Food for the Soul: The condemnation of dance in faith is misleading

As a business major that can pop and lock here and there under the right circumstances, I’ve always admired those who truly devote themselves to the art of dance as a form of expression.

This form of expression, however, can be challenging to pursue when one’s faith system specifically rejects dance as a proper practice. In Christianity, there is a troubling history of condemning dance in specific spaces — some even deem it an inappropriate means of connecting with religion. 

Xavier Williams, a freshman majoring in dance at the Glorya Kaufman School of Dance, is intimately familiar with this conflict.  

For dancers such as Williams, an upbringing in the Christian faith limited his ability to freely express himself. Williams describes his upbringing in the South where, within his Baptist Church, worship was limited to reactions that the church allowed. This included clapping or vocalizing based on the feeling of “catching the Holy Ghost,” but dancing was a frowned-upon method of worship. 

Outside of the church, Williams found there was indeed a place for dance and worship. He recalls that his eyes opened when he was shown scripture from the book of Psalms, detailing worshippers dancing in the mountain of Zion. With this clear evidence in existence, it begs the question, why is dance as a form of worship depicted as evil? 

This form of worship is further solidified in Christianity with the concept of creation viewed through a dancer’s lens. Williams describes that since he believes we were designed by a creator, humans inherently should be creative.

This idea states that people all have the natural ability to convey stories through the power of creative expression. For Williams, this storytelling power can transcend barriers between our society’s distinct communities. He explains that since body gestures are universal, dance is “the opportunity to get away from the dialogue that can sometimes be problematic,” advancing messages in a format that is much more powerful than traditional ways of communicating. 

Xavier’s story becomes extremely important to discourse on Christian worship. As Xavier mentioned, his Baptist Church frowned upon the idea of utilizing dance as a spiritual connection to God, and they aren’t the only ones in the Christianity diaspora to do so. 

Kathryn Dickason, a postdoctoral scholar at the USC School of Religion, recites in her article “Why Christianity put away its dancing shoes – only to find them again centuries later” that King David in the Old Testament was said to have danced naked before the Lord, a true symbol of humility for his ranking of nobility, a celebrated trait in the religion of Christianity.

Despite this, the Protestant and Catholic communities declared dance to be a symbol of idol worship in the 16th century, which notably is a fundamental aspect of many traditional African religions before western colonization, according to Dickason. 

The condemnation of traditional dance customs in African religion is further demonstrated by the pentecostal rituals in Kinshasa, Congo before and after religious colonization. In Katrien Pype’s “Dancing for God or The Devil: Pentecostal Discourse on Popular Dance in Kinshasa,” the article states that the traditional pentecostal ritual in Kinshasa is said to be a dance which one enters “into a trance, a heavily charged bodily and spiritual state which is manifested by being overwhelmed by emotions … an ultimate surrender to a higher power.”

However, with the arrival of European catholic colonization, “Belgian Catholic missionaries” were televised and played on the radio, resulting in western Christian traditions becoming prioritized and the eventual condemnation of Kishasa’s initial ritual. 

Returning to our question, the presence of colonization caused the widespread condemnation of dance in Christianity. With this said, the ridicule of dance in Christianity does not lie in modern discourse, but rather, it is an attempt to wipe out the traditions of African culture by westernizing it entirely. 

With this, I have full confidence that dancers who practice Christianity such as Xavier will be able to re-introduce what dancing means to them — a spiritual demonstration, a form of empowerment against the consequences of colonization. Space should be made for dancing as a form of religious expression. 

Soulenne Githumbi is a freshman writing about the endeavours of everyday arts students. Her column, “Food for the Soul,” runs every other Thursday.