breaks it up. It allows innovation – which over the years can develop into an integral part of entire tango dance generations. Embodied religion sits, in analogous fashion, around black and white fire. It is based on the weighth of the black fire, the letter content of sacred texts, and builds on the fomentation of the white fire: a deeper, ever new and innovative understanding of these texts, which can be revealed between the lines (cf. Pohl-Patalong: 2016).17 3.2.2 Dancing Theology Between Academic Research and Art

With regard to theology, it is to mention: Following its own rationality of a specific approach to the world, theology can be academically and logically adept and complex, but also artistic. It can be both linguistically ingenious and stammering (cf. Suhner: 2021, 522–523). Here, of course, lies the contradiction between the scientifically accepted claim to truth and a literary, artistic search for and presentation of truth. In exact scientific statements, coherence and convergence between clearly defined facts is hardly to be found; for the artistic search for truth these qualities are essential (cf. Popper: 1982, 260). In short, theology (in a broad sense) must meander between small and great reason. This does not pave the way for an non-academic methodology within academic theology18 , but it does sharpen awareness of the relevance of great reason in the communication and implementation of scientific findings in the real context. Theology should bring these poles into dialogue, but not mix them at the expense of the loss of the other pole. As a consequence, this means an awareness of the diversity of the understanding of theology (objective and subjective theology, academic theology, ordinary theology, contextual theology, etc.). To sensitize for this is an important task especially in the context of public theology (cf. Astley: 2002; Schlag: 2018; Suhner: 2020).

16 E.g. Levinas (2003), in terms of religious education, the age-didactic approach in Grümme (2015). 17 This understanding was spread by the North American Peter Pitzele (Jewish) and his wife (Anglican Christian) in the context of the development of the ‘Bibliolog’. As a body-oriented approach to sacred texts the Bibliolog has been interreligiously oriented from the very beginning. 18 Academic methodology includes clear questions, systematic positioning in research debate, wellfounded methodology, valid and reliable measurements, etc.

Dancing From Doing Theology to Dancing Theology

Overall, dancing theology is based on tradition and at the same time creative. Academic theology, as well as institutionalized religious communities must and can provide a foundation and theoretical impulses for such innovations. A localization in relation to traditions and culturally formative language systems is (at least) necessary in terms of cultural hermeneutics (cf. Heimbrock: 2017) and can provide inspiration. However, the experience and practical creativity of each individual is crucial: “Those who do not feel themselves cannot transform the world, and those who have become mute and deaf to the world also lose their sense of self ” (Rosa: 2018, 28). Dancing theology, the truth of the feet, is the union of great and small reason, of intention, action, utopia, down-to-earthness – of past, present and future; it forms the bridge between implicit and explicit knowledge, academics and arts. From the knowledge of this constant walking and communio results an answer, tolerance towards other people, living beings and nature. Understood in this way, dancing theology is theologically, religiously educational and methodologically an extended variant of doing theology. Dancing theology as (also) art (cf. Suhner: 2021, 195–204). Musical education would be comparable here, as a way of dealing with sounds, musical styles, instruments, or artistic design, as a way of dealing with colours, perspectives, paper and canvas. These subjects are not limited to the passing on of rules and information – even more so is the passing on of skills. Similarly, theology must be practiced primarily as consideration of attitudes and concerns of one’s own life experiences, of prerequisites and their consequences, as an interplay of speech and counter-speech. In short: theology must be practiced like a language – until one can think in it, until one is able to grasp or create the sound, colour and felt figures in such a way that they become one’s own expression. Breathing religion and dancing theology will be a sign of a post-secular modernity. It can become an element of the art of living for many.

Bibliography Aesop (1930), Fabeln des Äsop, bearbeitet von V. Zobel, Leipzig: Insel Verlag. Astley, J. (2002), Ordinary Theology, Looking, Listening and Learning in Theology, Aldershot: Ashgate. Biesta, G./Hannam, P. (2019), The uninterrupted life is not worth living, On religious education and the public sphere, in Zeitschrift für Praktische Theologie (71) 2, 173–185. Brinkmann, M./Türstig, J. et al. (ed.) (2019), Leib – Leiblichkeit – Embodiment, Pädagogische Perspektiven auf eine Phänomenologie des Leibes, Wiesbaden: Springer VS.

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Brintnall, K.L. (ed.) (2016), Embodied Religion, Macmillan Interdisciplinary Handbooks, Farmington Hills: Cengage Learning. Dalferth, I.U. (1997), Vor Gott gibt es keine Beobachter, Öffentlichkeit, Universität und Theologie, in: I.U. Dalferth (ed.), Gedeutete Gegenwart. Zur Wahrnehmung Gottes in den Erfahrungen der Zeit, Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. Deeg, A./Lehnert, C. (ed.) (2020), Stille, Liturgie als Unterbrechung. Beiträge zu Liturgie und Spiritualität, Leipzig: Evangelische Verlagsanstalt. Dinzel, G./Dinzel, R. (1999), Tango, Stuttgart: Abrazos Verlag. Etzelmüller, G./Tewes, C. (ed.) (2016), Embodiment in Evolution and Culture, Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. Fingerhut, J./Hufendiek, R. et al. (2013), Philosophie der Verkörperung, Berlin: Suhrkamp. Grümme, B. (2015), Öffentliche Religionspädagogik, Religiöse Bildung in pluralen Welten, Stuttgart: Kohlhammer. Grümme, B. (2017), Heterogenität in der Religionspädagogik, Freiburg i.Br.: Herder. Habermas, J. (1988), Theorie des kommunikativen Handelns, Frankfurt a.M.: Suhrkamp. Heimbrock, H.-G. (ed.) (2017), Taking Position, Empirical Studies and Theoretical Reflections on Religious Education and Worldview, Teachers Views about their Personal Commitment in RE teaching, International Contributions, Münster: Waxmann. Hilpert, A. (2020), Tanz im Dazwischen, Stuttgart: Kohlhammer. Horgan, J. (1996), The End of Science, New York: Broadway Books. Kasprowicz, D. (2019), ‘Virtual Embodiment’, in: D. Kasprowicz/S. Rieger (ed.), Handbuch Virtualität, Wiesbaden: Springer VS. Klein, G. (2013), Choreografien des Alltags. Bewegung und Tanz im Kontext Kultureller Bildung, in: Kulturelle Bildung online, https://www.kubi-online.de/artikel/choreografiendes-alltags-bewegung-tanz-kontext-kultureller-bildung [2020–10–18]. Könemann, J./Wendel, S. (2019), „Leib und Körper“, in: WiReLex. Koll, J. (2007), Körper beten, Religiöse Praxis und Körpererleben, Stuttgart: Kohlhammer. Lakoff, G./Johnson, M. (1999), Philosophy in the flesh: the embodied mind and its challenge to Western thought, New York: Basic Books. Leonhard, S. (2006), Leiblich lehren und lernen, Stuttgart: Kohlhammer. Levinas, E. (4 2003), Totalität und Unendlichkeit. Versuch über die Exteriorität, W.N. Krewani (trans.), Freiburg i.Br./München: Karl Alber. Müller, S. (2019), Gelebte Theologie, Zürich: TVZ. Nancy, J.-L. (2015), Ausdehnung der Seele. Texte zu Körper, Kunst und Tanz, Zürich: Diaphenes. Nietzsche, F.W. (1974), The Gay Science [1882], W. Kaufmann (trans.) with commentary, New York: The Viking Press. Nietzsche, F.W. (1982), ‘Thus spoke Zarathustra’, in The Portable Nietzsche, W. Kaufmann (ed.), Penguin Books, New York: The Viking Press.

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Nietzsche, F.W. (2007), Twilight of the Idols with the Antichrist and Ecce Homo (trans. Antony M. Ludovici), Herts: Wordsworth Editions. Naurath, E./Aldebert, H. (2002), Bibliodrama. Theorie – Praxis – Reflexion, Stuttgart: Kohlhammer. Nord, I/Schlag, T. (ed.) (2017), Renaissance religiöser Wahrheit, Thematisierungen und Deutungen in praktisch-theologischer Perspektive, Leipzig: Evangelische Verlagsanstalt. Petersen, S. (2018), ‘Der Körper Gottes und der Körper Jesu im Neuen Testament’, in: Evang. Theol. 78 (1), 19–31. Peyker, I. (2006), Die Wahrheit der Füsse, Buch 3: Wider die globale Kapitalisierung des Natur-Körpers und der Körper-Natur. Anstiftung zur Gegen-Dressur, Herbholzheim: Centaurus-Verlag. Pfaff, P.-C. (2006), Beweg Gott und Mensch. Grundzüge einer Theologie der Bewegung und kreativen Didaktik des Tanzes im Kontext von Schule und Kirche, Leipzig: Evangelische Verlagsanstalt, 180–190. Pohl-Patalong, U. (2016), „Bibliolog“, in: WiReLex. Popper, K.R. (19822 ), Ausgangspunkte. Meine intellektuelle Entwicklung, Hamburg: Hoffmann und Campe Verlag. Rosa, H./Endres, W. (2 2016), Resonanzpädagogik. Wenn es im Klassenzimmer knistert, Weinheim-Basel: Beltz-Verlag. Rosa, H. (2018), Unverfügbarkeit, Wien: Residenz-Verlag. Sartori, R./Steidl, P. (2010), Tango, Die einende Kraft des tanzenden Eros, München: Hugendubel. Sartori, R. (2012), Tango. Die Essenz, München: dotbooks. Schlag, T. (2018), Die Leitperspektiven der „Kommunikation des Evangeliums“ und der Kinder- und Jugendtheologie, in: G. Büttner/H. Roose/T. Schlag (ed.), „Was ist für dich der Sinn?“ Kommunikation des Evangeliums mit Kindern und Jugendlichen, Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 207–217. Schlag, T./Suhner, J. (2018), Interreligiöses Lernen im öffentlichen Bildungskontext, Zürich: TVZ. Schnütgen, T. /Frenk, A. (2017), „Tanz“, in: WiReLex. Smith, J.E.H. (ed.) (2017), Embodiment. A History, New York: Oxford University Press. Storch, M./Cantieni, B. et al. (3 2017), Embodiment. Die Wechselwirkung von Körper und Psyche verstehen und nutzen, Bern: Hogrefe Verlag. Strasser, P. (1993), Geborgenheit im Schlechten. Über die Spannung zwischen Kunst und Religion, Essay, Wien: Deuticke. Suhner, J. (2021), Menschenrechte – Bildung – Religion, Paderborn: Schöningh. Suhner, J. (2020), Differenzierungen und Anfragen aus theologisch-religionspädagogischer Sicht, in: T. Knauth/W. Weisse (ed.), Ansätze, Kontexte und Impulse zu dialogischem Religionsunterricht Dialogischer Religionsunterricht, Hamburg, 137–143. Von Segni, L. (Innozenz III.) (1990), Vom Elend des menschlichen Daseins (1194), Hildesheim: Georg Olms Verlag.

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Wagner, A. (2010), Göttliche Körper – göttliche Gefühle, Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht. Wagner, A. (2013), „Körperteile“, in: WiBiLex. Wuckelt, A. (2008), Wer nicht tanzt, weiß nicht was sich ereignet. Tanz und Bibeldidaktik, in: M. Keuchen/M. Lenz et al. (ed.), Tanz und Religion, Frankfurt a.M.: Otto Lembeck Verlag.

Part V Inter-Dance: Interreligious and Intercultural Dances in the Third Space

Dominika Hadrysiewicz

In-Between Śiva and Jesus Indian Classical Dance as a ‘Third Space’

Indian music is playing. In front of us stands an Indian Jesuit, a member of a Christian, or more precisely, a Catholic order. He wears little bells on his ankles. They begin to sound, when Fr Dr Saju George SJ sets himself in motion. He moves to the rhythm of the music and the bells, turning small circles, bigger circles, placing fresh flower blossoms on the floor around him. He folds his hands together, then opens his arms, turning them and his whole upper body at times towards the audience, at times upwards. Then a short break: music and dancer pause for several seconds. The music resumes, this time accompanied by Indian chanting; Saju George starts to move again, but somehow differently this time. Mimics and gestures, which seem anything but spontaneous to the audience, indicate a conscious scenic presentation of the dance elements. Only the fact that what is being presented now is the central Christian Lord’s Prayer 1 , is not immediately apparent to a large part of the audience. Not until the subsequent explanations by Saju George, which visibly excites the audience’s curiosity.

1.

Introduction

The morning session of the fourth day of the conference ‘Dance with God or the Devil? Interreligious and Intercultural Debates on Dance and Religion(s)’2 is dedicated to Saju George and his work. The program includes a lecture on ‘Dance in Indian Hindu Tradition’ as well as an ‘Interreligious Dance Workshop’, both presented as a combination of performance and lecture. Using the example of Bhāratanāt.yam he is introducing the audience to Indian classical dance and presenting its interreligious application.

1 Also known as Our Father or Pater noster. 2 Organized in March 2020 by Prof. Dr. Heike Walz who holds the Chair of Intercultural Theology and Religious Studies at the Augustana Divinity School in Germany.

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Saju George was born and raised in an Indian Thomas Christian3 family from Kerala. Inspired by the work of Mother Teresa, he moved to Kolkata and joined the order of the Jesuits to become a priest. Concurrently, he obtained professional training in Indian classical dance, on which he also wrote a doctoral thesis. Currently he is engaged in social projects and institutions, particularly leading the ‘Kalahrdaya’ center that offers socially-underprivileged children and young people basic education and dance classes (cf. George: 2018, 2:43). Furthermore, he is performing and developing choreographies, and teaching (internationally) about Indian classical dance. He considers dance as a medium for harmonizing humans and society (cf. George: 2014, 203f), thus part of his commitment to intercultural and interreligious dialogue is bringing this tradition to a broader audience. At the same time, dancing forms an integral part of his own religiosity, within which he combines forms of the dance style Bhāratanāt.yam – one of the oldest and most popular classical styles – with his Christian spiritual practice. Dancing not only becomes a means of experiencing God’s beauty but sharing this experience with others he sees as “priestly activity” (George: 2009, 00:05). Saju George opens his lecture with an explanation of the opening performance, which consisted of the welcoming sequence of Pus.pāñjali4 , followed by the Christian Lord’s Prayer. After an introduction to body postures and gestures, facial expressions and hand signs, as well as the structure of the units, he contextualizes the meaning and background of (‘sacred’) dance in India. After this theoretical discussion, he invites his audience to interact (cf. Plößner: 2020, 23:29); to imitate and try out postures and gestures for themselves and thus, to participate in an ‘embodied’ experience of inter-religious dialogue – which is the context Saju George is framing his performance/lecture (cf. George: 2020a, 08:28). Bearing this in mind helps to understand the ease and self-evidence with which he combines the two sequences into a unity and shapes them as an overall performance, despite their vastly different contexts of origin: The opening sequence of Bhāratanāt.yam, having its roots deep back in Indian and Hindu tradition, yet informing a modern interpretation of a Christian prayer, as well as other scenic narrations, which he developed adopting Christian imaginary and symbols but preserving the formal language of Indian classical dance. A question put forward by the conference organizer, Heike Walz, and running like a golden thread through the conference concerns a possible framing of Dance

3 Indigenous Christian communities located mainly in the Southwest of India which form one of the oldest Christian traditions in the world (cf. Frykenberg: 2008, 91–115; Schmidt-Leukel: 2017, 352–382). 4 A ‘salutation’ or ‘flower offering’ sequence often opening Bhāratanāt.yam performances, as well as many Indian rituals and Pūjās.

In-Between Śiva and Jesus

as a so-called ‘Third Space’5 (cf. Plößner: 2020, 1:18).6 Following this suggestion, in this essay I want to argue that, indeed, Saju George’s dance practice can serve as illuminating instance of a ‘Third Space’, and sound out the potential of such a conceptualization. Instead of focusing on encounters between religions on a level of interactions, though, in this essay I want to take a step back, and focus on the categories and notions applied within the interpretational work underlying Saju George’s interreligious dance practice as presented at the conference. In order to do so, in a first step, I will outline Bhabha’s ‘Third Space’ concept, clarify my perspective and focus, and present a brief outlook on the performance/ lecture, before locating it within the ‘Third Space’ concept.

2.

‘Third Space’ Concept, Perspective and Focus

According to Bhabha such a ‘Third Space’ is to be understood as a space characterized mainly by ‘hybridization’ and ‘ambivalence’; a realm at the ‘borderlines’ in which processes of ‘identification’ take place, which are reflected as discursively constructed (cf. Bhabha: 1994; Rutherford: 1990). What is crucial for Bhabha is a consequent rejection of any essentialism within cultural and identity discourses. Instead of assuming ‘boundaries’ as demarcating (and thus constituting) a particular object, ‘boundaries’ become the actual starting point of his perspective on ‘culture’ and ‘identity’ – as reflects in the detailed elaborations of one of his most famous works The Location of Culture (1994). By no means is this constitution to be understood as naturally given, but rather as a process that takes place within the frame of social representations. Consequently, Bhabha conceptualizes ‘culture’ not as an entity of ‘fixed coherent meanings’, but rather as a “process of signification” (Bhabha: 1994, 34) which is characterized by ‘negotiations’ of ‘ambivalent’ articulations of meaning and representation. He frames this within his notion of “cultural difference” (ibid., 31ff) which, in his view, eludes any kind of objectification, since it points to processes of ‘identification’. Thus, Bhabha conceptualizes the ‘Third Space’ as the locus where both, ‘production of meaning’ and ‘negotiation’ of cultural identification, take place (cf. ibid., 36). In conclusion, ‘culture’ according to Bhabha is to be understood as a “signifying or symbolic activity” (Rutherford: 1990, 210): as a process of ‘meaning production’ through discursive and cultural practices and their reciprocal inter-relationship,

5 As conceptualized by the literary scholar and cultural anthropologist Homi K. Bhabha (cf. Bhabha: 1994; Rutherford: 1990). 6 Cf. Heike Walz, “Dance as Third Space. Introduction to Interreligious, Intercultural, and Interdisciplinary Debates on Dance and Religion(s)” in this volume.

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which result in fundamental ‘hybridity’ (cf. ibid., 209ff). As such, these constructions are inherently dependent on their underlying processes of social negotiation and its assertions. Although Bhabha was theorizing from a broader perspective on ‘culture’, applying it to the realm of ‘religion’ meets with developments within the study of religion since the 1960s. Clifford Geertz’ approach to study Religion As a Cultural System (1966) can serve as a prominent example representing the discipline’s ‘shift’ towards the broader spectrum of the ‘Humanities’, thus opting for theories, methods and perspectives from cultural and social sciences (cf. Feldtkeller: 2014, 85–118). Despite heterogeneity of views, accompanying and ongoing debates on the discipline’s self-identification (which multiplies with regard to the various sub-disciplines included), since the 1980s one main line established a further, ‘discourse’-oriented turn (cf. ibid., 119–153). Today, the ‘Discursive Study of Religion’ can be described as vital and developing research program. Although it shows a high degree of theoretical and methodological heterogeneity,7 contributions broadly share the ‘discursive paradigm’, according to which “religion is not something that is simply found ‘out there’; rather, ‘religion’ is something that is ‘created’ through cultural and communicational processes” (von Stuckrad/Wijsen: 2016, 3). Hence, “it is the task of the academic study of religion to address the processes that ‘make’ religion” (ibid.). Taking up this lead, in what follows, I will scrutinize out the underlying process of ‘identification’ applied within Saju George’s interpretation of Bhāratanāt.yam by examining the presented mediation, use and negotiation of symbolism.8 I am drawing on both, participant observation (cf. Franke/Maske: 2011; Lamnek: 2005, 547–640) as well as additional selected material for the analysis. Although I try to demarcate Saju George’s perspective – by presenting it as close as possible in the “mediation”-parts – from my discussion in the “negotiation”-parts, I nevertheless recognize that it still forms part of my reading of Saju George’s approach ‘in the light of ’ the applied ‘Third Space’ concept.9

7 As becomes apparent within the edited volume by Kocku von Stuckrad and Frans Wijsen Making Religion. Theory and Practice in the Discursive Study of Religion (2016). 8 There are, of course, many other aspects of ‘negotiation’ then ‘symbolic representation’ to be taken into account in order to present a more comprehensive analysis of this dance practice, as for example gender conceptions, notions of applied aesthetics, modes of embodiment, and more, which would require a separate piece of work. 9 Due to limitations that come with short-time observation setting, it inevitably stays an etic perspective, as the reconstruction of an emic one as well as a comprehensive reconstruction of the overall identity discourse in which this negotiation process is embedded, would require a paper of far greater scope.

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3.

Mediating Religious and Cultural Background of Bhāratanāt.yam10

Before going into detail about the cultural-historical and aesthetic location of Indian classical dance, Saju George highlights the spiritual dimensions of this art form, revealing its historically religious embedding and elaborating on a kind of underlying “theology of dance” (George: 2020a, 12:12) by referring to central conceptions of the Self and of God (or the Divine, respectively) reflected here. To illustrate he uses the depiction of a bronze statuette showing the Hindu Lord Śiva as Nat.arāja (often translated as Lord of the Dance, or Supreme Dancer) dancing the Tān.d.ava (also known as Throne Dance or Cosmic Dance) (cf. Plößner: 2020, 23:30). According to the predominant Hindu conception all depicted elements – body parts and posture, accessories, ornamentation and surrounding – carry religious symbolism (cf. George: 2014, 204–207). They are explained in detail on the basis of this iconographic representation (cf. Plößner: 2020, 23:37), which plays an essential role in the cultural and religious-historical imagination of the Indian subcontinent, so that it has shaped the spiritual self-understanding of many devotional Hindus, but has also become highly-relevant within the wider Indian context, deeply influencing many other religious traditions beyond narrowly termed ‘Hinduism’.11 Already in the Vedic tradition creation is being referred to as taking place through God’s dance (cf. George: 2014, 205), which explains the widely high estimation of dance practices, and also indicates why dance was and still is regarded by many (although not all) Hindus and Indians as a ‘sacred activity’.12 Additionally, Saju George points to the devotional dimension of dance used as religious practice by revealing an underlying spiritual narrative rooted in Saivite theology (cf. ibid., 203): Beside being regarded as an explicit form of worship, dance is seen as an attempt of abandoning the Self in order to become unified with the Divine and of trying to approach its ‘true beauty’ (cf. Plößner: 2020, 24:00). This beauty, however, is not reduced to a mere outward appearance, but includes all elements of dance: Āṅgika which aims at perfecting bodily movement and postures, Vāchika which includes the accompanying music, rhythm, and singing, Āhārya

10 Focusing on Saju George’s perspective in the “mediation”-parts, I am referring to additional information from the literature only within the footnotes. 11 Much research has been done on the notion of ‘Hinduism’, its historical embeddedness within colonial structures, and the difficulties of its definition, both with respect to the various religious movements and spiritual attitudes it comprised and still does (cf. Sax: 2009; Michaels: 2012), and whether it should count as a ‘religion’ or ‘philosophy’ at all (cf. Malinar: 2007). 12 In that regard, the role of the Nāt.yaśāstra, the classical treatise on the arts, is worth noting: Popular legend traces it back to the sage Bharata. Although its historical origin remains disputed (cf. Sax: 2009, 82), its high esteem and authority is reflected in its occasional (but unofficial) reference as the ‘fifth Veda’ (cf. ibid.; Michaels: 2012, 34).

