By K.C. Patrick

In Brooklyn, New York, dancers step and turn in praise of God. Others, in Columbia, Tennessee, replay the sacred classical dances of India. In New Jersey, dance midrash embodies moral tales from the Jewish tradition. In Chapel Hill, North Carolina, dancers circle in the Dances of Universal Peace. Near Birmingham, Alabama, a mime choir moves, as quiet as church mice. In Flagstaff, Arizona, dancers chant “The 21 Praises of Tara,” emulating a Tibetan Buddhist tradition at a fairgrounds festival. On California’s coastal Mt. Tamalpais, Anna Halprin leads hundreds in the annual “Dance for the Planet.” On the big island, Hawaiian kumu hula is again performed at the mouth of the volcano. Moving with the spirit and embodying prayer is alive and growing in the United States.

Historically, dance has always been part of life, both sacred and secular, so it’s not surprising to see it so evident today. In The Book of the Dance, American choreographer and teacher Agnes de Mille makes the case that dance is the oldest art, that “music came [after] as an accompaniment to dance, and song as punctuation and comment.” She maintains further that “works of art are the symbols through which men communicate what lies beyond ordinary speech. . . . Men cannot live without art. It is a necessity, as religion is. If men cannot communicate, they die of loneliness. Art is communication on the most lasting level.” Certainly what we know about prehistoric and tribal cultures indicates that humans have always tried to communicate with symbols. Ancient images and written references portray people dancing in celebration, in grief, in trance, in prayer requesting healing or strength, and as a demonstration of faith or belief in all cultures.

In Western European culture, dance was an integral part of religious ritual up until the thirteenth century, when an increased division between sacred and secular, and the spirit and body, was mandated by Church fathers. For the most part, dance left established churches after that, except for remnants seen in formal processions and some circling or crossing patterns before the altar.

As America developed, Native Americans and Hawaiian Islanders practiced their sacred dance traditions openly until the U.S. government outlawed them in an attempt to force the groups to assimilate. African Americans, converted to Christianity, maintained the ring-shout along the isolated Georgia coast. Dance was not part of the religious practices of the early pilgrims to the North America, and most colonists were rigidly intolerant of beliefs other than their own. A much later sect, known as the Shakers because of their ecstatic movements during church services, escaped persecution in England and settled in New England, bringing their liturgical dance with them. Their communal practices, based on celibacy and separation of the sexes, have largely died out, but drawings remain of their dances. Certain American modern dance choreographers were influenced by those early expressions of religious zeal: Doris Humphrey’s 1930 work, The Shakers, is still performed today, and a close look at Alvin Ailey’s Revelations reveals an homage to “holy rollers,” a name given to those “moved by the spirit” during evangelical services.

In fact, it was modern dance that brought dancing back to mainstream religion. The earliest academic dance programs, such as the University of Wisconsin’s, included courses called “Liturgical Dance,” and early campus Orchesis dance companies often included studies from sacred tradition in their work. As awareness of the interconnection of the body, mind, and spirit grew, the concept of dance as performance expanded. Dancing became a way of knowing, of discovering and communicating emotions beyond words or songs. The body and nature were no longer viewed as profane but were restored to their positions as creations in the image of a higher power. The body and spirit became an appropriate vehicle for prayer; dance artists created symbolic work that was universal communication.

Kathryn Mihelick, founder of Leaven Dance Company and an activist in the movement to restore sacred dance to Catholic liturgy, tells a story that is typical of the journey of religious dancers in America. “I had been dancing since age 3, trained at the local commercial dance school,” she begins. “It was at college at Ohio University that I first discovered modern dance.” In the mid-1970s Mihelick saw a flyer for a religious conference at a college in Massachusetts featuring a workshop in something she had never heard of: liturgical dance. It was taught by Carla DeSola, who is perhaps the most inspiring and well-known figure in the evolution of today’s sacred-dance movement. She is the founder of Omega East, a company that performs in New York City, and Omega West, which performs in the San Francisco Bay Area. “ ‘This is it!’ I said. I was sold,” Mihelick explains.

Mihelick danced first at her own parish, Holy Family, in Stowe, Ohio (where sacred dancing is no longer allowed). The first time she needed a group, she recruited five volunteer students from Kent State’s dance program. In 1978 she began teaching at Kent, where she called on her colleagues and students (along with those at the University of Akron) to participate. “It’s not just performance—it’s really a prayer,” she says of her approach to the dancing. “We perform for God to the very best of our ability. It’s meant to inspire and to connect. . . . Three other faculty members and I were invited to attend a religious conference in Pennsylvania, where I was told that we should be a group and have a name. We decided on ‘Leaven.’ It means to rise, as in leavened bread, and from bread we thought of the body of Christ.” The company, which included Christians, Jews, and one Chinese Buddhist, began to dance in worship services, both Christian and Jewish. A crowning achievement was its 2001 performance at an ecumenical conference at St. John’s Catholic Cathedral in Cleveland, Ohio.

