Liturgical Dance at an Anglican Bishop’s Consecration

At a recent ACNA bishop’s consecration here in the United States the congregation burst into dance along with the bishop being consecrated and the entire clergy. The bishop is the one in the gold chasuble.

Whenever liturgical dance is brought up it puts me on edge. European-Americans and Westerners like me sometimes have a tough time with liturgical dance. That is my own bias. I know there are plenty of cultures which resonate with dance and artistic movement both in the theater and in everyday life.

I am comfortable with liturgical dance in societies where dance is an integral part of their self-expression. Thomas Kane’s The Dancing Church has shown me the power of liturgical dance when it rises up organically from the community.

Very few times have I seen liturgical dance complement and enhance the liturgy being celebrated. Often it feels like a performance within the liturgy which distracts from the mysteries being celebrated.

The energy and excitement of this video made me smile, and the dancing appeared to well up from within them. I know that David danced before the Lord; however, I am still left thinking: I don’t like liturgical dance.

Nathan Chase

Nathan P. Chase is Assistant Professor of Liturgical and Sacramental Theology at Aquinas Institute of Theology in St. Louis, MO. He has contributed a number of articles to the field of liturgical studies, including pieces on liturgy in the early Church, initiation, the Eucharist, inculturation, and the Western Non-Roman Rites, in particular the Hispano-Mozarabic tradition. His first book The Homiliae Toletanae and the Theology of Lent and Easter was published in 2020. His second monograph, published in 2023, is titled The Anaphoral Tradition in the ‘Barcelona Papyrus.’

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16 responses to “Liturgical Dance at an Anglican Bishop’s Consecration”

  1. Tony Phillips

    Usually the bishop’s the one in the pointy hat.

    Not long ago someone on this blog spoke disparagingly of the more traditional rite as ‘clericalized sacral drama.’ But this charming little video shows how deep is the hunger in the human soul for the dramatic. The dance here may not have been as tightly choreographed as a pontifical high Mass, and the music may not be quite up to the level of Palestrina, but the purpose it serves, the spiritual hunger it feeds, is much the same.
    (And note this is from ACNA, not the Jefferts Schori gang.)

    Thanks for sharing!

    Reply
  2. Rita Ferrone Avatar
    Rita Ferrone

    Does this new bishop have some relationship to Gregory of Nyssa parish in San Francisco, where I understand the congregation dances all the time? Not that their videos look terribly engaging to me either (although I liked the one on the Hula Mass), but it might be part of the background.

    This video did not make dance seem organic or communal to me. It seemed more like a little foolish fun to get the blood flowing. Some of the clergy were into it, clearly, but their movements seemed like jumping around rather than stylized motion in which all had a part. The running with kids around the aisles looked like a fun game rather than prayer.

    There is something solemn about serious dance, as opposed to “just let yourself go.” You see that seriousness even in ballroom dancing, and certainly in folk dancing or ballet or jazz or modern dance. People who do it are quite in earnest and concentrated. You see it in the dancers’ faces. What they are doing is serious business, a stylized movement for which preparation and focus and bodily discipline are needed.

    None of that is evident here. What I suspect is being sought instead is exuberance, dance as a vehicle for emotion more openly and bodily expressed. I understand that hunger in human life. But when it’s applied to dance in this setting we get a strange spectacle, and some unintended meanings about self-expression (if it feels good do it) seem on display. Self-indulgence does not comport well with the aims of Christian liturgy.

    I’m all for joy and exuberance. But liturgy is an ordered celebration. If you’re going to dance in the liturgy, this ought to be ordered too, and create a more intense focus on what the liturgy is doing, rather than merely produce a more intense “feeling.”

    Reply
  3. Scott Pluff

    Not my cup of tea, but neither is a low Mass where people sit in silence with their faces buried in their hands. In fact, if I were given the choice between those two, I’d choose the Mass with dancing.

    Reply
    1. Paul R. Schwankl

      @Scott Pluff – comment #3:
      My sentiments exactly, Scott.