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which deals with everything external to the dancing person, as costumes, make-up, props, etc. and, most importantly, Sāttvika, a conscious attitude of mind of the dancer. Only when all these elements come together and interrelate appropriately, then ‘true beauty’ emerges (cf. George: 2020b, 25:50) – a beauty for which souls strive on their path to self-transcendence and unification with the Divine, as imagined especially within the mystic tradition of the Nāyaṉmārs within Śaiva siddhānta (cf. George: 2014, 205ff). “Beauty here is in seeing the sacredness in the Sacred, experiencing the divinity in the Divine movements” (ibid., 211). ‘Sacred dance’ has been an integral part of Indian temple traditions for centuries. As such it has been culturally and socially institutionalized as a religious practice, performed by designated temple dancers, the Devadāsis (George: 2020a, 1:03:00). A tradition which decreased end ended in the course of colonization, and laws were passed prohibiting temple dance (cf. ibid., 1:05:12),13 so that dance, rather estimated in its artistic forms of expression, was only permitted within the cultural space of art, performance and entertainment.14 This, nevertheless, did not diminish its popularity, as the dance style of Bhāratanāt.yam flourished both within classical forms and modern adaptions on Indian as well as international dance and theater stages.15 As a matter of fact, today, Bhāratanāt.yam can be considered as one of the most significant cultural properties of India’s cultural heritage – whether regarded as explicitly ‘sacred’ dance or not. Additionally, within (postcolonial) revitalization processes also new developments have been recorded,16 so that today both forms of embedding are very common and increasingly flourishing (ibid., 1:06:16).

4.

Negotiating Religious and Cultural Background of Bhāratanāt.yam

Saju George repeatedly emphasizes the ascribed ‘sacrality’ of Indian classical dance and refers to the religious embedding not only throughout history but also at present: “It is a religious art” (George: 2014, 203). In recent years, though, it has been disputed whether Bhāratanāt.yam should be seen as directly tracing back to the very primordial religious and sacral temple

13 A ban that was formalized by state governments after India’s independence in 1948 (cf. Gaston/ Gaston: 2014, 195). 14 Which one interestingly could frame as a ‘shift’ of dance/drama qua representation of religious myths or as a form of religious narrative into a ‘secularized’ space of arts. 15 Some researchers even suggest a vitalizing effect including a “greater emphasis on elements of religious ritual” (cf. Gaston/Gaston: 2014, 195f). 16 Gaston states that the “progressive accretion of religious elements in the dance has been ongoing since the 1970s” (Gaston: 2018, 107) but also points to different positions and debates with regard to a religious recreation of the dance (cf. ibid., 106–119).

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dance, or should be regarded as ultimately developed from dance forms outside of the temples, and therefore not reflecting an explicit ‘sacred’ or ‘religious’ origin. In the literature when introducing Bhāratanāt.yam, references to sacred temple dance as its origin are very common. However, when going into more detailed analyses different positions can be found and indicate ongoing debates especially within modern interpretations and adaptations of Bhāratanāt.yam (cf. O’Shea: 1998; Voss Roberts: 2012; Gaston/Gaston: 2014; Gaston 2018). This fact can also point to changing interpretations throughout history, and as a strategy of positioning within discourses of identity politics, which also include the highly complex subject of the Devadāsis (cf. O’Shea: 1998; Gaston: 2018, 18–39). That explains the vast variation of narratives on the religious embedding of Bhāratanāt.yam which include traditionalist re-interpretations tying it back to its narrowly defined ‘Hindu’ roots within and outside of India17 ; other Indian religious interpretations as, for example, Christian ones from communities in India or within the global Indian diaspora18 ; as well as debates about endeavors to even detach it from its ascribed narrow religious connotations in the first place (cf. Zubko: 2014, 7ff; Gaston: 2018, 18–26). Within this ongoing discourse and ‘negotiation’ Saju George clearly takes a ‘religious’ stance (cf. George: 2020a, 1:19:14). That also reflects while elaborating on its sources within Indian Theory of Aesthetics. Despite the various developments in ascribing ‘sacrality’ or ‘secularity’ to Bhāratanāt.yam, within the history of the arts the centrality of the Nāt.yaśāstra, the classical treatise on the arts which is deeply embedded within classical Indian Philosophy of Aesthetics, remains rather undisputed. Here, even if not interpreted as explicitly ‘religious’, though, dance and drama are not attributed with merely artistic and entertainment value, but also with a higher status as a medium for self-knowledge, serving the highest aim to transcend one’s Ego (cf. Sax: 2009, 81f). This especially reflects in one of the most central concepts of classical Indian Theory of Aesthetics: the notion of Rasa. It generally translates into a special kind of ‘taste’ or ‘flavor’ of a good performance, having an ‘elevating’ effect on the audience, leaving the spectator with a great sense of ‘bliss’ (cf. ibid.). In a narrow sense, Rasa also designates basic emotions, such as “love, humor, valor, wonder, disgust, fear, anger, and compassion” (Voss Roberts: 2012), all of which can be evoked in the audience by a ‘good’ performance of the artist. The Nāt.yaśāstra drawing on theories from the psychology of emotions, aims at providing knowledge and training on how to achieve that elevating effect.

17 Saju George reports that besides of generally facing much approval from the majority of attendees from various and divers religious contexts at his performances in India, to have also met with resistance from a neo-Hindu group in Germany, protesting against a performance planned in Munich in 2019 (cf. Manthan Munich: 2019; Jesuiten weltweit: 2019). 18 Cf. especially the studies on modern interpretations by Ketu H. Katrak (2004), Katherine C. Zubko (2014; 2015) and Michele Voss Roberts (2012).

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While elaborating in more detail on the psychology of emotions applied and the complex process of putting all the above mentioned relevant performance elements in an ideal proportion19 , Saju George also refers to the Nāt.yaśāstra as essential source. By doing so, the proximity of his religious interpretation of art to the philosophical foundation of Indian Aesthetics clearly emerges, as he states “the Natyasastra […] sets dance on a sacred foundation” (George: 2014, 205). Aside from his personal religious framing, this, also can be seen as due to the fact that the boundaries between Indian Philosophy and basic Indian spiritual underpinnings are not as strictly differentiated as within Western Philosophy, but are much more closely intertwined (cf. Malinar: 2007). In Saju George’s case this entanglement stands out prominently, as he resumes: “The idea of the beautiful in God […] may be termed as a theological aesthetics or aesthetic theology” (George: 2014, 210). ‘Hybridity’ of conceptualizations within the underlying process of navigating ‘ambivalent’ interpretations clearly stands out.

5.

Mediating Symbolism within the ‘Language’ of Dance

Saju George elaborates on his choreographical work, development and use of Christian symbolism within the realm of Bhāratanāt.yam, which serves him as a ‘medium’, and which he accordingly identifies as a “language” (George: 2020b, 31:43). He is well aware that, like any language, it has a particular context of origin, and thus he points to the formal codifications of the dance style, which, as he states, in its particular historical form has been developed by Hindus. On the other hand, though, he stresses that it is by no means to be considered as exclusively ‘Hindu’, but on a more general level, it should be understood as a universal aesthetic and bodily form of expression, “an artistic, symbolic language” (ibid., 32:20), and thus open to interpretation and use (cf. ibid., 31:54). However, he distinguishes on a more concrete level of symbolism, considering for example particular symbols as ‘specifically Hindu’ – if, for example, serving as genuine reference to, or representation of a certain Hindu deity, for example Śiva, Kr.s.n.a, or Gan.eśa (cf. Plößner: 2020, 24:36). Thus, he elaborates on symbols – whether hand gestures or body postures – he considers as being particularly ‘reserved’ for the ‘Hindu context’, and would therefore not use for Christian adaptations (cf. George: 2020b, 47:04). By means of this approach, he expresses his respect for Hindu traditions. To clarify, he demonstrates his use of the symbol for Christ within the Christian Trinity, for which the symbol of the Hindu Trishula symbolizing Śiva is explicitly

19 Which cannot be elaborated here in detail, cf. for example Baldissera/Michaels: 1988; Voss Roberts: 2012; Zubko: 2015).

In-Between Śiva and Jesus

not being used (cf. ibid., 48:05). Although both hand gestures (mudrās) involve three fingers he demarcates them clearly by using other arms and arm positioning as well as different three fingers and distinct arrangement. Although to outsiders those symbols can seem quite alike, detailed knowledge of the differences and corresponding ‘gestural codes’ for Saju George is essential. Though he is careful to respect religious context and ascribed ‘sanctity’, he promotes the development and usage of (embodied) symbols of that which he considers not to be ‘explicitly religious’, or “typically religious” (ibid., 48:27), respectively. Postures and gestures that are intended to represent “human relationships” (ibid., 32:00) on a more general level or, for example, concepts, situations, emotions and objects, such as: ‘holding a baby’, ‘woman’, ‘man’, ‘crying’, ‘joy’, etc., he does not consider to be ‘exclusively Hindu’, but belonging to the artistic realm that is open to anybody’s interpretation, and which serves him as a ‘medium’ for ‘translation’ while developing choreographies for Christian prayers or scenic (biblical) narrations. Here, they are combined with Christian symbolism, for example iconic representations drawn from the Christian imaginary repertoire (cf. ibid., 32:44) as shown by representations of Jesus Christ carrying the cross, Christ crucified, a scenic representation of the annunciation to Jesus’ mother Mary, a sequence of the narration of Jesus and the woman taken in adultery, and others (cf. Plößner: 2020, 24:51).

6.

Negotiating Symbolism within the ‘Language’ of Dance

For Saju George, it is precisely the combination of locating cultural-historical context with the creative and general openness of the art form that makes dance a suitable medium for ‘translation’. By designing and employing symbolic equivalencies for representations in distinct contexts, he aims at taking ‘difference’ into account while literally ‘embodying’ interreligious sensitivity. This approach seems very clear and reflected in all the above mentioned aspects. Yet, in my reading and when taking the Bhabhanian framework into account, an underlying process of ‘identification’ reveals itself. As becomes clear, Saju George is navigating various spaces of ‘meaning production’ both within his dance practice itself, as well as within the process of mediation, where instances of ‘negotiation’ of ‘ambivalence’ can be identified: regarding the use of the ‘Hindu’ category; regarding the framing of dance as a ‘universally applicable language’; as well as – and intertwined with the former both – regarding the ascription of ‘sanctity’ to dance. In all of those aspects certain tensions reveal itself, which I want to address, following Bhabha’s suggestion to look at the ‘ambivalences’ at the ‘borderlines’ – not in order to deconstruct his interpretation, though, but to explicate the deep layer of this ‘interpretational work in progress’.

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The first tension can be observed within Saju George’s use of the ‘Hindu’ category which seems to be employed in different ways: On the one hand, to denote a specific religious tradition within the realm of narrowly defined ‘Hinduism’, for example when referring to ascribed specificity of symbols and their ‘reservation’ for this context. On the other hand, when elaborating on the history and cultural relevance of Indian classical dance, he seems to point to a certain religious-philosophical underpinning of Indian culture, thus applying it in a much broader sense (at times using ‘Hindu culture’ and ‘Indian culture’ equivalently), almost as an indicator of a ‘cultural’ category, including diverse Indian religious traditions from outside the realm of narrowly defined ‘Hinduism’. In this paper I cannot provide a comprehensive elaboration on the difficulties of defining ‘Hinduism’ which already have been revealed in a great corpus of research. At this juncture, however, I would like to highlight that Saju George is navigating exactly within this ongoing discourse, that has deeply influenced academic debates as well as recent public discourses of identity politics: Whereas the notion of ‘Hinduism’ from the beginning of its (academic) construction compromised a vast “diversity of religious ideas and communities” (Madan: 2003, 52), and therefore should be read as inherently pluralistic, also Indian reformist and revivalist endeavors must be essentially taken into account in the formation of conceptions of ‘Modern Hinduism’ with unifying tendencies within the 19th and 20th century (cf. ibid.). Within recent developments especially neo-Hindu identity movements are promoting unification of a narrowly defined ‘Hinduism’ as a ‘religious’ category, but closely linked to national identity (cf. Munson: 2010). Research indicates, however, that the specification of an alleged unitary religious belief system is still highly debated (cf. Malinar: 2007; Sax: 2009; Michaels: 2012). Another stance framing the term ‘Hindu’ in a broader sense, includes diversity of cultural and religious traditions by identifying a more general relevancy of specific key features of different traditions ‘meeting’ within specific aspects of Indian culture, as reflects within the example of common underpinnings of Indian Psychology and Aesthetics (cf. Sax: 2009). Thus, Saju George’s use of the ‘Hindu’ category and my identified tension should be read as pointing to a deep embeddedness within a generally ‘ambivalent’ field of processes of ‘identification’ within academic as well as public and political discourses.20 Within his own negotiation of symbolism, and especially being motivated by interreligious sensitivity, in my view, also ‘hybridity’ of conceptualizations emerges, with tendencies to presumably address narrow definitions, assuming that a broader reading would also be included in that regard.

20 Elaborating in more detail on the power relations and dynamics at work here is essential, and would constitute further (empirical) research.

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The second and third tension also touch the ‘religious/cultural’-distinction revealed above and arise within the context of framing dance as a ‘language’ on the one hand, and its explicit ascription to the religious realm when defining it as a ‘sacred’ activity, on the other hand. Saju George’s conception of Indian classical dance as a universally applicable ‘language’, appears to lend its broader ‘legitimacy’ as a universal Indian ‘cultural’ asset, thus being located within a broader cultural realm. Postures and gestures that are representing a more ‘general’ realm of “human relationships” (George: 2020b, 32:00) – which in my reading point to an anthropological designation of corresponding concepts – he does not consider as carrying explicit religious connotations. The demarcating line seems to be drawn between those symbols representing particular (Hindu) deities, their relations among each other and to humans; and a distinct realm of ‘human relationships’ designating human relationships among each other and their surrounding, i.e. to nature (cf. ibid., 32:06). Latter one’s are those designated as ‘open’ to interpretation and use – which he then ‘translates’ and “take[s] it as religious now” (ibid., 32:38), i.e. (re-)interprets religiously. Whether this should be properly described as a re-interpretation that is being realized within in a second step, or as an interpretation that is already implied within the act of drawing the demarcation line, as well as the question whether or not in such a reading a conception of a ‘universal spirituality’ underlying the particular religious traditions can be identified, would constitute questions for further research. Same applies to the interaction dynamics within mediation settings, that I did not focus on in this paper, but which would be essential in order to take potential transformational processes in consideration which might occur when such new interpretations of Bhāratanāt.yam reflect back on the particular audiences, their (religious and/or cultural) self-identification, and potential changes within the symbolic repertoire of the involved religious traditions. Despite those open questions, it becomes clear that Saju George is navigating a complex process of ‘identification’ which is embedded within a wider range of religious, artistic, public and political discourses.

Conclusion As I aimed to elucidate, reading Saju George’s work through the lense of the ‘Third Space’ concept, facilitates a deeper understanding of the underlying process of navigation of ‘ambivalences’ within the activity of dancing (which includes developing of symbolic representations within new choreographies). Dancing thus becomes a ‘symbolizing activity’ and can be identified as exactly the space in which those ‘boundaries’ in question are being ‘negotiated’ – icon by icon, symbol by symbol.

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It becomes clear that this process of negotiation also touches one of the key questions in the recent study of religion, the relation of ‘religion’ and ‘culture’ and the highly debated question regarding a proper or possible demarcation of those categories, or their inherent relational entanglement, respectively. Here, these fundamental questions clearly arise on three levels: with regard to the applied ‘Hindu’ category; the framing of dance as a cultural, universally applicable ‘language’; as well as in the ascription of ‘sacrality’ to Bhāratanāt.yam. Within Saju George’s dancing practice these fundamental questions are being ‘negotiated’ – on a cognitive as well as an ‘embodied’ level – in an ‘ongoing’ and thus not (yet) finalized process of ‘identification’, which in my reconstruction in the light of the Bhabhanian framework makes it a paradigmatic instance of a ‘Third Space’.

Bibliography Baldissera, F./Michels, A. (1988), Der indische Tanz. Körpersprache in Vollendung, Köln: DuMont Buchverlag. Bhaba, H.K. (1994), The Commitment to Theory, in id., The Location of Culture, London: Routledge, 19–39. Feldtkeller, A. (2014), Umstrittene Religionswissenschaft. Für eine Neuvermessung ihrer Beziehung zur Säkularisierungstheorie, Leipzig: Evangelische Verlagsanstalt. Franke, E. /Maske, V. (2011), Teilnehmende Beobachtung als Verfahren qualitativer Religionsforschung, in: K. Lehmann/S. Kurth (ed.), Religionen erforschen. Kulturwissenschaftliche Methoden in der Religionswissenschaft, Wiesbaden: VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften, 105–134. Frykenberg, R.E. (2008), Christianity in India. From Beginnings to the Present, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Gaston, A.-M. (A.)/Gaston, T. (2014), Dance as a Way of Being Religious, in F.B. Brown (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Religion and the Arts, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 182–202. Gaston, A.-M. (A.) (2018), Bharatanatyam Evolves. From Temple to Theater and back again, New Delhi: Manohar. George S.J., S. (2009), What does Priesthood have to do with Dance?, Interview with João Delicado S.J., 29.05.2009, video, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Zx9cN6IeFE [23.01.2021]. George S.J., S. (2014), Indian Classical Dance – An Art of Interfaith Dialogue, in: K. Beurle (ed.), Gott – einzig und vielfältig, Religionen im Dialog, vol. 1, Das Göttliche im Herzen der Menschen, Würzburg: Echter, 203–217. George S.J., S. (2018), Saju George SJ about himself as an Indian classical dancer, 14.06.2018, Gurjarvani, video, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IQl2zyQbvPI [23.01.2021].

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George S.J., S. (2020a), Dance in Indian Hindu Tradition, 05.03.2020, conference ‘Dance with God or the Devil? Interreligious and Intercultural Debates on Dance and Religion(s)’, Neuendettelsau, lecture, [unpublished] record by Franka Plößner. George S.J., S. (2020b), Interreligious Dance Workshop, 05.03.2020, conference ‘Dance with God or the Devil? Interreligious and Intercultural Debates on Dance and Religion(s)’, Neuendettelsau, lecture, [unpublished] record by Franka Plößner. Jesuiten Weltweit (2019), Internet-Hetze. Saju-Auftritt in München abgesagt, 04.07.2019. https://www.jesuitenmission.de/news/internet-hetze-saju-auftritt-in-muenchenabgesagt.html [23.01.2021]. Katrak, K.H. (2004), Cultural Translation of Bharata Natyam into Contemporary Indian Dance. Second-generation South Asian Americans and cultural politics in diasporic locations, South Asian Popular Culture, 2 (2), 79–102. Lamnek, S. (4 2005), Qualitative Sozialforschung. Lehrbuch, Weinheim und Basel: Beltz. Madan, T.N. (2003), Hinduism, in M. Juergensmeyer, (ed.) (2003), Global Religions, An Introduction, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 52–62. Malinar, A. (2007), “Philosophische Argumentation” und “religiöse Praxis” im Hinduismus, in: A. Koch (ed.), Watchtower Religionswissenschaft. Standortbestimmungen im wissenschaftlichen Feld, Marburg: Diagonal-Verlag, 181–204. Manthan Munich (2019), Protest against “Der tanzende Jesuit” organized by Indien Institut Munich, Online-Petition auf Change.org. https://www.change.org/p/organization-protestagainst-dancing-body-dancing-soul-der-tanzende-jesuit? [23.01.2021]. Michaels, A. (2 2012), Der Hinduismus. Geschichte und Gegenwart, München: C.H. Beck. Munson, H. (2010), Fundamentalism, in J.R. Hinnells (ed.) (2 2010), The Routledge Companion to the Study of Religion, London: Routledge, 354–371. O’shea, J. (1998), Traditional Indian Dance and the Making of Interpretive Communities, Asian Theatre Journal, vol. 15 (1), 45–63. Plößner, F. (2020), Augustana Hochschule – Dance with God or the Devil? – Intercultural Dance Conference – Documentation, 28.07.2020, video, https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=nnvdTCy05_M [23.01.2021]. Rutherford, J. (1990), The Third Space, Interview with Homi Bhabha, in id. (ed.), Identity, Community, Culture, Difference, London: Lawrence and Wishart, 207–221. Sax, W.S. (2009), Ritual and Theater in Hinduism, in: B. Holm/B. Flemming Nielsen/K. Vedel (ed.), Religion, Ritual, Theater, Frankfurt a.M.: Peter Lang, 79–105. Schmidt-Leukel, P. (2017), God beyond boundaries, A Christian and Pluralist Theology of Religions, New York: Waxmann. Stuckrad, K. von/Wijsen, F. (2016), Introduction, in id. (ed.), Making Religion. Theory and Practice in the Discursive Study of Religion, Boston: Brill, 1–11. Voss Roberts, M. (2012), Tasting the Divine, The Aesthetics of Religious Emotion in Indian Christianity, Religion (42) 4, 575–595. Zubko, K.C. (2014), Dancing Bodies of Devotion, Fluid Gestures in Bharata Natyam, Lanham: Lexington Books.

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Zubko, K.C. (2015), An Aesthetics of Hospitality, Embodied Religious Experience and Scholarly Engagement in Hindu-Christian Studies, Journal of Hindu-Christian Studies (28), 33–39.