Mihelick’s work expanded to giving workshops in mind, body, and spirit connection and awareness. “In 1995, we received a grant to ‘Build Community in High School’ for Black History Month. With help from the Dance Notation Bureau, we taught [choreographer] Helen Tamaris’ gospel spiritual suite. We had three classes during the day, danced the spirituals, held discussions, then danced communally for fun. Student surveys showed it to be a great success,” she says. Pushing further, Mihelick gave a workshop in mind, body, and spirit connection at the Ohio State Medical Region’s Women in Nursing Education conference. She has also received a grant for her work in senior centers.

Now a senior herself, Mihelick, who still takes class three times a week and calls health her blessing, choreographs and dances more conservatively. Her group (ages 19 to 70+), which has four core members and two or three pick-up dancers when needed, performs religious dance and some public concerts.

Representative of the newer generation, New York’s Julie Gayer has been Avodah Dance Ensemble’s artistic director since 2004, when founding artistic director JoAnne Tucker retired. Avodah’s concert works are based in Jewish tradition but, as Gayer says, “reflect the healing qualities of water and related rituals which are global and interfaith. They speak to anyone.” The company includes both professional dancers and community members. Its long-term work with women’s correctional institutions in Connecticut and Delaware remains part of its pastoral commitment.

The increasing societal acceptance of embodied prayer or demonstration of faith has led to the formation of hundreds of performance groups. In turn, support groups and organizations such as the Sacred Dance Guild (founded in 1956) emerged, offering strategies for finding venues and establishing working relationships with diverse congregations. Dance accompaniment ranges from silence to rhythmic scriptural reading or poetry to original compositions or classical music from liturgies. To accommodate the rising tide of dancers who perform religious dance, costume and property companies have responded with modest and functional lines of dance clothing that allow different characterizations or impressions. Colors are symbolic, representing seasons of the religious calendar. Props, such as banners and flags, are also available commercially.

The reasons for the resurrection of dance in its sacred forms are many. Those who do not care to perform in a commercial entertainment or competitive vein may still choose dance movement as their means of kinesthetic expression. Dancers who have grown up in dance schools may seek the camaraderie that their schoolmates and the dance culture provided. Others simply search for a way to communicate meaning that for them is deeper than words or images.

Many groups in the Sacred Dance Guild include trained dancers, and their work is choreographed to meet the requirements and religious restrictions of the venues and cultures. But many informal groups dance spontaneously “as the spirit moves them.” Venues vary from cramped, carpeted areas before a small church’s altar to sports arenas, which replace the tents of old-time revivals. Sacred dance companies today may be elegantly embodying a liturgical ritual or just groovin’ with the gospel.

For more information:

Sacred Dance Guild: www.sacreddanceguild.org. Webmaster and resource director: Connie Tyler, 510/849-0788. PR director: Wendy Morrell (Ottawa, Canada), wendy.morrell@sympatico.ca

The International Liturgical Dance Association (part of the National Association of Pastoral Musicians): www.npm.org.

I Lift My Eyes Web Ministries, “Christian Liturgical, Praise & Worship Dance, & Creative Movement Resources”: http://psalm121.ca/dance.html

 A Working Glossary

There is a growing surge of interest and practice of religious dance in the U.S. Known by various names—“sacred dance,” “liturgical dance,” “praise dance,” “Christian dance,” “healing dance”—it is performed principally in relationship to one’s God or religious rite, rather than to entertain an audience. It may take place in church, in synagogue, in field or forest. It may be part of the ritual liturgy, choreographed for a lesson, or improvised as an emotional outpouring of the moment, depending on the framework of religious doctrines and cultures of the time and place. It crosses the boundaries of all styles and genres.

Sacred dance: An umbrella term that designates dance that references a higher power in any cultural background. It may be part of an established religious ritual itself or auxiliary to it. It may embody personal prayer, present a moral lesson, or be a vehicle to achieve a transcendent process toward healing or holiness of the entire world. Many cultures view dance itself as sacred.

 Liturgical dance: Strictly speaking, dancing that takes place during or as part of the established religious liturgy, such as the offertory or reading from sacred text. The term has been expanded in contemporary use to include dancing or products that relate to dancing in a religious context, usually Christian.

  Christian dance: Sacred dance that is performed in the name of Jesus Christ. It also designates dancing done by practicing Christians. Dancing is often justified by phrases from Old and New Testament books of the Bible, especially Psalms 149:3.

 Praise dance: A rhythmic, outpouring of joyous celebration about the redeeming power of Jesus and as an example of faith. In uncrowded settings, praise dancers may use colorful banners and flags

 Ecstatic or trance dance: Appears in many traditions where dancing is a vehicle to achieve a transcendent state in which believers bring themselves into closer communion with their God.

 Healing dance: A general term that includes the shaman and medicine man tradition, which makes use of the body, mind, and spirit connection, where an intermediary petitions for the healing of another individual. In a broader sense, the term extends to embodied prayers for an extended community, Earth itself, or world peace.

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