In response to a scarcity of writings on the intersections between dance and Christianity, Dancing to Transform examines the religious lives of American Christians who, despite the historically tenuous place of dance within Christianity, are also professional dancers.
Through a multi-site study of four professional dance companies, Wright conducted participant-observations and ethnographic interviews with artistic directors, choreographers, and company members who self-identify as Christian. She then analyzed choreography from each company to determine how concert dance becomes religious and what effects danced religious practices have for these participants. Her research reveals that the participants turn what they perceive as secular professional dance into different kinds of religious practices in order to actualize individual and communal religious identities—they dance to transform.
Table of Contents:
Introduction
Making Christian Movements: Differentiation and Adaptation in Christianity from the Patristic Era to the Middle Ages
American Christianity from the Seventeenth to the Nineteenth Century
Dancing as American and/or Christian in the Twentieth Century
‘Let Us Praise His Name with Dancing’: Ballet Magnificat! and the Transformation of Concert into Church
Servant Artists: Ad Deum Dance Company and the Transformation of Suffering
Befriending the Both/And: Dishman + Co. Choreography and the Transformation of the Choreographic Process
Dancing Divine Love: Karin Stevens Dance and the Transformation of the Spiritual Journey
Conclusion
About the Author :
Emily Wright is assistant professor of dance at Boston Conservatory at Berklee College of Music. She holds a Ph.D. in dance from Texas Woman's University and an MFA in dance from Arizona State University. She has contributed chapters to the edited volumes Fields in Motion: Ethnography in the Worlds of Dance (2011) and Perspectives in Performing Arts Medicine Practice (2020) and her work has been published in Dance, Movement & Spiritualities and the Journal of Emerging Dance Scholarship.
Review :
'Bubbling over with rich insights, Wright’s book marks an important contribution to dance studies and religious studies. Her revisionist framework articulates Christianity’s stance on dance with nuance and verve.... Wright’s text has sufficient theoretical sophistication to engage a scholarly audience, but it remains accessible enough for undergraduates and the general populace.
Dancing to Transform expands our conception of dance and the sacred in ways that provoke and enrapture.'
'Wright employs ethnographic research—predominantly autoethnography, fieldwork, and qualitative interviews—to discuss the interplay between dance, faith, and religious service among contemporary Christian dancers in the USA when engaging in stage performance. [...] This valuable book raises a range of questions about embodied Christianity that are of high importance for both religious studies scholars and theologians.'