Iris B. Steil

Dancing in Between Religion(s) Homi Bhabha’s Concept of Third Space and its Possibilities for Interreligious Encounters Dance – a word provoking not one, but millions of associations within a wide range of meaning. A phenomenon, basically bodily connected and belonging with one’s innermost personal feelings, whilst at the same time often artificially shaped and structured by the most elaborate rules imaginable. Therefore, contrary in itself, dance and dancing are barely tangible but nevertheless one of the most basic human expressions. Similarly, when asking about a definition of religion, there is hardly one to be found that everyone could agree on. Talking about religious identity, therefore, can be as hard as learning to dance the minuet – even if it is as closely belonging to oneself as the tapping of one’s feet to some groovy rhythm. This essay tracks some of these links and would like to offer an invitation to follow some reflections about interreligious encounters in an unusual form of ‘dialogue’. A form of ‘dialogue’ off the beaten track, replacing round table discussions by dance floor performances, maybe thereby opening up chances for finding new insights on others – and oneself.

1.

Homi Bhabha’s Third Space as an Interreligious Dance Floor

In 1990, Homi K. Bhabha gave a well-known interview providing a new perspective on intercultural relations (cf. Rutherford: 1990). His theory centers on the concept of a so-called ‘Third Space’, a neutral space allowing cultures to meet in equality and to avoid structures of dominance and dependency. Such structures are always inherent in common meeting situations due to the fact that cultural exchange is – metaphorically speaking – taking place within one or the other culture with its own specific framework.1

1 As will be shown, cultural phenomena are closely intertwined with each other as every part of them is itself in a permanent process of identity construction. This self-construction of identity does not happen in a static way, but as a fluent process in exchange and relating to other cultural phenomena (cf. Struve: 2013, 117). Within this permanent process of exchange, however, inequalities prevail with different influences being weighed differently.

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Although it is obvious that religion and culture cannot be equated (cf. Bernhardt: 2019, 69), there are also numerous links between both. Therefore, it seems that Homi Bhabha’s approach to cultural interrelations can be transferred and adapted to interreligious encounters as envisioned here. 1.1

‘Religious Diversity’: Interreligious Meetings as Meetings within a ‘Dominant’ Religion

Today’s societies share one characteristic feature: they include people from a wide range of different cultures living next to and intertwined with each other. This reality of ‘cultural diversity’, in spite of its numerous chances for openness, overcoming of prejudices and the possibility of creating new connections, lacks equality right from the outset. In Homi Bhabha’s opinion, the concept of ‘cultural diversity’ which most societies are living today is causing unjust and thus instable preconditions for intercultural exchange (cf. Rutherford: 1990, 208). What is causing these troubles? According to Homi Bhabha, the more dominant culture will define the framework for any exchange in the end, setting the rules and principles for the encounter and thus being in a leading, defining and controlling position. Multiculturalism represents “an attempt both to respond to and to control the dynamic of the articulation of cultural difference, administering a consensus based on a norm that propagates cultural diversity” (ibid., 208f). The exchange between cultures meeting under such preconditions can neither be free nor equal and thus will not provide a true partnership. Inequalities persist, leading to discontent, sometimes even culminating in open aggression and violence. Transferring this concept to settings of interreligious encounters, there is a similar danger for inequality and unjust meeting conditions.2 We are constantly living within societies in which multiple religions and spiritual trends exist next to and intertwine with one another. Every religion provides its very own set of faith, every participant is firmly established and entangled within his or her deepest personal beliefs, the traditions and faith of his or her religious heritage, bringing all of this along consciously or unconsciously when meeting with other believers. Therefore, interreligious dialogue a priori can never be set in a neutral environment – even in spite of deliberate approaches to prevent this. One or the other party might define the conditions of – in this case religious – diversity similarly to the dominant culture does in cultural diversity. This seems to bear multiple risks such

2 This transfer and thus extension of Homi Bhabha’s originally secular concept is possible due to the interconnectedness of religious and cultural settings: “Religion forms culture and is itself formed by culture” (Bernhardt: 2019, 69, translated by author).

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as eurocentrism and colonial heritage, which are not tolerable in any present-day encounter and need to be overcome. 1.2

Alternative Concept: ‘Third Space’ as Opportunity for ‘Religious Translation’?

As an alternative to the concept of ‘cultural diversity’, Homi Bhabha proposes the concept of ‘cultural difference’. This might seem controversial at first, but ‘difference’ is not meant to stand for unbridgeable differences. Instead, for Homi Bhabha it is the difference both inside and between meeting cultures that ensures the possibility of equal terms in intercultural encounters. This coexistence on equal terms of different cultural phenomena creates a certain space in between cultures, and it is exactly this “in-between” that Homi Bhabha is aiming for. He calls this area of discourse a ‘Third Space’ (cf. Rutherford: 1990, 211). This ‘Third Space’ is distinguished by its special nature, its ‘hybridity’, that provides immense possibilities for intercultural encounters. The hybridity of the ‘Third Space’ builds a bridge3 in between meeting cultures on which intercultural exchange can take place “in-between” on equal terms. Homi Bhabha’s notion of ‘hybridity’ is based on the concept of liminality provided by cultural anthropologist Victor Turner (1920–1983): According to Victor Turner, liminality is a special social condition slipping through the usual fixed framework of conditions and positions in a cultural space. Liminal creatures are neither here nor there; they are neither one thing nor another, but instead find themselves between positions fixed by law, tradition, conventions or ceremony (Turner: 1998, 251).

This happens especially within the second stage of rites of passage, as originally stated by Arnold van Gennep (1873–1957, Van Gennep: 1981, 20), which is characterized by a certain ambiguity, or hybridity, the way Homi Bhabha refers to it when describing the characteristics of the Third Space. This liminal hybridity provided by the Third Space displaces the histories that constitute it, and sets up new structures of authority, new political initiatives, which are inadequately understood through received wisdom” and thereby “enables other positions to emerge (Rutherford: 1990, 211).

3 Homi Bhabha takes the metaphor of the bridge from Martin Heidegger (1889–1976, cf. Struve: 2013, 98) in order to show the special character of this hybridity as “the ambulant, ambivalent articulation of the beyond” (Bhabha: 1994, 5) that is provided by the ‘Third Space’.

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Homi Bhabha’s concept of ‘cultural difference’ seeks to take advantage of this creative potential for cultural interactions. As “all forms of culture are continually in a process of hybridity”, there are no fixed frameworks within one or the other culture, but they are themselves continually in a process of self-definition and self-construction, “a process of identifying with and through another object, an object of otherness” (ibid.). To find the defining criteria of one’s own culture, there is thus an inherent need to relate to other cultures. For this self-constituting process, Homi Bhabha refers to Walter Benjamin’s notion of ‘translation’ (as Walter Benjamin explains in his work Illuminations), thus stating a ‘cultural translation’ through which cultural identity is shaped, yet never concluded: Cultures are only constituted in relation to that otherness internal to their own symbolforming activity which makes them decentered structures – through that displacement or liminality opens up the possibility of articulating different, even incommensurable cultural practices and priorities (Rutherford: 1990, 210f).

Deducing from Homi Bhabha’s concept of ‘cultural difference’, it can be stated that cultures, not being fixed entities but in permanent construction of their own identity, need other cultures they can refer to in order to denominate what belongs to them. Thus, out of themselves, there is an essential urge for ‘Third Spaces’ between cultures that open up possibilities for more equal interactions. Looking at this concept from a theological perspective, it seems evident that it can partly be transferred to interreligious encounters. On that point, the close interconnectedness between religious and cultural phenomena as mentioned above comes into play again. Following Reinhold Bernhardt, religion and culture (as divided since the Age of Enlightenment) are associated in a way he designates as ‘assymetric polarity’: Everything religious is cultural, too, but not everything cultural is religious. The religious proper transcends the cultural sphere by knowing itself to be oriented towards a ‘ultimate point of reference’ (Bernhardt: 2019, 71, translated by author).

Accordingly, the cultural sphere is not secular, but includes the broad variety of religious phenomena, providing a space for negotiations on drawing the boundaries between religious and profane (cf. ibid., 68). And as every religion is in and of itself a cultural formation, too, every interreligious encounter is in and of itself an intercultural encounter. Thus, it seems that Homi Bhabha’s statement regarding ‘cultural difference’ can be transferred to religious issues and this leads to the idea of a concept of ‘religious difference’. As such, religions can take the place of cultures in Homi Bhabha’s theory.

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Therefore, they are likewise able to relate to one another as equal meeting partners, sharing a common area of discourse in between, a ‘Third Space’. The liminality within this special Third Space can be helpful and empowering for intercultural encounters. Additionally, it can create options for religions to constitute themselves in relation to their otherness by articulating their differences in practices and priorities and thereby bringing forward their very special symbol-forming activities (cf. Rutherford: 1990, 210f). Getting to know others often offers the chance to see one’s own characteristics from a new perspective. The special preconditions of hybridity the Third Space offers can also provide for encounters to take place in an unbiased way, i.e. without regressing to thought structures or behavioral patterns of inequality, like unwanted but sometimes unknowingly present colonialism or racism. Besides, it might open up possibilities for dialogue in a destructuralized way, apart from hierarchical structures in a more basic way, practical and focused on the main issues rather than competencies and responsibilities. 1.3

Dance as an Alternative Means of Communication for Interreligious Encounters in a Third Space

While these seem to be quite favorable conditions for interreligious encounters in theory, there is one big challenge when putting the concept of Third Space into practice: language. Taking into account that interreligious activities are very often also international activities, in order to get in touch with each other there is a need to be able to communicate. When thinking about equality in interactions, it seems clear that choosing a language will always give an advantage to one or the other party, especially if it is the native language of one party. And even if this is not the case for any participant, expressing one’s thoughts and beliefs in a ‘foreign’ language leads to losing originality in the translation process, just as Walter Benjamin (1892–1940) describes it in his essay ‘The task of the translator’ (cf. Benjamin: 1968, 69–82). What can be done about this? As the ‘Third Space’ offers an unbiased, equal meeting room, its chances should be used and not be undone by communication issues. But which form of communication is fit to guarantee a well-balanced communication without unilateral advantages? There might be an answer in the most basic form of communication that can be thought of: rhythmic bodily movement. Rhythmic movement is a fundamental phenomenon of humankind and its environment. Lying within every human’s body through the beating of the heart and always surrounding human life through the length of days and nights or the changing of the seasons, life cannot be thought without rhythm (cf. Gundlach Sonnemann: 2001). Neither can life be thought without bodily movement, and therefore rhythmic bodily movement marks the beginnings of expression, regarding the history of humankind in general as well

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as every human individual’s life. It can therefore be seen as an elemental language, being able to express things in a simple form, yet with great force of expression (cf. ibid.). Helga Gundlach Sonnemann states that, as religious experiences and religious expression are not always put into words easily, music and dance were seen as adequate means of experience and expression all along (cf. ibid.). Shaped and structured up to elaborate form, movement can be deeply influenced by religion via symbolization and ritualization, thereby qualified to transport religious traditions, ideas of faith, personal beliefs and many more in the form of dance. This form of communication might therefore be the answer to the question raised above – if equal communication is not to be gained verbally, there might be a point in trying body language and dance instead.

2.

Dance and Body in Christianity – Overcoming the Traditional Dualism of Body and Spirit

Seen from a western and Christian perspective, communicating religious ideas via dance might cause great bewilderment. This is due to the fact that during thousands of years of Christian history, dance was broadly neglected and depreciated, leaving hardly any traces within religious practices. Body and spirit were seen as strictly separate and the spirit ranked high above anything connected with the ‘peccable body’. As a result of this development, Christianity today has no fixed canon of rhythmical movements to call its own (cf. ibid.). Is this where the vision of a ‘Third Space’ enabling interreligious dialogue on an unbiased level via dancing must come to an end? Well, not necessarily. To agree on a definition of ‘dance’ seems to be quite as hard as defining the phenomenon of ‘religion’. Therefore, sticking to rhythmic bodily movement, it might turn out that not all such practices have actually disappeared in Christianity. Looking at Roman Catholic practices in mass, or to a limited extent also in Lutheran liturgies, one could argue that the liturgical sequences of sitting, standing and sometimes kneeling resemble the choreography of a ‘dance’. This might be a starting point for the search of new ways of bodily religious expressions and there might perhaps be chances to overcome the strict divide between body and spirit in Christianity. 2.1

… in Theory

First steps have already been taken long ago. Since Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) criticized the artificial divide resulting from Platonism and following René Descartes (1596–1650; cf. LaMothe: 2018, 29f), a whole branch of not only religious science

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has reflected on the mutual influence of body and spirit, making this divide seem less and less reasonable. In contrary to the established science of what Jean-Pierre Wils calls a “subtracting anthropology”, he presents in detail how humans are to be seen as sensory beings (cf. Wils: 1999, 11). In his phenomenological analysis, step by step and referring to many thinkers such as Ludwig Feuerbach (1775–1833), Edmund Husserl (1859–1938), Michel Serres (1930–2019) and Emmanuel Levinas (1906–1995), he shows that all metaphors pointing to a dualistic relation between recognition and percipience are wrong and need to be put aside. Originally, these two – recognition and percipience – are combined in sensation. The sensory perception is therefore primal to human beings (cf. ibid.: 1999, 19). On that basis, Jean-Pierre Wils shows that the understanding of our world and ourselves is closely linked to sensory perception with knowledge being a point of orientation, whereas our senses provide us with meaning for and within this cognitive framework. In this way, he constructs an ideal ‘sensory knowledge’ – a Third Space in between the divide of body and spirit. Following these traces, a ‘corporeal turn’ can be seen and “[s]ince the 1980s, the idea that the body matters to the mind has been known as embodiment” (Bergen: 2015, 10). In various different approaches towards a new perception of the relationship between body and mind, the prevalent understanding became a notion in cognitive linguistics literature that, the structures used to put together our conceptual systems grow out of bodily experience and make sense in terms of it; moreover, the core of our conceptual systems is directly grounded in perception, body movement, and experience of a physical and social nature (Lakoff: 1987, xiv).

Following this conceptual statement that the “mind is inherently embodied”4 , an embodied philosophy requires “a thorough rethinking of the most popular current approaches” (Lakoff/Johnson: 1999, 3), such as the many and varied concepts of person provided by René Descartes, Immanuel Kant, Friedrich Ludwig Gottlob Frege, Noam Chomsky, Utilitarianism, Phenomenology or Poststructuralism (cf. ibid., 5–7). Instead, a new understanding of the embodied mind becomes key to philosophical questioning. George Lakoff and Mark Johnson develop a “philosophical perspective based on our empirical understanding of the embodiment of mind”

4 “The claim that the mind is embodied is, therefore, far more than the simple-minded claim that the body is needed if we are to think. […] Our claim is, rather, that the very properties of concepts are created as a result of the way the brain and body are structured and the way they function in interpersonal relations and in the physical world” (Lakoff/Johnson: 1999, 37).

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they call a “philosophy in the flesh, a philosophy that takes account of what we most basically are and can be” (Ibid., 8): We can only form concepts through the body. Therefore, every understanding that we can have of the world, ourselves, and others can only be framed in terms of concepts shaped by our bodies. […] Because our ideas are framed in terms of our unconscious embodied conceptual systems, truth and knowledge depend on embodied understanding (ibid., 555).

This ‘embodied understanding’ is also needed in order to find new approaches to spirituality, overcoming concepts “defined mostly in terms of disembodiment and transcendence of this world” (ibid., 564) contrary to a ‘philosophy in the flesh’. As “[o]ur corporeality is part of the corporeality of the world”, any ‘embodied spirituality’ “requires an aesthetic attitude to the world that is central to self-nurturance, to the nurturance of others, and to the nurturance of the world itself ” (ibid., 565f). These approaches of a philosophy of embodiment have reached theological discussion. Instead of a ‘dis-corporate’ subject as center of theological anthropology, as it can be found in earlier research, e.g. by Rudolf Bultmann (1884–1976), who, following Gregor Etzelmüller’s view, reduces the Greek term σωμα to a self-relational category of human existence no longer bodily connected, the aim is now not only to reintegrate body and spirit but also to make the radical embodiment of all cognitive processes visible (cf. Etzelmüller: 2016, 221). In order to take these new theological perspectives on embodied anthropology into account, first there is a necessary change to make in how to think about God: God also needs to be thought as embodied. Underlying the dualism of body and spirit according to René Descartes is the notion of God’s omnipotence. Referring to Karl Barth (1886–1968), this is put in a new light when viewing God as being embodied in Jesus Christ from the beginning of all his ways and works (cf. ibid.: 2016, 222). “Individual subjectivity is intersubjectively and culturally embodied, embedded, and emergent” (Thompson: 2007, 36). This genuinely cultural observation can be rediscovered when looking at biblical references to the body, especially in the New Testament. Paul uses the term ‘body’ not only to refer to individual subjects but often at the same time to cover social issues, e.g. the Church as ‘body of Christ’, making it obvious that the consequences of individual actions can also have an impact on a whole community (cf. Etzelmüller: 2016, 227). Paul’s theology of the cross focuses on the transformation of the antique culture of honor and shame, centering on the beaten body of the crucified Christ miraculously becoming a symbol for God’s life-saving power (cf. Strecker: 2018).

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2.2

… and in Practice?

Consequently, it seems obvious that the ‘body’ plays an integral part in biblical narratives that might hold performative qualities. Charles Bartow has therefore labeled the New Testament as containing “arrested performances” (Bartow: 1994, 64) which might be set free again, e.g. in preaching. This allows to think outside the box of ‘classical’ homiletics and gain valuable impulses from performance studies in order to bring biblical texts to their very own inherent performance, as Andrea Bieler suggests (cf. Bieler: 2006, 275). Showing how aesthetic perspectives have been brought forward in homiletics in recent years, viewing worship and sermon as an artwork and thus focusing more and more on the corporeality of the biblical word in its aesthetics of reception, Bieler aims to take into account topics as voice, rhythm, sound and energy (cf. ibid., 278). Working together with dancer and worship consultant Marcia McFee, Andrea Bieler applies Marcia McFee’s ‘primal pattern theory’ to preaching. This theory centers on four basic energy patterns moving our bodies from a neurophysiological perspective, thereby also shaping our kinesthetic images of God (cf. ibid., 279). Using these energy patterns of ‘thrust’, ‘hang’, ‘shape’ and ‘swing’ in a conscious way in preaching could therefore be a key to passing on a certain ‘felt sense’ or body knowledge to listeners by including them in a certain energetic and kinesthetic experience of God (cf. ibid.: 2006, 282). Following Christian tradition, this happens by spoken word, but this could also be a chance to include new forms of spirituality, maybe even be a place to try and dance.

3.

Dancing in Between Religions – Homi Bhabha’s Concept of Third Space and its Possibilities for Interreligious Encounters from a Christian Perspective

Bringing these thoughts together, it seems that, after all, inside western Christianity not everything is lost for dance – there were and are traces of it that can be drawn upon and possibly provide for being a meeting partner in interreligious encounters in a Third Space. A Third Space as envisioned before, according to Homi Bhabha, creates the possibility to meet at eye level and learn from one another whilst acknowledging the differences that shape the unique identities of the meeting partners. To seize these chances, why not take a courageous step towards new forms of meetings via new means of communication, trying out if it can be true for interreligious exchange what Homi Bhabha states for the Third Space in general:

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It is in this space that we will find those words with which we can speak of Ourselves and Others. And by exploring this hybridity, this ‘Third Space’, we may elude the politics of polarity and emerge as the others of our selves (Bhabha: 1988, 22).

Bibliography Bartow, C.L. (1997), God’s Human Speech. A Practical Theology of Proclamation, Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans. Benjamin, W. (1968), Illuminations. Essays and Reflections, New York: Harcourt, Brace & World. Bergen, B. (2015), Embodiment, in E. Dabrowska/D. Divjak (ed.), Handbook of Cognitive Linguistics, Handbooks of Linguistics and Communication Science 39, Berlin/Boston: De Gruyter Mouton, 10–30. Bernhardt, R. (2019), Inter-Religio. Das Christentum in Beziehung zu anderen Religionen. Beiträge zu einer Theologie der Religionen 16, Zürich: TVZ. Bhabha, H.K. (1988), The Commitment to Theory, New Formations 5, 5–23. Bhabha, H.K. (1994), The Location of Culture, London/New York, Routledge. Bieler, A. (2006), Das bewegte Wort. Auf dem Weg zu einer performativen Homiletik, Pastoraltheologie 95, 268–283. Etzelmüller, G. (2016), Verkörperung als Paradigma theologischer Anthropologie, in: G. Etzelmüller/A. Weissenrieder (ed.), Verkörperung als Paradigma theologischer Anthropologie, Theologische Bibliothek Töpelmann 172, Berlin/Boston: De Gruyter, 219–242. Gundlach Sonnemann, H.B. (2001), Vom Rhythmus bewegt … Zur Entstehung und Vielseitigkeit religiösen Tanzes, Magazin für Theologie und Ästhetik 10, online via https:// www.theomag.de/10/hbgs1.htm [26.05.2020]. Lakoff, G. (1987), Women, Fire, and Dangerous Things. What Categories Reveal about the Mind, Chicago/London: The University of Chicago Press. Lakoff, G./Johnson, M. (1999), Philosophy in the Flesh. The Embodied Mind and its Challenge to Western Thought, New York: Basic Books. LaMothe, K.L. (2018), A History of Theory and Method in the Study of Religion and Dance. Past, Present and Future, Religion and the Arts, Leiden/Boston: Brill. Rutherford, J. (1990), The Third Space. Interview with Homi Bhabha, in: J. Rutherford (ed.), Identity: Community, Culture, Difference, London: Lawrence and Wishart, 207–221. Strecker, C. (2018), „Ich schäme mich des Evangeliums nicht …“ Ehre, Scham und Schuld in der kulturwissenschaftlichen und neutestamentlichen Forschung, in: J. Dietrich/A. Grund-Wittenberg/R. Poser (ed.), Die verborgene Macht der Scham, Biblischtheologische Studien, Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 183–220. Struve, K. (2013), Zur Aktualität von Homi K. Bhabha. Einleitung in sein Werk, Aktuelle und klassische Sozial- und Kulturwissenschaftler|innen, Wiesbaden: Springer VS.

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Thompson, E. (2007), Mind in Life. Biology, Phenomenology, and the Sciences of Mind, Cambridge, Massachusetts/London, England: Harvard University Press. Turner, V.W. (1998), Liminalität und Communitas, in: A. Belliger/D.J. Krieger (ed.), Ritualtheorien, Opladen/Wiesbaden: Westdeutscher Verlag, 251–262. Van Gennep, A. (1981), Les rites de passage. Étude systématique des rites, Paris: Picard. Wils, J.-P. (1999), Der Mensch – ein Sinnenwesen, in: J.-P. Wils, Die Moral der Sinne. Essays, Tübingen: Klöpfel und Meyer, 9–41.