      Reply
  4. Fritz Bauerschmidt

    Rita Ferrone : Does this new bishop have some relationship to Gregory of Nyssa parish in San Francisco, where I understand the congregation dances all the time? Not that their videos look terribly engaging to me either (although I liked the one on the Hula Mass), but it might be part of the background.

    I suspect the idea of being associated with St. Gregory’s would bring the dancing to a rapid halt.

    Reply
  5. Karl Liam Saur

    Part of the problem is that dance does not have the place in (at least white) American culture than it has in traditional cultures. It generally survives only with romantic or entertainment associations; other associations are comparatively marginal, and there is no broad surviving culture of sacred dance as there is among indigenous peoples, for example, and the using the liturgy to jumpstart such a culture anew is not something I would approach with any expectation of success, shall we say.

    Reply
  6. Brian Palmer

    Once I saw archbishop Desmond Tutu doing a soft shoe shuffle, twisting a little to one side and then to the other, but nothing as exuberant and celebratory as what we have here. He and other clergy shuffled side to side down the center aisle as the people sang hymns.

    It struck me as though the archbishop’s dance belonged to the rite considering dance is very much a part of his culture.

    Reply
  7. Jacques Crémer

    I love PrayTell, but sometime I feel that being a liturgist must mean, as we say in French, that you must have eaten an umbrella (I felt the same thing about the Leonard Cohen song at a wedding earlier). This dancing was done totally at the end of the ceremony (at about 2hr39 on https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BFbH4q_zN_A – no I did not watch it all!) and did not seem to distract from the celebration. To address Rita’s last paragraph: the dancing is basically outside of the liturgy and is expressing the joy of the people to have a new bishop.

    Reply
    1. Gerard Flynn

      @Jacques Crémer – comment #7:
      Our national broadcaster here in Ireland announced at the beginning of this week that the singing priest had scored 30 million hits on youtube already. 🙂

      Reply
  8. Ron Schmit

    We need to get over our Eurocentric biases against dance as a vehicle for expressing the spiritual. Our parish is in California. Now over half of our California population is of non-European descent. Here half of all practicing Catholics are of Hispanic origin.

    In our diocese is a huge Asian and Hispanic populations. In many of these cultures dance is used to express culture and spirituality. Because dance was part of the annual multicultural mass our former bishop would not participate. He left it to the emeritus bishop. He also cut out all the cultural expressions including dance and movement from the cathedral liturgies. The result was the ethnic groups felt alienated and rejected.

    In our parish community and throughout the diocese you will not find a Guadalupe celebration where there is not Aztec dancing. For the indigenous peoples of the Americas dance is the vehicle to the sacred.

    Many Hispanic people here and in Latin America are leaving Catholicism for charismatic and Pentecostal churches. There they don’t feel as if they are in a liturgical straight jacket. There they feel they can give expression to their full range of emotions in worship. Part of that is expressed bodily.

    Why is it that we cannot learn from their experience. As I understand it the process of enculturation is not unidirectional. Maybe our sisters and brothers who are from cultures that employ dance can teach us it’s spirituality.

    Just because we are not used to something should not mean that we cannot learn it. No one goes around their daily life humming Gregorian chant. Yet that hasn’t stopped many a bishop and priest from making the people in the pew learn it.

    It may take us some time but we could learn to dance. Like learning a new language we have to take baby steps and we may feel that we have two left feet. But our ethnic sisters and brothers can be our instructors. Let’s join them in the dance that reflects the sacred dance that is the perichoresis of the Holy Trinity.

    Reply
  9. Paul Inwood

    I would dispute one statement at the very beginning of Nathan’s piece: he says “the congregation burst into dance”. Clearly they didn’t. From the shots of the congregation that we saw, the vast majority were still “locked” in their rows of seats. The closest they got to dancing was standing and clapping in time with the music. I have not watched the full video to see how the dancing started, but the group of children and their parents or teachers who are moving around the church seem to be the probable source of the dance.

    So on this occasion, some children and some clergy (including the bishop) danced, but no one else did.

