Dance In Scripture

Bible music, variations on musical themes from Scripture

Women, Dance and Parish Religion in England, 1300-1640

A lively exploration of the medieval and early modern attitudes towards dance, as the perception of dancers changed from saints dancing after Christ into cows dancing after the devil. WINNER: 2024 Sponsler Award for Best First Book (Medieval and Renaissance Drama Society) WINNER: 2022 Guittard Book Award The devil's cows, impudent camels, or damsels animated by the devil: late medieval and early modern authors used these descriptors and more to talk about dancers, particularly women. Yet, dance was not always considered entirely sinful or connected primarily to women: in some early medieval texts, dancers were exhorted to dance to God, arm-in-arm with their neighbors, and parishes were filled with danced expressions of faith. What led to the transformation of dancers from saints dancing after Christ into cows dancing after the devil? Drawing on the evidence from medieval and early modern sermons, and in particular the narratives of the cursed carolers and the dance of Salome, this book explores these changing understandings of dance as they relate to religion, gender, sin, and community within the English parish. In parishes both before and during the English Reformations, dance played an integral role in creating, maintaining, uniting, or fracturing community. But as theological understandings of sacrilege, sin, and proper worship changed, the meanings of dance and gender shifted as well. Redefining dance had tangible ramifications for the men and women of the parish, as new definitions of what it meant to perform one's gender collided with discourses about holiness and transgression, leading to closer scrutiny and monitoring of the bodies of the faithful.

Dance and the Christian Faith

First published in 1985, this pioneering work on religious dance was written in response to the paradoxical attitude of many Christians who express an interest and enthusiasm for the arts as part of Christian worship, yet retain a suspicion, even a dislike, of dance. Dance and the Christian Faith examines what the bible says about both dance and worship, and relates it to an understanding of what dance is and how it can be used in the church and in education today. Martin Blogg relates his faith to his profession of teaching dance drama and his non-verbal approach to Christian dance opens up new avenues for the expression of the faith, complementing the more traditional forms of speech, music and sacrament. The book is a critical discussion, both theoretical and practical, of the nature and conditions of religious dance, as explored through the disciplines of scripture, education and dance as art. At the same time, Dance and the Christian Faith is a call for Christians to embrace dance as a means to prayer and worship, outreach and renewal. Although centred on dance within a religious context, much of the discussion is directly relevant to dance education and the performing arts in general. With a Foreword by the Rt Revd Maurice Wood, former Bishop of Norwich.