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The Alchemists’ Dream Dance as a Laboratory for Intercultural Theology?

1.

On Dance, Intercultural Theology, Laboratory and Alchemy

To Intercultural Theology, dance can be an ideal laboratory.1 This chapter points out observations, experiences and theories in relation to the 2020’s conference ‘Dance with God or the Devil?’ at Augustana Seminary in Neuendettelsau, Germany. The impressions are written in essayistic style, arguing with selected examples that dance can be an ideal laboratory for Intercultural Theology. The term laboratory is usually linked to a natural science setting. Nevertheless, there are similarities. Dance, from the perspective of a laboratory, provides space for analyses, studying, testing, experimenting, repeating, systematizing and theory building. Depending on the dance(s), the setting is given under same conditions: with dancers, the respective steps and movements. I will refer to a very open and basic understanding of dance as “intentional, differentiated, recurring and rhythmic elements” (Gundlach: 2004) often, but not necessarily related to specific functions, such as religious feasts and rites de passage (cf. Gundlach: 2004). Volker Küster from Germany sees the perspective of Intercultural Theology as the contextual interpretation of Christian belief. He assumes that eschatological truth is only accessible in the respective specific contexts (cf. Küster: 2011, 15). In the light of this approach, I understand Intercultural Theology therefore contextual, influenced by decolonial thinking and including an aesthetic perspective. Küster points out that Intercultural Theology does not necessarily refer to academic findings as only sources, being aware of different narratives, among many other aspects (cf. Küster: 2011, 116ff). Intercultural Theology in this understanding intends to communicate on equal terms,

1 Laboratory understood as: “[…] Place where scientific research and development is conducted and analyses are performed, in contrast with the field or factory. Most laboratories are characterized by controlled uniformity of conditions (constant temperature, humidity, cleanliness). Modern laboratories use a vast number of instruments and procedures to study, systematize, or quantify the objects of their attention. Procedures often include sampling, pre-treatment and treatment, measurement, calculation, and presentation of results; each may be carried out by techniques ranging from having an unaided person use crude tools to running an automated analysis system with computer controls […]“ (Encyclopaedia Britannica Academic: 2020b). Consider that “[…] university laboratories are completely independent and free to investigate anything that interests them […]” (Encyclopaedia Britannica Academic: 2020c).

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to leap gaps, to maintain a diverse and decolonial perspective, to ignite mutual appreciation and to find ways to connect and explain where cultural or religious differences seem unbridgeable. In this article, I use the analogy of the figure of the alchemist, who tried to create the most precious of all metals, gold, as early as ancient Egyptians and Greeks. Gold will stay shiny because it is non-corrosive, which might be the reason why it had always a – quite religious – connotation of eternity. Alchemists tried to create gold out of different elements, alloy (cf. Hartman/Telle: 1978, 195–227). The ultimate dream of the alchemists in their workshop – previous forms of laboratories – was to find gold. Can dance research and the different elements of dance be to Intercultural Theology what the laboratory is to the Alchemist? Can dance and its’ elements provide the ultimate precious, can dance provide ‘gold’ to Intercultural Theology? I believe the researchers’ location to be of utmost importance: I am a Theologian, Lutheran, male, working at the faculty of Intercultural Theology and Religious Studies at Augustana Seminary, Germany. I grew up in Germany and have spent several years abroad, in different places and positions. If I speak of Intercultural Theology, I refer to Küster’s understanding combined with personal perspectives. Considering methodological questions, my role can be described as the perspective of a participant observer. As part of the organizing committee, I work for the host organization and I was taking parts in all activities of the conference “Dance with God or the Devil?” Therefore, I would consider my own role in methodological terms as the role of complete participation. A complete participant is carrying out core responsibilities within the respective group and is a full member, which corresponds with my role (cf. DeWalt/DeWalt: 2011, 25). Participant observation is an ideal methodology to explore dance for purposes of Intercultural Theology and Religious studies. In a dance setting in which everybody can enter the circle of dancers, there is no clear separation between dancers and observers, as in the approach of participant observation. In this article I argue that dance can provide a laboratory, an ideal setting for studies and research in Intercultural Theology. Aspects such as the hybridity of culture, the transformational potential of dance, the transcending of subject-object divisions of performance, dance as decolonial learning space and locus theologicus will be discussed. To illustrate that dance is made of countless different elements and to point out its’ value to Intercultural Theology, the analogy of alchemy, which intended to produce gold from different elements, is raised. The coming sections of this paper refer to different situations and settings, similar to the different aspects that can be demonstrated in a laboratory, where research takes place. Why the comparison of dance and alchemy is not a silly choice of a headline to attract the readers’ attention will be explained in the concluding remarks of this chapter.

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2.

Dance as Fusion

Dance, here using tango, probably one of its most hybrid expressions, has the character of a “transcultural language” (Walz: 2012, 130). At its beginning, tango was practiced mainly by Italian, Polish and Spanish immigrants in Buenos Aires, Argentina. In the 19th century, tango was considered popular in a derogatory way. Later, tango moved to the cosmopolitan capitals of the planet, where it became a sophisticated art of the upper classes. The dance was firstly practiced by impoverished classes with musical influences of African candombe, the milonga rioplatense, the Afro-Cuban habanera and tango andaluz from Spain and Italy (cf. Walz: 2012, 130). The history of tango, who travelled through countries, gender and social classes proves that there is no such thing as a pure culture, but that culture is hybrid. At the dance-conference, Saju George SJ from India demonstrated the hybridity of cultural expression and dance as a transcultural language. He danced biblical stories with classical Indian dance. George translated the biblical stories from a cultural and geographic location, the Levante, into another cultural-geographic location, India, using the respective language of classical Indian dance. European perspectives of gender binaries were challenged in his presentation. The dress and make-up of George did not reflect binary gender stereotypes associated with traditional European gender imaginaries. George showed that homogenous ideas of culture and religion, supplied by a single source, are incorrect. In her opening speech “Dance as Third Space? Dance in Religious Studies and Intercultural Theology”2 Heike Walz referred to the Indian-American Homi Bhabha, calling dance a “Third Space” (Bhaba: 1994, 36). Third Space is the – non-geographic – location where meaning is produced. If I use the term ‘location’ in the course of this chapter, I refer to this understanding. The laboratory of dance demonstrated that George’s dance allows people to understand biblical stories through re-location and reconfiguration of cultural codes and symbols via classical Indian dance. Biblical stories and classical Indian dance create something new. In the example of Saju George, dance furthermore creates agency, empowers people and reflects a process of theological, cultural translation and interpretation. To stick to the image of a laboratory as a space for academic research and the analogy of the alchemists’ workshop, I would like to compare the aspect of fusion in dance – where all dances are made of different elements and all elements consist of different parts themselves – to alloy. Alchemists intended to create gold with different alloy, which is, by definition a metallic substance made of

2 Cf. the first chapter in this volume.

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two or more ingredients, which are usually made of different substances themselves (cf. Encyclopaedia Britannica Academic: 2020a).

3.

Dance as Performative Transformation: Lips of Thomas

Dance as a performative art transcends the lines between subject and object, between actor and spectator. Erika Fischer-Lichte from Germany refers to the Serbian artist Marina Abramović 1975s’ première performance of ‘Lips of Thomas’ (cf. Fischer-Lichte: 2017, 9). Abramović acted towards herself in a way most people would consider abusive. She consumed wine and honey excessively, cut herself with glass, whipped her body and exposed herself to extreme cold and heat. When Abramović’s actions to herself apparently became unbearable to the audience, the spectators stopped Abramović’s performance (cf. Fischer-Lichte: 2017, 9f). Many people would see the crossing of physical and mental boundaries as central to the performance. I would like to bring the attention to another aspect. The remarkable action – spectators intervening a performance and being part of it – breaks with the typical roles of actors and observers. In most theatre performances, these roles depend on each other and are related in many ways, but they do not overlap. The roles in dance have analogies to what happened in Abramović’s Lips of Thomas: There is no clear separation between dancers and audience. When dance is not a mere show dance, but an open event, observing bystanders can turn in to dancers and vice versa. If a dance event is open to all people, there is a constant flow between dancers and observers, which turns limits between both into irrelevant imaginaries. To be a dancer or an observer becomes an ever-changing role. This process has great potential for transformation (cf. Fischer-Lichte: 2017, 9–30) and the agency to individuals. In the laboratory of dance, people can train to change roles in a rather playful manner, because they can change roles in a heartbeat. Societal roles can be practiced and enacted. In classical tango for example, there are roles for men and women – for men to lead and for women to be led.3 In queer tango, as practiced in a workshop at the dance-conference, roles change insofar, as men dance with men and women with women. This enriches the perspectives of dancers giving them the possibilities to improve their skills and perspectives. Everybody has the possibility to know how the respective dance partner is to fill out his or her roles. It is an educative and empowering tool to reflect gender roles in society, because it breaks with classic gender stereotypes (cf. Walz: 2012, 137). Queer tango has as a 3 This is true only for certain forms of tango. It remains for example yet historically unclear, to what extent at the beginning of tango rioplatense, the style danced in Buenos Aires, men danced with men (cf. Walz 2012: 137). Walz also refers to aspects of homosexuality in tango, which have so far not been sufficiently explored (cf. Walz 2012: 136).

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performative art great transformational potential. Tango is also an excellent example to transcend subject and object of the dance. Some people, resting or waiting for dance partners, wait outside of the milonga, the dancing space, as observers. When asked for a dance or when the desire to dance, they can simply enter the milonga. Subject-object division becomes blurry, their constructional character evident. The transformative potential in the laboratory of dance does not stop at gender roles. Practically all kind of roles in society, theology, everything thinkable can be enacted, can be expressed in a dance. Another example would be the potential to overcome the construction of the images of the other, during the further course of this chapter abbreviated as othering (cf. Spivak: 1985). Where people of different background, who are socialized in different locations, practice a dance together in appreciation and respect of the cultural context and tradition in which the dance is set, the danger of the exclusion of the “other” or the perpetuation of “exotic” stereotypes is low. Therefore, dance has great potential to be a laboratory, a training space for different kind of cross-cultural situations and situations in change.

4.

Dance as Decolonizing Space: Corazonar and the Dancer as Rearguard Intellectual4

The Portuguese scholar Boaventura de Sousa Santos aims to decolonize epistemologies of the global North5 , which means to decolonize the production of knowledge and ways of thinking of the epistemologies of the global North. Among many other aspects, this means not to create knowledge in an extracting, appropriating way, similarly to the industrial, exploitative extraction of natural resources, which leave in many cases nothing but wastelands. This is how colonial powers transferred resources from colonies to empire for centuries. To extract knowledge like a resource is an expropriation – alike the exploitation of (natural) resources by (post-)colonial agents. Santos calls this “extractivist epistemologies” (Santos: 2018, 130). In the 20th century, knowledge of the epistemologies of the global South has often been perceived as deviant by epistemologies of the global North, dismissed as superstition, myth, primitive or emotional (cf. Santos: 2018, 38). To solve what was or is considered a deviancy, the transfer of knowledge from North to South has been employed, often without considering already existing knowledge in the South, neither as existing nor as relevant. To create knowledge in this manner is lacking appreciation and dignity of the person(s) who are at disposal of this knowledge. 4 Cf. Santos: 2018, xi. 5 Global North is not a defined geographical entity but a system and pattern that benefit from colonialism and post-colonial structures. Global South is the antonym: not a geographical space, but a location that has suffers from colonialism, capitalism and patriarchy (cf. Santos 2018: 1f).

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This creation of knowledge does not care for the benefit of the other in process, nor if a person or society is willing to share this knowledge. In its’ abusive structure it is equivalent to colonialism, to an extractivist way of creating knowledge. To create non-extractivist epistemologies – epistemologies of the South – Santos calls for rearguard intellectuals6 , which are “[…] intellectuals that contribute with their knowledge to strengthen the social struggles against domination and oppression” (Santos: 2018, ix). An example of non-extractivist epistemologies for Santos, is to take the idea of embodied knowledge serious, including all five human senses for knowledge production. He understands epistemologies of the North as based on Cartesian premises, which accept only reason as source of knowledge: only the mind knows, only reason is trustworthy (cf. Santos: 2018, 165). Santos names dances, besides theatre or music, as example for oral knowledge transmission (cf. Santos: 2018, 56). On a cognitive level, Santos aims for an ecology of knowledge, the realisation of the copresence of different ways of knowing (cf. Santos: 2018, 8). To link human cognitive and bodily dimensions, Santos uses the idea of corazonar from the indigenous people of Kitu Kara from Ecuador: Conceiving corazonar […] is to see in it the expression of the alchemical hybrid of emotions/affects/reasons, the feeling/thinking inscribed in social struggles (Santos: 2018, 100). ‘Corazón’ is the Spanish word for ‘heart’. Corazonar might remind Spanishspeaking people of the substantive ‘heart’ turned into a verb, which can be translated in this context roughly as ‘reasoning with the heart’. Corazonar includes mind and body, it focuses on healing, being, embracing a holistic spirituality; it cannot be planned, it means to recognize unjust suffering of others as own suffering and the will to join the struggle against it (cf. Santos: 2018, 99–102). I believe the concept of corazonar to be very close to the Christian idea of considering persons including context and sufferings, to see a person as a whole. This is in strong contrast to a central idea of Roman law, which is at the foundation of most European laws and closely related to epistemologies of the global North. The difference is pictured by the Roman goddess Justice, who, blindfolded, judges all people by the same law, regardless their context and situation. I am sure that many dancers can relate to corazonar, of having learned something in a place where emotion meets reason. Dancing under the mentioned perspectives as a way of learning and unlearning holistically contributes to an ecology of knowledge. Dance involves more levels than mere reason, it links the body, the mind and the spirit, and it empowers people. Dance is a space that enables agency for holistic decolonization. The transformative and empowering potential of dance, essential to corazonar, can be seen as an

6 Cf. Santos: 2018, xi.

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example of the global South. The 2020s protest performances of Chilean – mostly – women against gender violence in songs and public choreographies were trailblazers to similar protests throughout the world (cf. Hinsliff: 2020). Thousands of women danced on public places, while singing a song with a clear message called “Un Violador en Tu Camino” (A Rapist in Your Path) (Hinsliff: 2020). Dancers who dance to empower people with their dances, who dance for and with the cause of those being brutalized and marginalized, become rearguard intellectuals. Dance is furthermore a laboratory that opens possibilities, how to overcome the colonial pattern of extractivist epistemologies. There is great danger to the ‘consumption’, the observation of dance as a product of cultural production, with no relation or interest to the dances and the dancer’s (cultural) context. If dance is ‘consumed’ in such a way, there is a high likeliness for the observer to expropriate or appropriate the observed events, because of its’ non-relational, non-corazonar manner that has hardly any other options than to result in extractivist epistemologies. If in a dance-workshop such as the dance conference, a person explains the significations of the moves of dance, which the person was socialized with. If a person explains the cultural weight behind symbols and codes and then teaches the audience to dance, this is the beginning of creation of knowledge by non-extractivist epistemologies. It is important that people who learn a dance are explained what their (dance-)action would most likely be associated with in the respective context of origin. The learning dancer can develop a (personal) relation to the dance, to the teacher, to create knowledge in appreciation and awareness. Moreover, the audience has the possibility to learn from a tradition through the mode of its own perception, which is the intend to see with someone else’s eyes. In colonial patterns, everything that does not fit the universal rules grounded in the epistemologies of the global North, is usually considered deviant or trivialized. In the laboratory of dance, this danger can be significantly diminished. Dance can become an agent of decolonization. A dance, with a strong background in epistemologies of the global South can teach epistemologies of the global North – against the usual direction of (post-)colonial knowledge transfer. The laboratory of dance allows participants to become rearguard intellectuals, supported by the method of corazonar.

5.

Dance as Locus Theologicus: A Space for Theologies and Liturgies

It is an essential task of theology to deliver hope in this world. Dance can be the bodily agent of holistic hope and therefore a Locus Theologicus, a space for doing theology. Jesus Christ came into this world. God’s word became flesh, so that the flesh could become word, which is how Ángel F. Méndez Montoya from Mexico

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explains this relation.7 This focus points out that the human flesh becomes the connection of the human body with the divine spirit. This helps to overcome many hierarchies between cultures, gender, and class: when supposedly others and different cultures or social classes merge into a fusion, united on common ground during the time of dance. This moment itself delivers hope. As Montoya explains in this book, the moment of unification of the divine and the human is an Eucharistic moment, which leaves no space to the exclusion of the ‘Other’, of any human. Dance can be a transcultural, spiritual language (cf. Walz: 2012, 128). Dance can serve as a transcultural language between Theologies and different ways of expressing belief. Dance in religious expression can become a language beyond words, a language where people can express their hopes, their prayers, the indescribable, and their intimate prayers to god. Dance thus turns into a space of a believer’s reflection, into a space of theology. Lutheran liturgies focus on the spoken word and sacrament8 as basis of the church9 . Although this focus has brought plenty of advantages, one of the disadvantages is that bodily spheres are rather neglected. These liturgies involve only a minimum of bodily movement, the body is rather passive during a Lutheran liturgy. However, this presents a contradiction to a certain degree, because human beings learn and live holistically. Under the paragraph “Flesh, Body, and Corporeality: Embodying Excess-Filled Presence”, in this volume, Montoya points out that “we are a body”. Following the examples of Walz and Montoya, I believe that an integration of bodily experiences in liturgy can open new spaces and transcend bodily movement into prayer in a very personal human-divine experience. With respect to the eye of the beholder, bodily experiences can interrupt well-known liturgies, shatter the numb calm of trodden comfort zones and create new perspectives within liturgy, create Third Spaces and as a result revive belief. Dance can serve as a heuristic to the divine and challenge believer’s perspectives. Bodily experience and prayer are not exclusive to certain epistemologies and can be used by rather word-focused traditions of liturgy, which shows the following example. In May 2020, due to the corona-pandemic lockdown, a pastor in Nuremberg (Germany), belonging to the Lutheran church of Bavaria, invited the believers to dance their prayers in an online music liturgy as electronic music service (cf. Church goes Clubbing: 2020). Clearly, in this service dance was encouraged to bring the human body in touch with the God, with the Divine – a holistic experience for the whole human being. Dance as locus theologicus can have a decolonizing dimension, too. Montoya’s concept of Body Theology in this book overlaps in several points with Sousa Santos

7 Cf. Méndez Montoya, he explains this relation in chapter fifteen in this volume. 8 Cf. Assel: 2020. 9 Cf. CA VII.

The Alchemists’ Dream

idea of the creation of knowledge through bodily experience, based on the senses as a way to decolonize knowledge. Seen from this ankle, Montoya’s Body Theology seems as an example in point of a decolonizing knowledge, of a decolonizing theology. This is put into practice, when Christians of the epistemologies of the global North learn to learn with their bodies: to dance liturgies, dance their prayers, or participate e.g. in tango services. The assumption is not, that Christians rooted in epistemologies of the North do not practice religious dances per se. In my observation, dance in liturgies is only more often associated with Christians of the epistemologies of the global South. I think that decolonial learning has a lot of potential to revive European liturgies. It seems that many relatively new churches, especially those of (neo-)Pentecostal style, have a different approach the body-relation than mainline Protestant churches. These churches integrate in many cases dance and bodily movement during music and prayer in their liturgies. The laboratory of dance shows: body focused liturgies, for example prayer performed with bodies, is a way of doing theology and belief in a close and personal human-god relation beyond the language of words.

6.

Concluding the Alchemists’ Dream: Dance as a Laboratory for Intercultural Theology

Dance is a prime laboratory and learning space to Intercultural Theology. To sum up: Dance, as a fusion itself, demonstrates that all culture is hybrid. This principle is valid for the expression of Theologies and religious beliefs. The awareness of the fusion character of dance helps to overcome and identify essentializations of all kind. Dance has transformational potential. Dance transcends the limits between subject and object, between dancer and spectator and is highly inclusive. Dance is an excellent learning opportunity for cross-cultural settings and Intercultural Theology because it has the potential to transcend (imagined) boundaries, e.g., dance can help to overcome the construction of strangeness or enable to empower people. Dance is an agent of decolonization. Dance can ignite and actually overcome colonial epistemologies, for example colonial patterns of the creation of knowledge, such as extractivist ways of creating knowledge, e.g. through its’ focus on creating knowledge with the body. Corazonar reflects as a hermeneutic the Christian perspective of seeing the human being as a whole, with the dancer becoming a rearguard intellectual. Dance is a locus theologicus, particularly but not exclusively for (Body) Theologies. Dance is a heuristic to the divine. Dance is able to express religious feelings, which are otherwise inexpressible and can establish a personal human-god-relation. Dance

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is a transcultural and spiritual language. Dance can open new perspectives of reflection of religious feelings and ways of belief. There are dangers to the laboratory of dance, too. When dance is seen only as a laboratory, and not as a laboratory which needs to corazonar. Dance is a place where people put and reflect their happiness as well as dreams, indescribable thoughts, beliefs, traditions, their power of agency, their desires, their will to struggle against suffering, unjust structures and so much more. If dance is reduced to a laboratory only, it will become the archetype of an extractivist epistemology. All dance situations as described in the example must take place in a spirit of appreciation, of mutual respect, of a disregard of imagined advantages of certain cultures over others, in the spirit of corazonar. There is always a very thin line between (cultural) appropriation, which reflects extractivist epistemologies and Third Spaces, which provide to learn something new in mutual respect. If this is not considered, the examples used – explicitly chosen to be positive – can turn into negative examples, such as the perpetuation of (racist) exotic stereotypes, exclusivism and (colonial) hierarchies. As mentioned at the beginning, Intercultural Theology tries to understand belief contextually, in the perspective of the respective believer. It is therefore most precious to Intercultural Theology to create a space, where Theologies and beliefs of different locations that differ in content, and/or share different codes and symbols, encounter each other with a spirit of respect and admiration, without an epistemology of extraction. The laboratory of dance provides such space. Ideally, a common ground beyond peaceful coexistence is achieved, and a Third Space develops, which creates something new in the spirit of corazonar. In this sense, Intercultural Theology wants to be a bridge-builder. Dance, as exemplified, can provide all this. The comparison with alchemy in this chapter is not a strange comparison to call for attention. This chapter argues to promote dance as a space of research for (Intercultural) theology and Religious Studies. This is – in my experience – ridiculed and not taken serious by many, even by fellow theologians or humanity scholars. Alchemists have been ridiculed many times, too. They tried to put gold together out of different alloy, sometimes even being accused of heresy (cf. Jödicke: 2020). Dance, as demonstrated is made up of an uncountable number of different elements – like alloy. Dance has suffered discrimination from zealot religious voices, hence the conference title ‘Dance – with God or the Devil?’, chosen with a winking eye. However, there is a big difference between dance and alchemy: I am not aware that alchemy ever created gold. Intercultural Theology can create gold in the laboratory of dance, as became clear through examples in the course of this chapter. Most precious insights, ways of renewing theological reflection and learning, a personal human-god-relation and so much more can be found in dance. If the conditions of the laboratory of dance are set sound and safe, the findings, reflections and insights can be gold to Intercultural Theology.