    I think that Rita is right when she says that the gathering was searching for exuberance. I was present at an interdiocesan conference when the entire congregation did indeed spontaneously erupt into dance (and there was a large open space between the four sides of the assembly in which they could do it). This was at the end of an extended and powerful penitential liturgy with individual confessions which in fact took several hours. The dancing erupted unexpectedly from the congregation at the end of the final song, and continued for some 15 minutes. It involved everyone, laity and clergy, including a number of bishops. The only people not actually dancing were one photographer (I have the pictures) and a small group of three musicians playing (I was one of them) who simply kept going until eventually the energy of the dancing assembly was spent.

    It was a very cathartic experience for everyone, many of whom had never experienced anything like it (and probably never would again): a unique, grace-filled moment of release. I would not have believed it of middle-class white people if I had not been there. I think that they, post factum, did not believe it of themselves either.

    Reply
  10. Mary Wood

    This looks real fun! I attended a teaching session on Baptism in a local C of E church where the Bishop had everyone in a huge circle round the font which was FULL of water. After some very solid teaching and we’d all re-affirmed our Baptismal vows he aspersed us – very wetly! – and then we began to sing a hymn. I’m not certain, but I think it was “I danced in the morning” which goes through from Creation to Jesus’ living, suffering and rising. A former curate, since ordained, started a simple crossed foot circling of the font with a child from Junior Church, other children joined the line and then some grown ups, and then the Bishop and his Secretary and finally some oldies who could risk staying upright! Not all joined the movement, but most non-mobile folk participated by clapping in time.

    “I am the Life that will never, never die.” What is Joy? It’s that ecstatic delight that sweeps us out of our stuffy selves, to God. Dance, then , wherever you may be.

    Reply
  11. Peter Rehwaldt

    When I find myself reading about the value of this or that liturgical practice, I often substitute another practice in the next as a way of checking out my own biases. Is my objection consistent, or is there something about A that I don’t like but I apparently do not have the objection to B?

    For instance . . .

    I am comfortable with liturgical dance Gregorian chant in societies where dance chant is an integral part of their self-expression. Thomas Kane’s The Dancing Church Anthony Ruff’s Sacred Music and Liturgical Reform has shown me the power of liturgical dance chant when it rises up organically from the community.

    Very few times have I seen liturgical dance chant complement and enhance the liturgy being celebrated. Often it feels like a performance within the liturgy which distracts from the mysteries being celebrated.

    Unlike Nathan, I *have* seen dance done well on numerous occasions. I have been blessed to know dancers with both artistic and advanced theological training, and am delighted when their gifts can be used to bring the grace of God into the life of the assembled worshiping community.

    Dance engages the community in much the same way as a powerful choir anthem or moving organ piece. Just as an organist’s work can veer into performance, so too can a dancer’s. But this is a matter of practice, not of the essence of either church musicians or liturgical dancers.

    Reply
  12. John Ondrey

    I haven’t given the subject of liturgical dance too much thought. However, here are a few that come to mind now: Perhaps dance can be incorporated as part of the liturgy but in a way like everything else: the priest has his part, the congregation has its part, the choir/schola has its part. Liturgical dancers should have their own role. To go with Rita F’s thought, “There is something solemn about serious dance… People who do it are quite in earnest and concentrated. You see it in the dancers’ faces. What they are doing is serious business, a stylized movement for which preparation and focus and bodily discipline are needed.” Just like the best performances of polyphonic music can come from trained singers, the best of dance should come from trained dancers.

    No one expects congregations to make up their own words and melodies for prayer. We should not expect liturgical dancing to be any different. Where this would fit into a mass is beyond me. It takes the focus off of God.

    Reply
  13. Philip Sandstrom

    This should be the time to look at the “processing giraffes” on You Tube once more.

    Reply
  14. Ann Olivier

    Some of this discussion reminds me of this old ditty:

    I do not like thee, Dr. Fell.
    Why it is I cannot tell.
    But this I know and know full well,
    I do not like thee, Dr. Fell.

    Reply

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