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Dancing to Transform

How Concert Dance Becomes Religious in American Christianity

Emily Wright author

Format:Hardback

Publisher:Intellect

Published:18th Jun '21

Currently unavailable, and unfortunately no date known when it will be back

Dancing to Transform cover

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. Emily Wright details how these dancing Christians transform what they perceive as secular professional by transforming concert dance into different kinds of religious practices in order to express individual and communal religious identities. Through a multi-site, qualitative study of four professional dance companies, Wright explores how religious and artistic commitments, everyday lived experience and varied performance contexts influence and shape the approaches of Christian professional dancers to creating, transforming and performing dance. Subsequently, this book provides readers with a greater awareness and appreciation for the complex interactions between American Christianity and dance. This study, in turn, delivers audiences a richer, more nuanced picture of the complex histories of these Christian, dancing communities and offers more fruitful readings of their choreographic productions.

'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.'

-- Kathryn Dickason, Dance Research Jou

ISBN: 9781789382839

Dimensions: unknown

Weight: unknown

240 pages