The Alchemists’ Dream

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Spivak, G.C. (1985), The Rani of Sirmur. An Essay in Reading the Archives, History and Theory, Vol. 24, No. 3, 247–272. Walz, H. (2012), El tango argentino como lenguaje espiritual transcultural: Sueño de una vida mejor en situaciones migración y de ambigüedades de género, Journal of the European Society of Women in Theological Research 20, 125–149.

Index of Names

A Aaron 109 Abraham 130, 203 Abramović, Marina 366 Adams, Doug 47 Aegeus 148 Akgül, Feride 13 Alexander, Tsar 205 Amberg, Thomas 13 Ambrose of Milan 16, 98, 103–105, 109, 292 Andrade, Oswald de 284 Andresen, Carl 38 Anna 114, 115 Anthanasius of Alexandria 292 Apostolos-Cappadona, Diane 47 Arbeau, Thoinot 17, 139 Ariadne 149 Arians 102 Aristides, Aelius 214 Aristophanes 213, 215 Aristotle 70, 216, 217 Arius 102 Ark 109 Asam, Egid Quirin 126 Athanasius of Alexandria 16, 98, 102, 103 Athenaeus 214 Augustine 120, 307 Auxerre, Jean Lebeuf of 148 Auxerre, William of 147 B Baaren, Theodor P. van 47 Bacchae 218 Bacchante 104 Bach, Johann Sebastian 121, 125, 129

Bahn, Sheikh Süleyman 14 Balthasar, Hans Urs von 307–309 Bara, Charlotte 124 Barboza, Francis P. 43, 128 Barth, Karl 17, 20, 157, 170, 305–310, 358 Bartow, Charles 359 Bashir, Shahzad 18 Bausch, Pina 39, 40, 72 Beaman, Patricia L. 33 Beheim, Michel 116 Beleth, Jean 146, 147 Benjamin, Walter 354, 355 Berchorius, Petrus 148 Bernhard of Clairveaux 17 Bernhardt, Reinhold 354 Betz, John R. 308, 309 Bevans, Stephen 129 Bhabha, Homi K. 12, 21, 28, 54, 56, 57, 73, 77, 170, 231, 339, 340, 351–354, 359, 365 Biber, Heinrich Ignaz Franz 125 Bieler, Andrea 164, 359 Blazer, Samuel 126 Bratzlav, Rebbe 202 Brown, David 175, 315 Bukowski, Charles 126 Bultmann, Rudolf 358 C Calcutt, David 126 Campbell, Joseph 162 Canclini, Néstor 54 Cardoso Pereira, Nancy 43 Carlos III. 122 Carvalhaes, Cláudio 43 Cazzaniga, I. 104 Ceritona, Odo de 117

376

Index of Names

Chajim, Etz 18 Chladek, Rosalia 125 Chomsky, Noam 357 Christian, Thomas 338 Chrysostom, John 16, 22, 97, 98, 105–109, 218, 292 Çiçek, Gülsan 13 Cicero 103, 109 Cistercian 116 Clairvaux, Bernhard of 144 Clement of Alexandria 213, 218, 219 Comaroff, Jean 176 Comaroff, John 176 Constantius 2nd 102 Costa, Fabrizio 127 Crowther, Samuel 130 Cruz, Juana de la 119 Cybele 215 D da Silva, Vagner Gonçalves 270 Darsane, Nyoman 43 David 101, 109, 144, 147, 195 Davis, Judith M. 117 Day, Dorothy 125, 130 Deborah 130 Dégh, Linda 200 Delieuvin, Marie France 129 Denis, Ruth St. 47, 125, 129, 160–162, 167, 169 Descartes, René 82, 356–358 Dhlomo, Petros 180 Diaghilev, Sergei Pavlovich 124 Dionysius 16 Dionysodorus 215 Dionysus 104, 215 Dolorosa, Mater 125 Drexel, Katharine 130 Duncan, Isadora 47, 50, 128, 159, 160, 162, 167, 169 Dunham, Katherine 273

E Ebner, Christina 118 Eikelboom, Lexi 313 Ekué, Amélé Adamavi-Aho 19 Eliade, Mircea 162 Enzner-Probst, Brigitte 165 Escher, Gertrud 125 Etzelmüller, Gregor 358 Euripides 213, 218 Eustochium 115, 131 Eve 133 F Falke, Konrad 123 Fanon, Frantz 279 Fernández, Sofía 42 Feuerbach, Ludwig 357 Fischer-Lichte, Erika 166, 366 Flaminius 104 Flavius Josephus 99 Folklore 122 Foster, Susan 72 Foucauld, Charles de 130 Foucault, Michel 32, 42 Frege, Friedrich Ludwig Gottlob

357

G Gallese, Vittorio 230 Geertz, Clifford 340 Gendlin, Eugene T. 328 Gennep, Arnold van 353 Gerson, Jean 120 Goode, Jeff 127 Goodman, Nelson 70 Graeff, Nina 279 Graf, Fritz 216 Graham, Martha 47, 50, 125, 129, 161, 162, 167, 169 Granado, Nelly 283 Green, Renée 54 Greenwood, Janinka 55

Index of Names

Gregory of Nazianzus 101 Gregory the Great 117 Griffiths, Bede 55 Guardini, Romano 163 Gundlach Sonnemann, Helga 356 Gundlach, Helga Barbara 45 H Habiba de Oxum Abalô 275, 282 Hadrysiewicz, Dominika 21 Haecker, Theodor 307, 308 Halprin, Anna 167 Hardwicke, Catherine 127 Hartman, Saidiya 279 Hegel, Georg W.F. 85 Heine, Anselma 124 Herod 114, 130 Herodias 98, 101–103, 106, 108, 109 Heschel, Abraham 161 Hieronymus 115, 131 Hikota, Riyako C. 20 Hilpert, Anne 328 Hinsliff, Gaby 299 Hitler, Adolf 163 Honegger, Arthur 125 Horner, Kay 130 Husserl, Edmund 357 Hymnographus, Josephus 115 I Iacchus 215 Iacoboni, Marco 230 Isaiah 130 Isis 160 Isis and Osiris 217 Israel ben Eliezer Ba’al Shem Tov J Jeremiah 131 Jerome 116, 119 Jitzchak of Berdiczów, Levi Joachim 114

201

197

John 103 John the Baptist 98, 99, 101, 106, 108, 109, 143, 144 Johnson, Mark 309, 310, 357 Joseph 114, 130, 131 Joshua 203 Josuttis, Manfred 164 Judith 130 Julian 101 K Kadman, Guri 48 Kant, Immanuel 85, 357 Kemp, Lindsay 128 Kierkegaard, Søren 85 Kim, Jae-Im 125 King David 123 King Herod 142 Klein 162 Knäble, Philip 16 Knitter, Paul 48 Koll, Julia 328 Koltai, Judith 213 Korzec, Pinchas of 201 Kosegarten, Ludwig Gotthard Kuhlmann, Helga 40

122

L Laban, Rudolf von 167 Lachenmann, Helmut 74, 76, 77 Lakoff, George 357 LaMothe, Kimerer L. 13, 15, 49, 50, 125, 159, 160, 165, 313, 314 Langer, Susanne K. 70 Lapson, Dvora 207 Le Roy, Xavier 74, 76, 77 Leeuw, Gerardus van der 46, 313, 314 Legarda, Bernardo de 121 Leib von Sasów, Moshe 200 Leonhard, Silke 328 Leonid Mjasin/Léonide Massine 124

377

378

Index of Names

Lepeigneux, Camille 16, 292 Leutzsch, Martin 16 Levin, David Michael 70 Levinas, Emmanuel 357 Levinson, André 70 Lucian 218 Luke 100, 120 Luria, Yitzchak 197 Luther, Martin 31 Lyngsgaard, Hans 126

M Magli, Ida 132 Mallarmé, Stéphane 70 Marcel, Gabriel 293 Maria 127 Marie de l’Incarnation 130 Martin, John 70 Mary 113–128, 130–132, 144, 147, 161 Mary Magdalen 117, 129, 130 Mary of Nazareth 130 Marys 123, 129 Matthäus 100 Matthew 99, 105, 180 McCausland Steward, William 70 McFee, Marcia 359 Méndez Montoya, Ángel F. 13, 19, 40, 369–371 Mensah, Samuel Odai 14 Merleau-Ponty, Maurice 293 Mhlongo, Bhekinkosi 182 Michal 195 Mignolo, Walter 273 Miriam 115, 130, 195 Mohlamme, Elliot 14 Moses 130, 144 Muller 175 Múscari, Marcello 281 Myriam 109

N Nahman of Bratzlav / Rabbi Nachman von Bretzlaw 18, 202, 203, 205 Nancy, Jean-Luc 27, 34, 41, 56 Ngidi, Qambelabantu 179 Nietzsche, Friedrich 15, 16, 20, 22, 50, 82, 84, 86–92, 151, 160, 356 O Oesterley, William O.E. 46 Olson, Carl 49 Opsahl, Carl P. 30, 55 Origen of Alexandria 98–102, 292 Origenes 16 P Pachelbel, Johann 121 Panikkar, Raimon 35 Patrick, Derrick 126 Paul 108, 130, 358 Paxton, Steve 72 Peter 100, 130, 180 Peyker, Ingo 20, 320 Pezzoli-Olgiati, Daria 10 Pfaff, Petra 328 Pfeiffer, Patricia 130 Phaedrus 218 Plato 100, 101, 213–215, 218, 228 Plutarch 214, 216, 217 Prophet Muhammad 239, 240, 244 Przywara, Erich 20, 305–314 Pype, Katrien 29 Q Queen Elizabeth of England 140 Quintilianus, Aristides 216 R Ramabai, Pandita 130 Raphael 118 Restrepo, Álvaro 129 Rivera Rivera, Mayra 292

Index of Names

Robbia, Andrea Della 124 Rocha, Cristina 274 Romankiewicz, Brigitte 129 Roseman, Lynn 161 Rouge, Jean 279 Rūmī, Jalāloddīn 18 S Sahi, Jyoti 43 Saint Mary 161 Saju George SJ 13, 21, 43, 128, 337, 338, 340, 341, 344, 347, 365 Salman von Ljad, Schne’ur 207 Salman, Shne’ur 209 Salome 98, 99, 143 Samosata, Lucian of 214 Sarah 115, 130 Sartorius, Raphael 9, 21 Sartre, Jean-Paul 293 Scharf da Silva, Inga 19 Schilling, Tom 128 Schlapbach, Karin 18 Schleiermacher, Friedrich 85, 157 Schmith, Jonathan G. 55 Schneegaß, Cyriakus 150 Schnütgen, Tatjana K. 14, 17 Schroeder, Roger 129 Schroedter, Stephanie 15 Schubert, Franz 124, 159 Schwarz, Andrea 130 Seferis, Giorgos 126 Seneca the Elder 104 Sequeira-Prabhu, Ronald 38, 43 Serres, Michel 357 Shawn, Ted 161 Sheikh Safī from Ardabil 18 Shembe, Isaiah 17, 175, 176, 179–181, 183, 186, 189 Shimon Bar Jochai 203 Sicard of Cremona 147 Sithole, Nkosinathi 17

Sklar, Deidre 71, 127 Sobat, Gail Sidonie 130 Socrates 215, 217, 218 Söhngen, Gottlieb 307, 308 Sorge, Reinhard Johannes 123 Sousa Santos, Boaventura de 21, 367, 368, 370 Sparshott, Francis 70 St. Nicholas 142 St. Peter 117 Stählin, Wilhelm 163, 164 Steil, Iris B. 21 Sternhartz, Nathan 205 Sternharz from Niemirow, Nathan 202 Stewart, Iris J. 48, 129 Strasser, Peter 321 Suhner, Jasmine 20 Sundkler, Bengt 177 Surtz, Ronald 120 Svedlund, Helga 125 T Tabourot, Jehan 139 Talabardon, Susanne 18 Tertullian 292 Thecla 115 Theseus 148 Thomas 307, 308 Tiberius von Kayserstuhl 119 Tillich, Paul 40, 157 Timaeus 218, 228 Tov, Israel b. Eliezer Ba’al Shem Turner, Victor 149, 353 U UNyazi Lwezulu UThingo 189

189

V Valéry, Paul 70 Valten, Voigt 150 Vasquez, Manuel 274

18

379

380

Index of Names

Velha, Preta 269, 273, 276, 277, 279, 280 Velho, Preto 269 Virgin Mary 16, 22, 113, 115–117 Völkl, Robert 126 W Wagenbach, Marc 278 Walz, Heike 15, 338, 365, 370 Wenger, Tisa 44 Wigman, Mary 40, 162, 169 Wils, Jean-Pierre 357

Winckelmann, Almut 125 Wolkenstein, Oswald von 116 Y Yarber, Angela M. 48 Yezulu, Inyanga 188 Young, Robert 177 Z Zarathustra 84, 91 Zellmann, Ulrike 149

Index of Places

A Accra 253 Africa 31, 34, 42, 44, 57, 127, 131, 175–177, 181, 182, 258, 259, 273 Agbedrafo 253 Agoué 259 Alexandria 98, 99, 213, 292 America 31, 57, 71, 132, 155, 158, 165, 273, 279 Amsterdam 128 Anèho (Petit Popo) 253, 259 Antioch 109 Argentina 28, 42, 365 Asia 31, 34, 42, 44, 57, 131 Athen 88, 109 Atienza 127 Atlantic 19 Austria 15, 123, 275, 283 Auxerre 17, 115, 141, 145, 148, 149 Azerbaijan 18 B Bahia 275, 282 Bali 34, 43 Basel 83, 142, 262 Bavaria 9, 13, 370 Beijing 32 Belgium 123 Berlin 28, 128, 270, 275, 276, 279, 281, 282 Berlin-Neukölln 282 Bern 275 Bielefeld 128 Bonn 82, 88, 128 Bratzlav/Brazlaw 203, 204, 206, 207 Brazil 19, 42, 127, 270, 271, 273–275, 280, 281, 284

Bremerhaven 129 Buenos Aires 28, 365, 366 Busan 129 C Cachoeira do Macacu California 127, 161 Cambridge 156 Capernaum 180 Clairveaux 17 Cologne 275 Congo 29 Cumuruxatiba 275 Cuzco 42

271

D Den Haag 128 Denmark 122 Dortmund 129 Dresden 77 Dülmen 129 Durban 181 E Ecuador 368 Elmina 19, 252, 259 England 46, 140, 142, 158, 181 Erfurt 129 Europe 16, 52, 81, 82, 121, 126, 128, 132, 159, 161, 262, 273–275, 280, 281, 283 F Finsterwalde 129 Florence 124 France 17, 139, 141, 142, 145, 148, 158, 298

382

Index of Places

G Germany 9, 14, 16, 17, 19–21, 51, 123, 124, 128, 129, 155, 157, 158, 165, 167–169, 171, 275, 281, 283, 343, 363, 364, 366, 370 Ghana 19, 42, 253 Glidji 253 Grand Popo 259 Graz 275 Greece 214 I India Iran Israel Italy

13, 55, 128, 298, 338, 343, 365 18 195, 203, 204 124, 365

J Japan 20, 48 Jericho 203 Jerusalem 195, 196 K Kenya 298 Kerala 338 Kinshasa 29 Kolkata 13, 338 Konya 238 Korea 129 Krefeld 128 L Lagos 259 Langres 139 Latin America 41, 42, 44, 121, 298 Latin West 120 Leipzig 128, 129 Levante 365 Logroño 127 London 128 Los Angeles 127 Ludwigsburg 128

M Madrid 122 Magdeburg 128 Mainz 129 Mexico 19, 127, 298, 369 Milan 16, 292 Montréal 128 München 128 Munich 10, 343 N Naumburg 88 Nazareth 130 Netherland 158 Neuendettelsau 9, 28, 128, 363 New Mexico 127 New York 54, 70, 124, 128, 161, 298 New Zealand 55 North America 52, 258 Nuremberg 14, 370 Nürnberg 128, 129 O Offenburg 128 Oslo 30 Osnabrück 129 Ouidah 259 P Pacific 31, 42, 49, 57 Pakistan 18 Panama 127 Panama City 127 Paris 128 Pelusium 99 Pernambuco 275 Peru 42, 127 Philippines 127 Podolia 202 Portugal 274 Provins 122 Puerto Maldonado 127

Index of Places

R Recife 275 red sea / Red Sea 109, 115, 144 Rio de Janeiro 127, 271, 280 Río de la Plata 14, 28

Tortugas 127 Turkey 238 U United States 81, 82 USA 18, 30, 48, 71, 167

S Salvador 275 São Paulo 127, 275 Seattle 128 South Africa 17, 180, 181 South America 258 South Glidji-Anèho 252 Spain 127, 365 St. Gallen 275 St. Petersburg 70 Stein 275 Steyl 262 Stuttgart 128, 129 Sulzbach-Rosenberg 129 Switzerland 19, 20, 123, 158, 275, 283

W Weimar 274 West Africa 19, 279 Wien 76 Wounded Knee 43 Wuppertal 28 Würzburg 124

T Thuringia 118 Togo 18, 19, 251, 253, 263, 265

Z Zurich/Zürich

V Venezia 124 Vienna/Venezia Vienne 143 Vokwe 180

124, 275

128, 275

383

Index of Subjects

5Rhythms 168 18th century 157 20th century 157 20th Century Theology

156

A a priori 33, 352 Abendmahl 164 Abhishiktananda 55 abolition 280 abusive 366 academic theology 330 acousmatic 77 acrobatic 201 act of creation 204 activists 275 actors 283 Acts of John 213, 214, 219, 227, 228, 230 acuerpamiento 298, 299 ad infinitum 300 adaptations 344 adulterous 105 adultery 345 Advaita Vedanta 55 Aesop 107 aesthetic 34, 43, 44, 46, 50–52, 57, 70, 74, 77, 165–167, 255, 295, 321, 341, 344, 346, 358, 359, 363 aesthetic theology 344 aesthetic turn 35 aesthetical qualities 166 aesthetique 30 affect 291, 368 affection 269 affectivity 293 African 265, 272

African cultures 158, 271 African Dance Workshop 14 African language 280 African religion 11, 18, 49, 270, 271, 278 African studies 40 African women 271 African-American religions 274 African-initiated churches 42 Africans 273 Afro-American religions 271, 280 Afro-Brazilian 274 Afro-Brazilian religion 11, 18, 19, 22, 36, 270–272, 276, 279, 280, 283 Afro-Cuban 365 Afro-diasporic religions 273 Afro-indigenous religions 270 afterlife 279 age 294 agency 55, 283, 299, 300, 365, 366, 372 agent of decolonization 369 agile 272 Āhārya 341 alchemist 21, 365, 371 alchemy 363, 364, 368, 372 alef 197 alien other 296 All Saints Day 117 alloy 21, 364, 365, 372 altar 114 amaNazaretha 180, 190 amashoba 182 ambiguity 283, 295, 353 ambivalence 339, 345, 346 Amen 181, 222–224, 227 American modern dance 162

386

Index of Subjects

Americas 271 amnestic 266 analogia entis 20, 306, 307, 309–312, 314, 316 analogia fidei 309 anamnestic 252 ancestors 175, 177, 179, 190, 255, 257, 263, 264, 270 ancestral 261, 264, 265 ancestral field 275 ancient Greek 231 ancient Greek mysteries 18 ancient Greek mystery cults 215 ancient Greek religion 36 ancient languages 83 ancient mystery cults 228 ancient rituals 167 angel 107, 114, 118, 127, 128, 132, 162, 183, 218 Āṅgika 341 animal 52 ankles 254, 337 annunciation 125 anthology 69 anthropocentric 132 anthropological 46–48, 52, 274, 347 anthropologist 48, 273, 294 anthropology 40, 357, 358 anthropomorphise 295 Antichrist 305, 308 anti-Christian 160, 177 anti-colonial 43, 57, 279 anti-colonial dance resistance 43 anti-fascist 283 antiphonally 146 antique culture 358 antiquity 97, 99, 109, 113, 114, 131, 148 anti-semitism 83 anti-virgin 125 anti-virginal 132 apartheid 17, 179

apocalypse 220, 269 apocryphal 213, 219 apollonian 89 apologetic 238 appreciation 372 approaches 57 arch 101 archaeological 48 archangel 131 archbishop 145, 147 archetype 372 archive 19, 277, 280, 281 archives of the repressed 278 Argentinian tango 14, 22, 28, 29, 55, 155, 167, 168, 170, 172 ark 123, 147 ark of God 195 ark of the covenant 144 arm 255, 345 arms 206, 261, 337, 345 arrested performances 359 art 33, 40, 47, 55, 273, 305, 312, 366, 367 articulations 262, 339 artificial intelligence (AI) 320 artistic 324, 330, 344, 345, 347 artists 159, 277 artwork 359 Aruanda 271 Aryan 83 asceticism 31, 199 Ashanti 253 Ashkenas 196 Asian religions 11 Ata Kpessu 254 Ata Sakumo 254 Athenian 215 atlantic slavery 19, 279 attic tragedy 88, 91 atypical performance 257 Atzilut 197 audible 161

Index of Subjects

Augustana Theological Seminary 364 Augustana-Hochschule 9 Austrian 281 auto sacramental 122 auto-ethnographic 278 auto-ethnographically 276 autonomy 264 Ave Maria 122, 124 Avoda 207 Avoda ba-Gashmi’ut 198, 199 awareness 369 Axé 272 axis mundi 203 B Babylonian 196 Babylonian Talmud 196 Bacchae 215 bacchic 105, 107, 218 Bacchic dances 215 Bacchic mystery 216, 218 Bali hinduism 34 ballerina 158 ballet 69, 124, 128, 129, 159, 162 ballroom dancing 167 Bantu 19, 271 baptism 52 baptist 49, 105, 130, 131 baptized 176 barefoot 272 baroque 121 Basel Mission Society 262 basic education 338 bate cabeças 272 Ba’al Shem Tov 199, 202, 207 beauty 165 becoming 160 belief 85, 363, 370, 372 beliefs 93, 356, 372 believer 370, 372

305, 363,

bells 337 belly dance 48 Benediciamus 144 Benedictine monk 55, 148 Beri’a 197 Beshtian 199 Bet 197 beyond the language of words 371 bhabhanian 345, 348 bhakti 37 Bharata Natyam 128 Bhāratanāt.yam 21, 37, 43, 48, 337, 338, 340–344, 347, 348 Bhāratanāt.yam dance 13 Bible 47, 115, 117, 121, 130, 143, 144, 158, 160, 166, 202 Bible study 166, 168 biblical 47, 88, 98, 104, 108, 109, 129, 147, 159, 168, 196, 199, 203, 345, 358, 359, 365 biblical figures 199 biblical narrative 180 biblical studies 40 bibliodans 168 bibliodrama 328 Bibliotanz 168 binary 54, 56 binary concepts 169 binary dichotomic 22 binary gender stereotypes 365 binary gendering 52 biological 50 bisexual 299 bishop 102, 133, 142, 146, 147 Black 271 Black people 273 bless 184 blessed chorus 217, 218 blessing 247 blindfolded 368 bliss 207

387

388

Index of Subjects

bodies 82, 85, 93, 147, 159, 162–164, 167, 171, 182, 229, 240, 247, 260, 263, 266, 272, 278, 280, 281, 284, 293, 296, 302, 325, 359, 371 bodily 51, 52, 81, 82, 86, 156, 160, 172, 213, 215, 226, 230, 259, 264, 293, 294, 301, 313, 314, 316, 319, 321, 344, 351, 356, 358, 368 bodily agent 369 bodily becoming 50, 91, 92, 293, 295, 296, 298, 314 bodily control 299 bodily experience 278, 292, 357, 370, 371 bodily expression 255, 257, 258, 262 bodily feeling 321 bodily knowledge 73 bodily life 293 bodily movement 88–91, 93, 226, 258, 293, 341, 355, 370, 371 bodily movements 314 bodily neglect 321 bodily postures 341 bodily practices 93 bodily self 87, 160, 167 bodily spheres 370 bodily thought 41 body 9, 18, 19, 21, 22, 27, 30, 31, 33, 40, 47, 57, 87, 89, 93, 141, 144, 155, 158–160, 162–165, 167, 169, 182, 206, 207, 213, 246, 251, 252, 255, 256, 261–264, 266, 271–273, 276–278, 280, 282–284, 291–296, 298–302, 314, 315, 319–323, 326–328, 337, 341, 355–358, 366, 368, 370, 371 body awareness 327, 328 body experience 325 body gestures 338 body knowledge 41, 278, 280, 281, 320, 359 body language 22, 39, 256, 263, 356

body movement 18, 57, 164, 255, 257, 262, 305, 357 body of Christ 163, 164, 358 body parts 264 body perceptions 264 body performing 295 body politic 263, 294, 299 body posture 255, 338 body prayer 156 body theology 19, 22, 370, 371 body turn 40 body-conscious 321 body-friendly 167 body-mediated 278 body-mind-reason 327 body-oriented aesthetics 157 body-politics 299 body-relation 371 body-thinking 321 borderlines 339 boy-bishops 142 branle 132, 140 Brazilian 270, 271, 274, 275, 281 Brazilian culture 270, 283 Brazilian Portuguese 272, 275 Brazilians 273 breakdance 132 breath 162, 325 breathe 330 breathing 162, 329 bridge-builder 372 Brücke-Köprü 13 brutalized 369 Buddha 162 Buddhism 34, 161 Buddhist 11, 160 bystanders 366 Byzantine 115

Index of Subjects

C Cabocla 278 Caboclo das Sete Encruzilhadas 271 cadences 260 Calvinists 17, 140, 150 Cana 126 candombe 365 Candomblé 42, 271 canon 139, 145, 146 canonical 220 capitalism 163 Capucine 117 caritas 301 carnal 292 carnival 19, 124 carols 150 Cartesian 368 Castilian Kabbalah 202 catalyst 273 cathartic rites 215 cathedral 144, 147 cathedral schools 147 Catholic 17, 35, 42, 48, 122, 123, 125, 140, 305, 308, 309, 337 Catholic monastic traditions 157 Catholicism 309 Catholics 150 Cazzole 145 celebrations 256 celestial bodies 147 central European 275 ceremonies 216 ceremony 254 Chaba 207 Chaba‘‘d-Lubawitch 209 Chajjé Moharan 206 chant 151, 195 chanting 257 chants 254, 255, 257 Chanukkah 206 chaotic 52

chaplains 145 charismatic 31, 203, 205, 261, 262 charismatic-Pentecostal 30 chaste dancing 124 chaste women 132 chastity 31 chest 255 Chila/Tjila 272 Chilean 298, 369 choir 107, 122 choir boys 144 choral 89, 113, 115, 119, 123 choral dance 129, 132, 214 choral dances 119 choral lyric 213 chorea in claustro 145 choreographer 49, 69, 74, 124 choreographers 162, 299 choreographic 77, 124, 295, 297, 298, 344 choreography 14, 77, 125, 128, 161, 169, 171, 258, 293, 298, 301, 338, 345, 347, 356 chorus 89, 90, 101, 115, 144, 223, 224, 298 Christ 16, 18, 20, 39, 43, 57, 101, 103, 108, 115, 118, 121–123, 132, 133, 144, 148, 149, 157, 262, 296, 344, 345, 358 Christian 15, 16, 19–21, 29, 31, 34, 35, 37–39, 42, 43, 47, 49, 51, 52, 57, 81–85, 87, 88, 91, 97–99, 101, 105, 108, 109, 115, 116, 121, 128, 129, 132, 147–149, 157–161, 164, 166, 176, 196, 201, 218–220, 228, 262, 263, 270, 275, 289, 292, 293, 296, 300, 305–307, 310, 312–316, 319, 321, 337, 338, 343–345, 356, 359, 363, 368, 371 Christian Antiquity 97 Christian Ashram 55 Christian caroles 151 Christian faith 157, 161 Christian liturgies 292 Christian prayer 338 Christian prayers 345

389

390

Index of Subjects

Christian public 196 Christian spirituality 155, 156, 163, 171, 172, 338 Christian temple 161 Christian theologian 113 Christian theologies of dance 39 Christian theology 36, 39, 40, 44, 81, 291, 295, 300, 305, 316 Christian tradition 140 Christian worship 171 Christianities 132 Christianity 15–17, 21, 31, 34, 36–38, 44, 47, 50–52, 55, 57, 81, 95, 121, 147, 166, 177, 262, 263, 356, 359 christianization 147 Christians 97, 108, 109, 114, 115, 177, 371 Christmas 116, 125 christocentric 309 christological 39 Christ’s flesh 292 church dance 155, 157, 158, 168, 169 church dogmatics 308 church father 22, 31, 214 church history 158, 166 church music 158 church services 164 church spirituality 157 cinematic 297 circle 224 circle dances 201 circles 337 circular dance 147 circular movement 147 circumcision 144 civil society 321 civilization 280, 314 clapping 165 class 294, 296, 300, 370 classic gender stereotypes 366 classical Athens 109 classical dance 337

classical Greece 214 classical Indian dance 22, 168, 365 classical Indian dancer 43 classical Indian Philosophy 343 classical philology 18, 40 classical rhetoric 105 classical tango 366 Clement of Alexandria 227 clergy 17, 145–147, 150 clerics 142, 143 clericuli tripudiant 144 climax 254 cloister 143, 145 cloisters 142, 146 codes 369, 372 coexistence 302, 372 cognition 294 cognitive 320, 322, 368 cognitive linguistics 357 cold 366 collective imagination 258, 260 collective memory 258, 260, 265, 280, 281 collective trauma 281 colonial 19, 42, 44, 46, 50, 51, 271, 273, 278–280, 299, 353, 369, 372 colonial dichotomies 52 colonial epistemologies 371 colonial era 270 (post-)colonial knowledge 369 colonial masters 279 colonial patterns 369, 371 colonial period 280 colonial powers 367 colonial resistance 178 colonialism 17, 37, 178, 190, 355, 368 colonialist 269, 279 colonies 367 colonised 178 colonization 342 colonized world 279 colonizers 178

Index of Subjects

comedy 102 comfort zones 370 commodification 295 commodity 291 communal meal (yeke yeke) 253 communication 355 communities 157 community 201 comparative religion 57 compassion 343 com/passionately 292 complete participation 364 composers 122 confessions 121 Confucianism 34 Confucianist 11 congregation 132, 182 conscious 279 consciousness 159 conservatism 163 construct 299 constructive theology 28 consumerist 294, 295 consumerist body 295 consumption 369 Contact Improvisation 168, 171 contact zones 38 Contango 55 contemporary dance 71, 170 contexts 363 contextual 252 contextual theology 330 contingencies 301 contortions 255 contra-culture 283 Coptic 31 Coptic Dance of the Saviour around the Cross 220 Coptic Gospel of the Saviour 220 corazón 368 corazonar 21, 367–369, 371, 372

corona-pandemic 370 corporal expression 281 corporal movements 262 corporal/corporeal 165, 262, 291–293, 295, 297–299, 302 corporeal chiasmus 296 corporeal communion 296 corporeal discourses 293 corporeal entanglements 291 corporeal movement 74 corporeal narratives 296 corporeal performance 298 corporeal poetics 291 corporeal turn 357 corporeality 198, 265, 291, 293, 295–297, 358, 359, 370 corpu 296 corpus 89, 293, 297 Corpus Christi 118, 296 corrente 272 Corybantes 215 Corybantic 215 cosmic 294, 297 cosmic dance 341 cosmogony 197 cosmological 204, 205, 218, 228, 253 cosmology 238 cosmopolitan 279, 365 cosmos 18, 292, 295, 300, 310, 313, 326 Council of Basel 142 Council of Vienne 143 counter-rhythmic 255 couple dances 201 court of the israelites 196 court of the women 196 cowhide drums 177 creatio continua 204 creation 20, 149, 197, 199, 204, 207, 301, 307, 309, 311 creation of knowledge 371 creative 89

391

392

Index of Subjects

creative spaces 260 creativity 273 Creator 49, 199, 208, 305–308, 310–313, 316 creator God (mawu) 253 creator-creature relation 310 creator-God 258 creature 305–308, 313, 316 creatureliness 306, 316, 320 creaturely 314, 316 criterion 306 critical dance theory 72 cross 231, 345 cross-cultural 50, 367, 371 crozier 142 crucified 229, 358 crucifixion 219 cult 160 cultic 256 cultic dance 45 cultic rites 253 cultural 28, 32, 38, 53, 55, 69, 133, 164, 263, 265, 271, 278, 283, 293, 295, 299, 339–341, 346, 353, 354 cultural anthropologist 149, 281, 353 cultural anthropology 48 cultural appropriation 274 cultural codes 365 cultural context 279, 367 cultural determinism 294 cultural difference 72, 353, 354 cultural diversity 352, 353 cultural expression 365 cultural heritage 278 cultural identification 339 cultural identity 55 cultural interrelations 352 cultural knowledge 273 cultural memory 273 cultural practices 274 cultural production 369

cultural Protestantism 157 cultural studies 40, 50, 53, 55, 322 cultural theory 294 cultural translation 354, 365 cultural trauma 259 cultural turn 40 cultural values 133 cultural-geographic location 365 cultural-historical 341, 345 culturally embodied 358 culture 22, 40, 44, 54, 104, 107, 169, 277, 279, 292–294, 339, 365, 371 cultures 21, 38, 47, 55, 70, 72, 73, 251, 252, 353, 354, 370, 372 curators 277 cymbals 195 D Dalit 13 dance 16, 196, 218, 271, 368 dance as Third Space 22 dance churches 37 dance forms 128 dance groups 170 dance history 158 dance music 142 dance revivals 37 dance schools 159 dance steps 139 dance studies 40, 71, 72 dance theatre 40, 171 dance theory 72 dance-movement 261 dancer 224, 225, 231, 256, 367–369, 371 dancer’s body 293 dance-spirituality 170 dancing 168 dancing angels 144 dancing body 264, 292, 296, 297, 299, 306, 313, 315, 316 dancing Christ 144

Index of Subjects

dancing Madonna 124 dancing theology 330, 331 dangers 372 Danish 259 Daoist 11 deacons 116 deaf 276 death 292 decay 292 decolonial 43, 53, 56, 363, 364, 371 decolonial turn 43, 44, 57 decolonization 22, 28, 57, 273, 371 decolonization of archives 277 decolonization of knowledge 284 decolonization of the mind 273 decolonize 21, 41, 44, 51, 53, 56, 57, 367, 370 decolonize knowledge 371 decolonizing epistemology 15 decolonizing theology 371 deconstruction 41 deconstructive 297 deconstructivist 55 deep experience 278 deification 296, 302 deities 169, 272, 273, 347 deity 272, 311, 312, 344 demagogic 283 demonization 56 demons 183 denial 301 deportation 259 dervish 18, 37 dervishes 238 desire 86, 300 desires 87, 372 determinism 291 determinisms 294 Deutscher Evangelischer Kirchentag 158 devadāsis 37, 342 devequt 199

deviant 367 devil 11, 16, 19, 21, 29–31, 49, 97, 107–109, 128, 148, 261, 262, 305, 306, 316, 337, 363, 364, 372 devotion 30, 121, 140 dhikr 237 diabolic 11 diachronic 257, 313 dialectical theology 157 diaspora 204, 271, 279, 280 diasporas 274 diasporic bodies 299 dichotomies 293 dichotomy 28, 33, 51, 54–56, 93, 227, 262, 305 diexodos 218 difference 301 different ways of knowing 368 Dionysian 89, 90 dionysian 88 disabilities 299 disabled 296, 299 disabled person 278 disciple 224, 226, 228, 229, 231, 247 discipleship 245 discourse 41, 45, 47, 51–53, 340 discourses 56, 57, 132 discursive 28, 33, 54 disgust 343 disharmonious 101 disobedience 277 diva 125, 129 diversity 73 divine 19–21, 49, 81, 82, 129, 159, 161, 167, 198, 204, 205, 207, 215, 217, 228, 229, 241, 244–246, 261, 263, 273, 280, 292, 296, 300, 301, 306, 309, 311, 315, 316, 326, 341, 342, 370, 371 divine chorus 218 divine communion 306 divine creation 158

393

394

Index of Subjects

divine creative act 302 divine embrace 293 divine excess 291 divine judgements 205 divine movements 306, 342 divine nature 292 divine power 177 divine service 142 divine spirit 370 divine-human 297, 306, 310 divinities 49, 253, 255–259, 264, 271 divinity 42, 48, 159, 293, 296, 301, 342 doctoral thesis 270 doing theology 319, 331, 369, 371 domination 368 Dominican 41, 117, 118 drama 126, 131, 343 dramatic 89 dramatic art 89 dream 179, 372 drums 276, 277, 283 dualism 31, 356, 358 dualistic 258, 357 duet 119 Dutch 259 dynamic 231, 301, 306 dynamism 306 dysfunction 171 E early church 16, 21, 95, 140 early modern 139 Easter 145–149, 158 eBuhleni 176 ecclesial 169 ecclesiastical 140, 145, 150, 156 ecclesiology 148 eco-feminist 30 ecological 50, 295, 301 ecology of knowledge 368 economic 293

ecstasy 30, 31, 49, 239, 243–247, 298 ecstatic 30, 46, 107, 196, 208, 315 ecumenical 168, 172, 309 ecumenical movement 39 ecumenical theology 157 edom 195 education 81, 82, 166, 321, 323 educational 331 educational processes 327 Egyptian religion 11 Egyptians 364 Egyptologist 46 ekpe sosso 254 ek-stasis 295, 298 eKuphakameni 179 electronic music service 370 elements 165 eleusinian 216 eleusinian mystery 218 eleusinian rites 215 Elmina castle 253 emancipated 158 emancipation 52, 165 emancipatory 163, 165 embedded cognition 321 embodied 30, 74, 78, 144, 257, 271, 273, 284, 294, 295, 301, 319, 338, 345, 348, 357, 358 embodied anamnesis 258, 260 embodied knowledge 73, 368 embodied mind 284 embodied reality 294 embodied simulation 230 embodied spirituality 358 embodies 297 embodiment 19, 20, 22, 41–43, 291, 294, 298, 301, 319, 321, 327, 357 embody 49, 256, 273 embodying 300, 302 embrace 292, 325 emon tata 254

Index of Subjects

emotion 74, 162, 170, 300, 368 emotional 30, 34, 50, 106, 157, 169, 171, 207, 230, 278, 283, 292, 295, 367 emotional knowledge 280 emotional violence 299 emotions 31, 86, 87, 129, 157, 162, 166, 169, 344, 345, 368 empathy 323 empire 367 empower 368, 371 empowering tool 366 empowerment 49, 175, 365 emptiness 283 encounter 261, 355 energetic 276, 282, 359 energy 359 energy field 272 enlightenment 49, 50, 151, 354 enslaved 271, 273 enslaved Africans 280 enslaved people 259 entangled 37, 273 entangled histories 36 entanglement 36, 85, 86, 293 enthusiastic 196 entities 276 Epe-Ekpe 19, 22, 253, 254, 256, 257, 259, 263, 265 Epe-Ekpe dances 253, 258, 261 epigraphical 213 epiphany 142, 301 episcopal 124, 145 epistemological 22, 36, 82, 85, 263, 321 epistemologies 367, 368, 370 epistemologies of the global North 367, 369, 371 epistemologies of the global South 368, 369, 371 epistemology 28, 41, 44, 53, 252, 292 epistemology of extraction 372 epos 123

era 271 erotic 46, 52, 105, 170 erotic solo dance 131 eroticism 30, 31 eschatological 217, 219, 295, 300, 363 esoteric 126, 157 essence 311, 313 essence of being a woman 163 essential 321 essentialism 160, 169, 339 essentialist 155, 162, 164, 165, 170, 294 essentialist gender-concept 165 essentializations 371 eternal 198, 199, 207, 301 eternal life 20 eternal love 292 eternity 364 ethical 50, 198 ethicist 19 ethics 103 ethics of positivity 281 ethnic 70, 258, 300 ethnic group 258 ethnic groups 254, 258, 260 ethnicity 36, 40 ethnographic 48, 252, 264, 277, 278 ethnographic studies 178 ethnological 278 ethnologist 122 ethnology 40, 274 etsi deus daretur 329 Etz Chajim 199 Eucharist 296, 301 eucharistic 370 Euro-centric 71 eurocentrism 353 European 259, 280, 365 European Christian history 51 European Christian tradition 305 European colonial expansion 44 European laws 368

395

396

Index of Subjects

European liturgies 371 European modernism 284 European religious actors 273, 279 European Umbanda 276 Europeans 269 Euthydemus 215 evanescence 297 Evangelical Lutheran Church in Bavaria 9, 13 Evangelical-Lutheran 155 evangelisation 261 Evangelisch-Lutherische Landeskirche Hannover 150 evangelist 187 even 132 evil 86, 98, 198 evil spirits 30 evolutionary 52 excluded 296 exclusivism 372 exclusivist 38 exegesis 51, 98, 106 exegetical 98, 102 exercises 156 exile 253 existential 282 exotic 169, 367, 372 exotic culture 170 experience 81, 230, 231, 278, 370 experience of bodily becoming 292 exploitation 367 expression 81 expressionist dance 170 expressionist dancers 169 expressiveness 214 expropriation 367 extended mind 321 extraction 367 extractivist 371

extractivist epistemologies 21, 367, 369, 372 Ezrat Nashim 196 F faith 43, 140, 157, 160, 161, 305, 316, 329, 352, 356 faith communities 33 faith groups 34 faithful 92, 93, 97, 98, 316 famine 253 fandango 122, 132 fasting 254 father 222–225, 310 fear 343 feast 208 feet 255, 261, 272, 321–323, 351 female 48, 107, 118, 129, 272, 299 female artists 125 female body 165, 169 female dancers 170 female seduction 16 feminine 168–170, 269, 292 feminine seducer 105 femininity 160, 163, 165 feminist 40, 43, 47, 52, 57, 132, 159, 170, 298 feminist liturgical practice 171 feminist theology 170 feminist women’s spiritual dance 47 feminization of hunger 301 feminized 292 festival 201, 254, 257 festivities 147, 272 field diary 276 field research 278 fields of knowledge 277 fieldwork 274 figures 213 fingernails 320 fingers 345

Index of Subjects

finite 307 flesh 19, 20, 93, 291–293, 295, 296, 298–302, 358, 369, 370 flexibility 281 floods 195 folia 132 folk songs 122 folklore 169, 171 folklorist 122 foot 322 force vitale 256 forehead 272 fornication 16 forward movements into the space 255 fourth Lateran Council 307 framework 256 Franciscan 41, 49, 119 Franciscan order 144 Frauengottesdienste 165 free-spirited 160 French 117 Frömmigkeit 156 fusion 365, 370, 371 future-oriented 252 G Gaillarde 140, 150 game of love 241 Gan.eśa 344 gaps of archives 279, 280 gay 299 Ge 254, 257–259, 264, 265 Ge people 251, 253 Geistliche Lieder und Psalmen Für Einfeltige frome Hertzen zugerichtet 150 gender 17, 29, 31, 36, 41, 71, 155, 163, 164, 166–171, 294, 296, 299, 365, 370 gender bias 169, 171 gender binaries 365 gender concepts 170 gender constructions 164

gender orientation 171 gender roles 263, 366, 367 gender violence 369 gendered 293 gender-orientated movements 171 gender-specific 131 genetic 320 genitals 320 gentiles 147 geographical 69 Georgians 243 German 280–282 German ethnology 277 gestural codes 345 gesture 255 gestures 165, 171, 258, 266, 337, 345 Gewesi 254 gezerot 201 Gimel 197 gira 284 giras 272 global North 21, 367, 368 global South 42, 274, 299, 367, 369 globalization 283 glory 223, 225 gnostic 38, 214, 219, 220 gnostic apocalypse 220 gnostic christian 214 God 9, 11, 15, 17, 18, 20, 21, 29, 39, 42, 43, 49, 52, 57, 85–87, 92, 93, 100, 102, 103, 107, 109, 114, 115, 117–119, 123, 128, 130, 147, 148, 157, 160–162, 164, 179–184, 186, 190, 197–199, 202, 205, 207, 217–219, 224, 227, 237, 239–241, 243–247, 255, 263, 291, 292, 296, 297, 300, 301, 305–308, 310–316, 330, 337, 338, 341, 344, 358, 359, 363, 364, 369, 370, 372 God Father 132 goddess 93, 162, 168, 275 goddesses 48

397

398

Index of Subjects

gold 364, 372 golden calf 143, 195 gospel 104, 105, 113, 219, 292 grace 214, 263 Graeco-Roman 18, 97, 98, 104, 107, 109 great reason 320, 331 greed 301 Greek 46, 101, 114 Greek antique religions 11 Greek antiquity 213 Greek dance 214 Greek fathers 307 Greek literature 88 Greek mystery 18 Greek mythology 320 Greek religions 16 Greek sculpture art 159 κόρη 98 Greeks 364 grief 162 gypsies 271 H habanera 365 hagiographical 247 hagiographies 22, 237 hair 320 hairstyles 255 Halachic 202 hand 322 hand gestures 345 hand signs 338 handicapped 172 hands 272, 337 happiness 372 haptic 76 harmonic movements 147 harmonies 147 harmony 147, 220 harmony of creation 148 harps 195, 196

harvest 158 Hasidic 198, 200–202, 207, 208 Hasidic hagio-biography 202 Hasidic Judaism 18 Hasidic tzaddikim 205 Hasidim 18, 208 Hasidism 197, 199, 203, 208 Hauka-movement 279 having a body 293 Hayé Mohara‘‘n 205, 207 head 206 heal 88, 182 healing 30, 158, 258, 273 healing-work 275 healthy 296 heart 355 heat 366 heaven 22 heavenly spirits 182 Hebrew 46, 197, 199, 204 Hebrew Bible 195 hegemonic 293 hell 123, 186, 187 heresy 102, 372 heretic 109 hermeneutic 371 hermeneutical 199 hermeneutics 31 Hermit-branle 141 hetero-normative 30 hetero-normative bodies 300 hetero-patriarchal 292, 299 heuristic 370, 371 Hindu 11, 21, 35, 39, 43, 49, 55, 128, 160, 337, 338, 341, 343, 344, 346–348 Hindu Christianity 43 Hinduism 37, 49, 177, 341, 346 historic 48 historic narration 279 historical 69, 81, 155, 169, 299 historical break 283

Index of Subjects

historical gaps 280 historical knowledge 280 history 40 history of theology 39 Hitqarevut 202 Hitrachaqut 202 holiness 198 holistic 162, 261, 324, 370 holistic decolonization 368 holistic experience 370 holistic hope 369 holistic spirituality 368 holy 99, 100, 109, 114, 126, 157, 159, 162, 169, 184, 198, 204, 216, 223, 271, 277, 300 holy ark 196 Holy Cross 144 holy earth 275 holy faith 151 holy innocents 142, 144 holy land 204 holy man 201 holy rebbe 200 holy rites 219 holy roman empire 142, 150 holy shabbat 200 Holy Spirit 30, 122, 157, 158, 163, 164, 310, 315 holy stone 254, 255, 257, 258 Holy Virgin 122 homiletics 359 homogenizing 295 homogenous 365 honey 366 honor 358 hope 369 horror films 270 Hoshana Raba 208 hospitality 300 human 271, 293, 300 human body 158, 270, 272, 296, 314, 315, 370

human condition 300 human dignity 170 human rights 170 human-god relation 371, 372 humanistic 280, 283 humanities 293 humanity 171 humanity scholars 372 humor 343 hungry bodies 301 hybrid 35, 54, 55, 57, 73, 75, 292, 297, 365, 368, 371 Hybrid Space 77 hybridity 35, 54, 340, 344, 346, 353, 355, 360, 365 hybridity of culture 364 hybridization 339 hymn 17, 128, 140, 150, 168, 171, 175, 177, 183–185, 220, 224, 226 hymnbook 150 I Ibandla lamaNazaretha 22, 176, 177, 180, 181, 185, 190 icon 347 iconography 121, 270, 341 identification 339, 340, 347, 348 identities 359 identity 31, 70, 73, 176, 258–260, 265, 300, 311, 339, 354 identity politics 343, 346 ideological 328 ideological plurality 328 idolatrous dance 143 idols 147 Ilê Axé Oxum Abalô 274–276, 279, 283 images of the other 367 imaginaries 365, 366 imagination 252 imagining the future 257 imbomu 183

399

400

Index of Subjects

iminazaretha 181 immaculata 121 immaculate conception 130 immanence 291–293, 297, 298, 311, 314, 316 immigrants 365 immorality 16 imperfection 167 imperial church 31 imperialism 83 impoverished classes 365 incarnation 19, 39, 292, 301, 302, 309 inclusive 371 inclusivist 38 incorporation 279, 284 inculturation 262 Indian 43, 337, 338, 341, 342, 346, 347 Indian classical dance 51, 338, 341, 342, 346, 347 Indian culture 346 Indian dance 43 Indian diaspora 343 Indian Jesuit 337 Indian music 337 Indian philosophy 344 Indian psychology 346 Indian spiritual 344 Indian theory of aesthetics 343 Indian-American 365 Indians 341 indigenized 177 indigenous 41, 42, 44, 49, 50, 57, 81, 271, 274, 299, 368 indigenous cultures 274 indigenous religions 49, 270 indigenous spirit 278 individual body 293 infinitive 269 initiated mediums 272 initiation 132, 216 initiation ceremonies 217

initiation of clerics 144 initiation rite 46, 218 injustice 279 Inkorporationstänzer*in 275 innocence 120 inscription 293 instruments 261, 331 intangible 278, 279, 281 intellect 291 interactions 354 inter-corporeal 293 intercorporeité 170 inter-creaturely 306, 310 intercultural 9, 11, 12, 15, 20, 27, 34, 36, 41, 56, 57, 69, 261, 292, 323, 328, 335, 337, 338, 351–353, 355, 372 intercultural encounter 354 intercultural research 266 intercultural studies 252 Intercultural Theology 21, 22, 28, 40, 41, 43, 44, 56, 57, 364, 365, 371, 372 inter-dance 13 interdiction 254 interdisciplinary 12, 32, 40, 41, 57, 69, 172, 266, 305 inter-ethnic conflicts 253 interfaith 43 intergenerational 259 interior way 283 international 168 interpersonal 237 interpretant 256 inter-relationship 339 interreligious 9, 11, 12, 15, 20, 27, 33, 34, 36, 41, 51, 56, 57, 69, 214, 319, 323, 328, 335, 337–339, 346, 351, 352, 354–356, 359 interreligious dance floor 351 interreligious dialogue 352 interreligious education 328 interreligious encounter 354

Index of Subjects

interreligious encounters 21 interreligious pedagogy 328 intersection 40, 252 intersectionality 36 intersex 299 intersubjective 231, 358 intersubjectivity 226, 252 interweaving 279 intimations 295 intra-divine 306, 310 intra-religious 57 intrareligious-dialogue 35 intrinsically 255 intropathy 323 invisible 161, 263 ioculatores Domini 144 ion corybantic 215 Islam 34, 37, 177 Islamic 30, 238, 246 Islamic religious dance 238 Islamic studies 40 Islamic Sufism 18, 22, 36 Israel 114, 203 Italian 365 J Jehovah 184, 185 Jerusalem Temple 196 jesters 142 Jesuit 117, 305, 338 Jesus 21, 29, 39, 114, 117, 118, 126, 127, 130, 131, 133, 144, 148, 149, 180, 214, 218, 219, 224–227, 229, 345 Jesus Christ 17, 22, 29, 43, 117, 118, 262, 309, 345, 358, 369 Jew 198, 199 Jewish 34, 38, 47, 83, 99, 114, 130, 195–197, 201, 202, 204, 205, 208 Jewish Hasidic Kabbalistic mysticism 22 Jewish minority 201 Jewish mysticism 197

Jewish spirituality 202 Jewish studies 40 Jews 97, 99, 100, 205 jinn 246 John on the Mount of Olives 229 Judaism 11, 16, 34, 36, 37, 47, 52, 109 judgement day 185 justification 309

K Kabbalah 203 kabbalistic 197, 199, 204, 205 kabuki onnagata 48 Kalahrdaya center 338 Kardecism 19, 271 Katholikentag (Catholics’ Feast) 158 Ka‘ba 244 kenosis 296 Kheshvan 208 Kimbundu 280 kinaesthesia 75 kinaesthetic 75, 78 kinesthetic 166, 172, 295, 300, 359 kinetic 74, 86, 88, 89, 258, 292, 293 kinetic creativity 90, 91 Kirchentanz 155 Kislev 208 Kitu Kara 368 knowledge 13, 19, 41, 57, 72, 75, 78, 93, 126, 132, 272, 278–281, 283, 284, 293, 294, 320, 331, 357, 367, 369 knowledge production 368 koach 204 Komische Oper Berlin 128 Kommunitäten 157 kpessossor 253 Kriegsenkel 283 Kr.s.n.a 344

401

402

Index of Subjects

L La Court de Paradis 117, 118 laboratory 21, 22, 364, 365, 369, 371, 372 laboratory of dance 366, 367, 369, 371, 372 labyrinth 145 Lakota Sioux 43 language 21, 40, 255, 355 language beyond words 370 Las Tesis 298 lascivious 124 Late Antiquity 141, 292 Late Middle Ages 141, 144, 148, 151 Later Middle Ages 141 Lateran IV 312 Latin 104, 115–117 Latin Christianity 115 Latina feminist 292 layperson 122 Le Maitres Fous 279 leap gaps 364 leap of faith 297 leaping 159 learning space 364, 371 lectio divina 156 legend 123 legends 200 legs 206, 320 Leib Christi 163 lesbian 299 Levite 196 LGBTTTIQ 299 liberating 263 liberation 42 libraries 277 lifestyle 157 limbs 207 liminality 353 limit 371 linguistic 257, 263 literary historians 122

literature 55, 159 liturgical 47, 52, 57, 116, 117, 128, 132, 164, 165, 171, 261, 263, 301, 328, 356 liturgical books 148 liturgical dance 47, 161 liturgical dances 170 liturgical feast 142 liturgical movement 163, 164 liturgical studies 163, 165 liturgische Bewegung 163 liturgist 146 liturgists 146 liturgy 141, 147, 158, 164, 166, 168, 171, 369–371 living archive 278 living fieldwork 278 lobola 177 local culture 262 location 365 lockdown 370 locus 297, 300, 301 locus theologicus 364, 369–371 logos 223, 224, 228, 291 Lord 114, 115, 157, 185, 195, 228, 241, 242 Lord of the Dance 39, 341 Lord Śiva 341 Lord’s Prayer 337, 338 Lord’s Supper 164 love 269, 343 lovers 244 ludic 146 Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich 10 lunar calendar 252, 253 Lurian scriptures 202 Lurianic Kabbalah 197, 199 lust 30 lustful 292 Lutheran 121, 122, 164, 364 Lutheran Christianity 113 Lutheran church of Bavaria 370

Index of Subjects

Lutheran doctrine 157 Lutheran liturgies 356, 370 Lutheran liturgy 163, 370 Lutheran pastor 82 Lutheran theologian 113 Lutheran theology 165 Lutherans 150 lyre 195 lyres 196 M Madonna 124, 125, 162 magic transformation 90 magical 178 Magnificat 116, 120, 123, 128–130 mainline Protestant churches 261 majesty 198 Malay magic 180 male 52 male dominance 170 male/female 294 Malkhut 198 Mama Kole 254 Manifesto Antropófago 284 mantra 171 Maori 55 marginalized 175, 369 Marian iconography 126 Marian poetry 119 Marienkapelle 124 martyr 38, 158 Mary 345 masculine domain 171 masked 142 masque 161 materialization 269 matter 292 mawu 253 maze 148 meaning 365 meaning production 339, 345

mediators 243 medical bodies 294 medieval 116, 118, 122–124, 128 medieval church 141 medieval councils 141 medieval France 141 meditation 81, 282 meditation of dance 168, 169 meditative 128, 168, 201, 209 meditative circle dances 170 medium 81, 272, 273, 275–277, 280 melody 206–208 memory 19, 258, 280, 281 mental 172, 230 mental boundaries 366 menuet 132 mercy 241 Merleau-Ponty 170 messenger 161 metaphor 213, 219, 297, 306, 319, 357 metaphysical 100, 306 metaphysics 297, 306, 312, 316 Methodist 121 Mevlana Order e.V. in Nuremberg 14 Mevlevi 247 Mevlevi Sufi Order 48, 238, 247 Michael 118 microcosm 272 Middle Ages 17, 113, 115, 119, 125, 148, 242 Middle East 130 migrant 253, 299 migration 29, 54, 71 migratory 265 milonga 367 milonga rioplatense 365 mime 102 mimic 337 Mina 253 mind 9, 31, 82, 87, 93, 169, 273, 320, 357, 368

403

404

Index of Subjects

mind-over-body 82 minister 155 ministers 170, 189 minorities 71 Minotaur 148, 149 minstrels 142 miracles 179 miraculous 185 miraculous practice 179 Mishnah 195 mission 28, 39, 57 mission churches 177 mission history 41 missionaries 44, 176, 261 missionary 41, 42, 44, 51, 129, 261, 262 missionary churches 31, 261 mitre 142 mnemonics of the body 258 mobility 278, 284 modern 119 modern dance 47, 70, 125, 167 modern dancers 158, 169 modernism 284 modesty 105 monasteries 144, 156 monastic 121, 132 monastic life 119, 144 monastic theology 131 monasticism 115 monk 123 monks 116, 122, 131, 144 mortality 231 mosque 244 Mother of God 129 motion 74, 144, 147, 214, 215, 224, 226, 240, 257, 260, 265, 283, 292, 295, 300, 301, 314 mousikē 214 move 224, 272, 297, 314 movement 33, 48, 50, 55, 57, 69, 73–78, 82, 89, 93, 100, 159, 161–163, 170,

171, 207, 213, 226, 227, 230, 240, 252, 255–261, 263, 264, 266, 272, 283, 292, 293, 301, 306, 312–315, 321, 324, 325, 328, 329, 346, 355, 356, 363 moves 157, 296, 337, 369 moving 251, 292, 359 moving body 297 mudrās 345 multicultural 328 multiculturalism 352 multisensory observations 278 muscles 325 museums 277 music 22, 33, 57, 74, 157, 171, 202, 205, 206, 237, 254, 261, 272, 273, 277, 305, 310, 337, 341, 368, 371 musical education 331 musical instruments 196 musical styles 331 musically 207 musicology 40 musico-theology 207 music/sound 74 Muslim 196, 237 Mussar literature 202 mutual respect 372 mystery 22, 216, 220, 223, 227, 229, 306 mystery play 123, 144 mystery rites 213, 217, 230 mystic 18, 157, 197, 201, 300, 324, 342 mysticism 118 mystics 298 myth 141, 257, 367 mythical 217 mythological 148, 202, 253, 254 N Nairobi declaration 158 namāz 241 narration of movement 257 narrative 277

Index of Subjects

Nat.arāja 341 nation 283 national borders 274 national identity 346 nationalism 83 Native Americans 44 native voices 178 natural forces 275 natural movement 165 natural resources 367 natural theology 20, 307, 308 nature 276, 294 nature/culture 294 nave 145 Nawshahr gate 243 Nazareth Baptist Church 175 Nazaretha 175, 182–185, 188, 190 Nazaretha Church 189 Nazaretha Tertiary Student’s Association (NATESA) 186 Nazarite 182 Nazi regime 283 neo 346 neo-Pentecostal 261 neo-Pentecostal churches 270 neoplatonic 147 neurobiology 230 neurophysiological 359 New German Dance 162 New Testament 40, 98, 113, 358 newborn religion 271 Nicaean council 102 nigun 208 non-Chalcedonensian Christianities 131 non-corazonar 369 non-dogmatic 161 non-essentialist 164, 165, 169, 170 non-extractivist 368 non-extractivist epistemologies 369 non-geographic 365 non-religious 328

non-representational 295 non-verbal transmission 273 non-western 284 normal/disabled 294 Norman 117 North-German Mission Society novel 123, 130 novella 123, 124 nā-mahram 244 Nāt.yaśāstra 343, 344 Nāyamārs 342 Ntarangwi 185 nudity 120 nun 118, 122, 131, 143 nunneries 143 nymphs 215

262

O Obed 195 object 366, 371 objectification 291 Occident 319, 321 Ockham’s razor 321 Old Testament 46, 148 omnipotence 358 online music liturgy 370 ontological 85, 198, 275, 294, 307, 308 ontological pacifism 284 ontology 199 opera 126 oppression 368 oppressors 158 oral knowledge 368 Orchésographie 139, 141 ordinary theology 330 ordination 170 Oriental cultures 158 Orientalism 274 original tango 324 Orixás 271 ornaments 255

405

406

Index of Subjects

orphans 200 Orthodox 131 Orthodox Christian 39 Orthodox Churches 177 orthodoxy 37 other 219, 370 othering 367 Ovid’s Metamorphoses 149 Oxum 275 P pagan 37, 38, 41, 57, 114, 141, 148 pagan ritual 147 paganism 97 pagans 109 pageant 161 painting 131 pairs 262 Pakehi 55 pan-entheistic 200 Pans 215 pantomime 102, 214 pantomimic 69 paradise 123 paraliturgical 149 paralyzing concepts 291 parish 122 participant observation 21 participant observer 364 participatory 292 passion 170, 220, 226 passional 301 pastor 122, 370 pastoral 98, 105, 106 pathos 228, 229, 231 patriarchal 31, 168, 299 patristic period 99 peace 34, 279 peace building 254 peccable body 356 pedagogue 320

pedagogy 322 Peji 272 Pelotte of Auxerre 17, 141, 145 Pentecostal 29–31, 42, 49, 261, 262 (neo-)Pentecostal 371 Pentecostalism 49, 52 perception 75–77, 277, 278, 280, 282, 284, 321 perform 292, 299 performance 19, 30, 42, 77, 90, 103, 105, 118, 120, 122, 164, 168, 175, 181, 190, 231, 238, 255, 264, 273, 293, 297, 299–301, 337–339, 343, 344, 359, 364, 366 performance studies 299 performances 74, 102, 107, 124, 128, 144, 178, 179, 252, 255, 258, 351, 369 performative 40, 46, 50, 164, 166, 231, 299, 301, 329, 359, 366, 367 performative transformation 366 performativity 166 performed 179, 190, 258, 371 performers 175, 179, 190, 213, 257 performing 300 performing body 293 performing dancer 292 performs 293, 300 perichoresis 39, 306 perichoretic 301 permeability 266 perpetrators 280 perpetual love 296 perpetual virginity 130 perpetuation 367 Persian 237, 242 Persian hagiography 18 personal mediums 272 perspective 252 peumatological 30 pew 167 Phaedrus 217

Index of Subjects

Pharaoh 195 phenomena 162, 322, 354 phenomenologists 293 phenomenology 20, 46, 49, 252, 357 phenomenon 279, 306, 351 philological 51 philology 83 philosopher 49, 81, 93, 132, 313, 320, 321 philosophical 31, 57, 70, 81, 82, 100, 214, 297, 307, 323, 344, 346, 357 philosophy 18, 20, 40, 70, 82, 100, 167, 216, 217, 310, 314, 321, 322, 357, 358 philosophy of embodiment 358 philosophy of religion 49 photographic 297 physical 50, 74, 76, 78, 100, 101, 144, 172, 198, 199, 213, 228, 230, 231, 247, 252, 255, 257, 263, 281, 295, 319, 320, 322, 325, 326, 357 physical being 171 physical bounderies 366 physical movement 324 physical violence 299 physiognomy 272 physiological 84, 86–88, 93, 164 Pietism 157 piety 156, 312 pilgrimage 121, 203, 247 pillar of the faith 276 pious 243 plague 269 planetary body 293 Plato 98 pleasure 16 pluralist 35, 38 pluralist theology of religions 48 pluralistic 346 plurality 320 poem 123 poetic 291, 293, 295–297, 300, 313 poetry 101

poets 116, 122 poiesis 297 poietic 296 poietical 295 Polish 365 Polish-German 305 political 242, 259, 260, 293–295, 299, 347 politics 40, 293, 321, 360 politics of affirmation 281 politics of hunger 301 polygamy 177 polyphonic 275 polyrhythmic 257 polytheism 37, 263 pontifical 142 poor 164, 200 popular dance 214 porous 292 Portuguese 253, 259, 280, 367 poses 213 post-apartheid 175 postcolonial 19, 28, 33, 36, 41, 42, 53, 55, 271, 281, 283, 292, 342 postcolonial turn 53 postdramatic 74 post-migrant society 279 postmodern 36, 74, 77, 299 postmodern dance 70 postmodernism 74 post-Mongol 242 post-secular modernity 331 poststructuralism 41, 357 post-structuralist 54, 72 posture 258, 266, 325, 345 post-war-thinking 157 power structures 73 practical 155 practical theologian 164 practical theology 17, 40, 156, 165, 166 practices 165 praise 81

407

408

Index of Subjects

praxeological ‘turn’ 73 praxis 281 pray 200 prayer 21, 81, 115, 159, 166, 168, 204, 207, 282, 370, 371 praying with body 328 preach 119 preachers 121 precarization 299 pre-colonial 177 pre-Islamic Arabia 37 presbyterian 161 presence 370 pride 165 priest 114, 117, 122, 163, 170, 196, 255, 338 priestesses 48 priestly activity 338 priestly attire 196 prima materia 298 primitive 47, 367 primordial 310, 311 primum movens 313 process of signification 339 procession 255 processional 145 processions 144, 208 profanation 142 profane 143, 354 profanization 22 prohibition 142 prophet 161, 181 prophetess 195 prophetic 47 prophetic dialogue 129, 130 prosperous 263 protest 291 Protestant 17, 19, 40, 42, 49, 81, 121, 123, 132, 150, 157, 160, 163, 261, 262, 306, 308, 371 Protestant missionaries 261

Protestant Reformation 31 Protestant theologian 157 Protestant theology 21 Protestantism 17, 113, 156, 163, 309 protoevangelium 114, 129, 131 protreptic 218, 228 psalmist 199 psalms 196 psyche 162, 216, 321 psychiatric 132 psychiatrist 161 psychological 88, 132, 162, 164, 326, 328 psychology 322, 343, 344 psychosomatic 238 public 251, 347 public choreographies 369 public dance 196 public theology 330 pulsation 162 pure 204 purgatory 117 purification rite 254 Purim 205, 206 puritanical 196, 295 Puritanism 161 Puritans 49 purity 118, 182, 244, 263 Pus.pāñjali 338

Q Qezelbāsh 242 qibla 244 Qollas 42 Qom 42 queer 41, 298–301 queer studies 299 queer tango 168, 366 queered 299 Quran 238, 242, 245 Quranic recitation 18

Index of Subjects

R Rabbi 200 rabbinic 196, 199 race 294 races 296, 299 racialized 293 racism 83, 355 racist 46, 372 Radha 160 radical embodiment 358 ransformative potential 367 rape 298 rapist 369 Rasa 343 rational 52, 295 rationality 31, 297, 330 reactionism 163 reality 257 rearguard intellectual 367–369, 371 reason 177, 368 reason as source of knowledge 368 Reb Feiwes 200 Rebbe 202, 203, 205, 208 rebellion 279 recitation 237 reconciliation 253, 254, 296, 300 Red Sea 144, 147 redeem 227 re-enact 255, 265 re-enacting 263 re-enactment 265 reflection 370 reform 168 Reformation 113, 132 reformed 305 Reformed theologian 46 reformist 346 refugees 35 regulations on dance 141 reinterpretation 199 relational 293

relationality 297 relationship 297, 302 relationships 166 religio 105 religion 9, 12, 19, 22, 27, 28, 32–34, 36, 38, 40, 41, 44, 46–53, 56, 57, 81, 82, 91, 93, 113, 155, 159, 160, 162, 166, 177, 251, 252, 255, 257, 261, 264, 271, 273, 274, 277, 279, 281, 283, 284, 293, 323, 328–331, 337, 339, 340, 348, 351, 352, 354–356, 365 religiosity 30, 33 religious 22, 28, 32, 33, 41–44, 46, 48, 51–53, 55, 81, 82, 93, 97, 103, 105, 113, 131, 132, 145, 150, 156, 157, 160, 162, 166, 176, 177, 187, 203, 214, 237, 238, 242, 244, 246, 252, 255, 257, 259–261, 263, 270–276, 282, 283, 293, 301, 315, 324, 328, 341–347, 352, 354, 356, 363, 364, 370–372 religious actor 270 religious appropriation 274 religious beliefs 371 religious cartography 274 religious dance 45, 371 religious dance culture 145 religious diversity 352 religious education 319, 321, 327–329 religious ethnology 277 religious exercises 239 religious experiences 356 religious expression 356 religious feasts 142 religious flows 274 religious identity 351 religious knowledge 274 religious life 283 religious order 141 religious pedagogy 323 religious practices 45, 231, 237, 356 religious rituals 214

409

410

Index of Subjects

religious science 172 Religious Studies 19, 28, 35–37, 44, 45, 48–51, 53, 56, 57, 252, 364, 365, 372 religious symbolism 341 religious tales 200 religious traditions 35, 37, 280 religious trance 272, 276 religious translation 353 religious violence 300 religious-historical 341 religiously 328, 331, 347 remembering the past 257 renaissance 125, 139 representational 295 repressive 279 resilience 19, 278, 298, 299 resilience of flesh 293 resistance 19, 41, 57, 273, 293, 297–299, 302 resists 291 resonance 293 resources 367 respectively 341 ressentiment 86, 88 resurrection 148, 149, 244, 296 revaluation of all values [Umwerthung aller Werthe] 83 reveal 301 revelation 157, 309 revelatory 228 revenge 87 revive 371 rhetoric 103 rhythm 20, 89, 91, 92, 213, 255, 256, 272, 273, 280, 281, 298, 301, 302, 307, 310, 313–316, 337, 341, 359 rhythmic 33, 57, 82, 90, 93, 254, 255, 258, 260, 261, 305, 306, 310, 312, 313, 355 rhythmic bodily movement 82, 355 rhythmic choir 161 rhythmic movement 89, 262, 265

rhythmical 251, 256, 313, 356 rich 164 Ringeltentze 150 rite 42, 197, 229 rite of passage 149 rites 50, 227 rites de passage 201, 363 rites of initiation 49 rites of passage 353 ritual 19, 29, 33, 45, 46, 48–50, 88, 145, 146, 164, 175, 195, 196, 198, 226, 227, 229, 251, 253, 255–258, 263–265, 271, 273, 275, 283, 292, 301 ritual ceremonies 258 ritual climax 254 ritual commemoration 256 ritual context 253 ritual dance 254 ritual invocation 256 ritual leadership 260 ritual memory 258 ritual practice 261, 262 ritual prayer 241 ritual purification 205 ritual trance 279 ritualization 356 ritually 265 rococco 121 role model 169 Roman 46, 103, 104, 109, 196 Roman Catholic 40, 43, 121, 127–129, 132, 133, 163, 356 Roman Catholic theologian 20 Roman Catholicism 113 Roman goddess 368 Roman law 368 Roman religions 16 romantic 169 round dance 145 round dances 151, 201 rows 255, 262

Index of Subjects

Rūmī 18 running 159 S Sabbath 201 sacral globalization 274 sacral temple dance 343 sacrality 342, 343, 348 sacralization 51, 56 sacrament 164, 315, 370 sacred 22, 45, 52, 126, 128, 247, 271, 272, 329, 338, 342, 343 sacred activity 341 sacred chants 272 sacred dance 39, 46, 129, 168, 169, 177, 179, 181–183, 185–187, 189 sacred dance guild 161 sacred forest 254, 265 sacred memory 238 sacred places 279 sacred sites 264 sacred sounds 216 sacred space 272 sacred stone 253 sacred woman 129 sacred/profane 294 sad joy 269 Safvat as-safā 242 sages 204 said 245 sailors 271 saint 42 saints 162, 243 Śaiva siddhānta 342 Saivite theology 341 Sakumo 253 saltatio 105 salvation 123, 130, 148, 261, 262, 295, 321 salvific 86, 148 samā‘ 18, 237, 239–241, 243–246 sanctify 247

sanctity 345 sanctuary 196 Santería 271 Satan 148, 177 satiric 102 satirical 102 Satyrs 215 schemata 213 scholar 155, 196 scholastic 117 scholastic theology 131 science 169 scientific 165, 230 Scottish 259 scripture 87, 102, 103, 150, 157, 162, 202 sculpture 131 secular 33, 44, 143, 170, 282, 354 secularity 33, 343 sedodo 254 seductive femininity 30 seekers 245 Sefirot 199, 200 self-actualising 251 self-confidence 165, 280 self-identification 347 self-identity 291 self-knowledge 343 self-organized 170 self-reference 292 self-understanding 341 semantic field 237 semanticizing expressions 258 semi-conscious 277 semiotic 19, 166, 255, 256, 263, 265 semiotics 255 sensations 52, 82 sense 321, 326 senses 85, 278, 284, 368 sensibility 321 sensitive 169, 330 sensitivity 167, 346

411

412

Index of Subjects

sensory 34, 81, 82, 85, 86, 88, 91, 93, 292, 293, 357 sensory beings 357 sensory dynamics 278 sensory education 88, 93 sensory entanglement 85, 89, 90 sensory knowledge 357 sensory-emotional 229, 230 sensual 50, 301, 322 sensuality 278 separation 366 sermon 122, 168, 204, 205, 359 sermons 119, 120, 132 serpent 48 sex 160, 169, 201 sexual 119, 298 sexual orientation 156, 296 sexual preferences 299 sexual violence 299 sexuality 36, 44, 73, 120, 133, 169, 299 sexualized 293 Shabbat 18, 201, 208 Shakers 39 Shamanism 11, 19, 49, 271 shame 358 shamelessness 16 Shaykh 239, 243–246 Shembe 22 shepherd 202 Shinto 11 shouting 165 Shpoler Zejde 201 sign 256 Silens 215 silent history 278 Simchat Bet Hashoevah 196 Simchat Torah 201, 207 sin 20, 143, 305, 309 sinful 292 singers 147 singing 165, 166, 183, 184, 208

sinners 123 sistrums 195 situtu 254 Śiva/Shiva 21, 39, 43, 344 sixteenth century 150 skin 320 skins 320 skipping 159 slave 258, 269 slave coast 259 slave trade 258, 280 slave traders 259 slavery 280 slaves 271, 273, 280 small reason 320, 331 social 293, 295, 297 social body 293, 294 social classes 299, 365, 370 social microcosm 294 social relativism 294 social struggles 368 societal 251, 258 Societas Verbi Divini 128 society 40, 293 Society of Spiritual Arts 161 Society of the Divine Verb of Steyl 262 socio-cultural significance 273 socioeconomic 242 socio-historical 237 sociological 69, 164 sociology 20 sociopolitical 270 sol justitiae 149 sol resurrectionis 149 solidarity 283, 298 solo 119, 123, 125 somatic 301 son 310 song 131, 177, 220, 226 soul 144, 159, 162, 207, 209, 217, 218, 262, 296, 320

Index of Subjects

soul food 156 soul motion 168 souls 275 sound 331, 359 sovereignty 264 Sāttvika 342 space 264 spaces 156 Spanish 117, 365, 368 spatial 69 spatiality 265 spectator 371 spectators 89, 175, 213, 231 spirit 21, 29, 47, 49, 90, 92, 93, 120, 130, 144, 169, 183, 185, 203, 223, 224, 269, 270, 272, 273, 275–277, 280, 281, 284, 291, 292, 320, 327, 356–358, 368, 372 spiritual 28, 33, 42, 46–48, 50, 52, 57, 83, 93, 97, 100, 103, 105, 106, 108, 117, 131, 155, 158, 161, 166–168, 199, 203, 239, 240, 244, 270, 275, 279–283, 292, 295, 305, 341, 352 spiritual community 281 spiritual dance 171, 172 spiritual dance movement 165 spiritual dance movements 171 spiritual entities 270, 272, 275, 276, 279, 280 spiritual entity 272 spiritual guardianship 244 spiritual journey 126 spiritual language 370, 372 spiritual leader 275, 282 spiritual life 265 spiritual mediator 22 spiritual philosophy 159 spiritual practice 172 spiritual system 283 spiritual tango 170 spiritual transposition 100 spiritual world 270, 282

spiritual worlds 180 spiritualité 156 spiritualities 22, 35 spirituality 14, 29, 34, 48, 52, 56, 57, 113, 131, 155, 156, 158–161, 164–168, 171, 177, 197, 203, 312, 347, 358, 359 spiritualized 100 spoken word 370 sport 40 sportive 46 Stabat Mater 128, 129 stamping 165 stasis 292, 295 static 295 stereotypes 367, 372 Steyler Missionaries 128 stillness 214, 292 stomach 320 studies 164 study 159, 166 study of religion 50, 340 subject 366, 371 subjective theology 330 subjectivity 322, 358 subject-object divisions 364, 367 subjects 328 sub-national 175 subordination 299 Succot/Sukkot 196, 201 suffering 372 Sufi 18, 22, 238, 242, 246 Sufi master 243 Sufism 11, 37, 49 sultan 239 Sumerian religion 168 supernatural powers 259 superstition 367 supremacist 293, 297 supreme dancer 341 suspended 292 Swahili 185

413

414

Index of Subjects

Swiss 281 symbol 293, 294, 347, 365, 369, 372 symbolic 254, 260, 262, 263, 272, 280, 339, 344, 345, 347 symbolic system 262 symbolical 70 symbolism 21, 149, 340, 344–346 symbolization 356 synchronic 257, 313 synchronisation 257 synchronize 325 syncretic 271 syncretism 38, 42 systematic 57 systematic comparative 48 Systematic Theology 28 T tabernacle 196 taboo 162, 277, 283, 293 talisman 240 Talmud 195, 196, 202 Talmudic 196 tambourine 147 tango 14, 22, 132, 170, 171, 324–326, 330, 365 tango andaluz 365 tango argentino 20, 323–325, 327, 329 tango dance 324 tango dancer 323 tango liturgies 171 tango service 371 tango teacher 323 tango technique 323 Tanzhaus 196 Tanztheater 171 Tanzwissenschaften 71 Tari Sesaji Tri Yoni Saraswati 34 taw 197 teachers 122 tears 245

temple 158, 159, 315, 342 temple dance 161 temptation 30, 305 terpsichorean 146 terra sagrada 274, 275, 283 testimony 179, 261 the birth of tragedy 83 the location of culture 54, 339 theater games 142 theater/theatre 22, 366, 368 theatrical 102, 103, 107, 171 theatrical comedies 142 theatrical performances 16 theocentric 132 theologian 19, 121, 157, 164–166, 292, 295, 300, 305, 308, 309, 312, 315, 364, 372 theological 51, 81, 83, 119, 155, 163, 169, 172, 197, 291–293, 297, 298, 301, 306–308, 310, 313, 314, 316, 358, 365 theological aesthetics 344 theological anthropology 358 theological perspectives 358 theological reflection 372 theologically 148, 169, 326 theology 19, 39, 83, 88, 121, 129, 133, 148, 157, 159, 163, 164, 172, 176, 289, 291–293, 295, 297–299, 302, 305, 308, 313, 319, 321, 323, 326–328, 330, 331, 358, 367, 369–372 theology of culture 40, 157 theology of dance 279, 341 theology of rhythm 313 theopoetic 297, 298 theopoiesis 297 theopraxis 159 theory building 363 therapeutic 171, 276 therapy 276 theurgical 200, 202 thinking through the body 13

Index of Subjects

Third Space 13, 15, 16, 20, 21, 28, 53–56, 73, 74, 78, 170, 231, 335, 339, 340, 347, 348, 351, 353–355, 357, 359, 365, 370, 372 throne dance 341 Thuringia 118 Thus Spoke Zarathustra 84 Tibetan Cham Buddhism 49 Tikkun ha-Olam 199 Timaeus 218 timbrel 195 Tish-nigunim 208 Tiwi 264 Torah 198, 200, 204 torsos 255 Tān.d.ava 341 traditional African dance 257 traditional churches 165 traditional gender roles 165 traditional practice 278 traditional religions 252 tragic chorus 90 trance 105, 255, 257, 271–273, 277–280 trance experiences 280 trance mediums 271 trance practices 271 trance-rituals 276 transcend 297, 298, 308, 312, 354, 366, 370, 371 transcendence 291–293, 297, 301, 307, 311, 314, 316, 358 transcendent 85, 251 transcending humanity 292 trans-corporeal 292, 293, 296 transcultural 29, 372 transcultural language 365, 370, 372 transculturation 43 transfer 274 transfer of knowledge 367 transform 168, 231

transformation 19, 37, 49, 89, 251, 280, 297, 299, 358, 366 transformational 292, 293, 302, 367, 371 transformational potential 364 transformative flesh 292 transgender 299 trans-global 175 transgression 30 transgressive 73, 301 transitory 213 translation 278, 345, 354 translator 355 transmission 280, 368 trans-national 175 transsexual 299 trans-worldly 175 trauma 259, 279 trauma as a knowledge archive 281 travesti 299 treasure 284 treatises 119 tree of life 18 triadic 256 Tridentine 309 trigger 272 Trinitarian 39, 301 Trinitarian dance 301 Trinitarian perichoresis 301 Trinity 40, 306, 344 tripudiant firmiter 144 Trishula 344 trumpets 196 truth 239 Tsaddik/Tzaddik 208 twelve tribes of Israel 119 typologies 295 tzaddik 203, 207 tzaddikim 205

415

416

Index of Subjects

U Uffizi 124 ukusina 183 Umbanda 19, 22, 36, 270–275, 277, 279–284 Umbanda mediums 284 Umbanda theology 284 Umbandistic 277, 284 Umbandists 282, 283 Umbundu 272 umgidi 17, 22, 177, 179 umkhokheli 187 unbridgeable 353 undoing gender 52, 171, 172 unholy 100, 109 universal language 35 universe 198 university of KwaZulu-Natal 186 unjust structures 372 unspeakable 279 upper classes 365 Urantia Book 126 utilitarianism 357

V valor 343 values 88 Vatican Council 307 Vedic 341 velhas/velhos pretas/pretos 271 verses 239 Verzauberung 90 vibrancy 255 vicar 122 victimae paschali laudes 146 victims 299, 301 violation 170 violence 279, 280, 298 virgen danzante 121 Virgin 113, 116–120, 122–124, 128, 129

virgin 98, 103, 106, 115–117, 127, 130–132 virgin birth 130 virgin girls 181, 182 Virgin Mary 127, 128, 131, 132, 159 virginal 118 virginity 113, 119, 121, 123, 132 virtuous 101 visceral 300 visceral identification 89, 90 visible 263 vision 220 visionary 123 visions 119 visual 34 Vodou 42 Vodún 253, 271 vodun dje apu 253 voice 359 Volta 140 vāchika 341 vulnerable 292 W walking 159, 324 wastelands 367 we are a body 293, 370 Welsh 117 Wesen der Frau 163 Wesleyan Methodist Mission 262 western 314, 356, 359 western christian 292 western christianity 156, 161, 302 western epistemology 277 western philosophy 344 whip 366 white bodies 273 white skirts 255 widows 200 wine 366 wisdom 197, 224, 269

Index of Subjects

witchcraft 262 woman 48, 122, 129, 160, 163, 188, 244, 247, 270, 326, 345 women 19, 31, 105, 107, 108, 125, 130, 142, 155, 158, 160, 162, 164, 165, 167–169, 171, 175, 187, 195, 196, 263, 272, 279, 298, 301, 366, 369 women’s bodies 159 women’s liturgies 165, 170 wonder 343 word 219, 262, 291, 292, 302 word of God 161 wordless 283 works of art 123 World Christianity 17, 32, 95 World Council of Churches 129, 157, 171 world religion 48, 81 world’s body 295 worship 31, 39, 45, 49, 81, 158, 164–166, 170, 171, 179, 186, 190, 239, 261, 262, 273, 292, 341, 359

Wounded Knee massacre 43 wounds 301 Wretched of the Earth 279 wrists 254 X xenophobic Xirê 272

83

Y yeke yeke 253 Yichudim 200 Yoga 162 Yoruba 42 Yorùbá 271, 272, 275, 280 Z zealot 372 zekr 237 Zohar 202 Zoroastrianism 37 Zulu 176, 177

417

Notes on Contributors

Prof. Dr. Shahzad Bashir, Aga Khan Professor of Islamic Humanities, Professor of Religious Studies and History, Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island, USA Dr. Amélé Adamavi-Aho Ekué, Professor of Ecumenical Ethics, Academic Dean of Globethics.net Geneva, Switzerland Dominika Hadrysiewicz, PhD Candidate, Study of Religion, Department for Religious Studies and Intercultural Theology, Faculty of Theology, Humboldt University Berlin, Germany. [email protected] Dr. Riyako Cecilia Hikota, Research Assistant at the Chair of Theology in Transformation Processes of the Present, Catholic University of Eichstätt-Ingolstadt, Germany Dr. Philip Knäble, Research Assistant at the Department of Medieval and Modern History in the field of Public History/Early Modern Period, Georg August University Göttingen, Germany Dr. Kimerer L. LaMothe, Independent Scholar of Philosophy and Religion, Dancer, and Playwright, New York, USA. [email protected]; www.kimererlamothe.com Camille Lepeigneux, Research on Classic and Late Antiquity, Joined Research Unit: Orient & Mediterranean, Sorbonne University Paris, France Prof. Dr. Martin Leutzsch, Professor of Biblical Theology, Department of Protestant Theology, Faculty of Arts and Humanities, University of Paderborn, Germany Prof. Dr. Ángel Francisco Méndez Montoya, Professional Dancer, Choreograph, Licentiate in Dance and Philosophy, Professor of Religious Studies, Iberoamerican University, Coordinator for the Revista Iberoamericana de Teología (RIBET), Mexico City, Mexico  Raphael Sartorius, Research Assistant at the Chair of Intercultural Theology, Mission Studies and Religious Studies, Augustana-Hochschule, Theological Semi-

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Notes on Contributors

nary of the Evangelical-Lutheran Church in Bavaria. Visiting Scholar at Humboldt University Berlin, Program on Religious Communities and Sustainable Development. [email protected] Dr. des. Inga Scharf da Silva, Cultural Anthropologist and Visual Artist, Institute for European Ethnology, Humboldt-University of Berlin, Germany. [email protected]. http://www.sigmaringer1art.de/kuenstler Prof. Dr. Karin Schlapbach, Professor of Latin Studies at the Department of Classical Philology, University of Fribourg, Switzerland. Her current research is on physical and kinetic aspects of literary production in Greek and Roman antiquity. https://www3.unifr.ch/lettres/fr/faculte/professeur-e-s/people/199037/e4f77 Dr. Tatjana K. Schnütgen, Lecturer at the Chair of Evangelical Theology II, University of Regensburg; Head of Department of Religion in Evang. Bildungswerk Regensburg e. V.; Dancer, Germany, [email protected], www.uniregensburg.de/philosophie-kunst-geschichte-gesellschaft/evangelische-theologie/ Prof. Dr. Stephanie Schroedter, Professor for Music and Movement / Rhythmics at the University of Music and Performing Arts, Vienna, Austria. [email protected]. https://www.mdw.ac.at/mrm/mbe/?PageId=3586  Prof. Dr. Nkosinathi Sithole, Professor of Literature Studies, Cultural Studies and Comparative Literature at the Department of English, University of the Western Cape, Cape Town, South Africa Iris Steil, Student of Protestant Theology, Augustana-Hochschule, Theological Seminary of the Evangelical-Lutheran Church in Bavaria, Neuendettelsau, Germany Dr. Jasmine Suhner, Research Assistant at the Chair for Practical Theology with Focus on Religious Pedagogy, University of Zurich, Switzerland. [email protected] Prof. Dr. Susanne Talabardon, Professor of Jewish Studies, Faculty for Social and Cultural Sciences, University of Bamberg, Germany Prof. Dr. Heike Walz, Professor of Intercultural Theology, Mission Studies and Religious Studies, Augustana-Hochschule, Theological Seminary of the EvangelicalLutheran Church in Bavaria, Neuendettelsau, Germany. [email protected], https://augustana.de/forschung-lehre/interkulturelle-theologie/lehrstuhlinhaberinprof-dr-heike-walz.html