"Liturgical Dance? Really?"

[James_Gale]

This being the internet, I found the picture.  Click here for it (though I feel like I need to give a trigger warning).

Thanks a lot, Professor. I clicked on the link and now I cannot un-see it. 

You're welcome. Glad to be of help.

You've made me feel unsafe.  You need to check your privilege, stop with the micro-aggressions, and provide a safe space filled with play-doh, soothing music, and play-doh.  Lots of play-doh.

[Buckeye Deaconess]

I'm not sure about the point of getting all upset about what someone else far away does.  If you don't like this kind of liturgical action, don't schedule it for any of your events.  I'm wondering why the deaconness wanted to post that picture here. On second thought, I'm not wondering at all.

Actually, it made the rounds on Facebook yesterday, and I started by pointing it out on the "Prayers" thread.  Can anyone, Charles included, explain how a man gyrating around in his skivvies before the Holy altar of God provides any benefit to the gathered worshipping assembly?  Reverence, decorum, decency . . . is this typified through such offerings?

I am glad, Charles, that you are no longer wondering about my intentions.  By the way, if anyone likes this sort of thing, here is another opportunity to imbibe.  Outside of the gathered worshipping assembly, of course.

[Dave Likeness]

A Royal Dance was held at King Herod's birthday party.
He invited Rita Hayworth to do the dance of the seven
veils.  Her name was condensed to Salome. Her reward
for the dance was the murder of John the Baptist. Perhaps,
you have read Salome's book, "How To Get Ahead in Life".

[J. Thomas Shelley]

I think it would work best liturgically during an extended Allleluia during a Gospel Procession. As the Alleluia is sung in three times in rapid succession, three groups of three female belly dancers could erotically add "life".....

Especially if the dancer was named Zoe.

[Buckeye Deaconess]

Here is a video of the dancer at a gathered worshipping assembly in which he is actually clothed.  He is a gifted dancer.  Elegant, graceful, athletic.

I am a dance mom (well, not THAT kind of dance mom . . . the mother of a dancer I like to say).  My daughter dances competitively.  She dances for the glory of God in her solos (at least in her lyrical solo . . . her musical theater number is all for fun).  [And the skin tone is actually fabric, not bare skin.]  She has four boys in her competition dance company.  I frequent 4 or more regional dance competitions per year plus one national competition every other year, all involving hundreds upon hundreds of dancers.  I have yet to encounter a male dancer in his underwear in that venue.  How is it acceptable in the house of God?  It is creepy to those of us looking in from the outside.  I would welcome an explanation from someone in the know.

[Pilgrim]

Just to correct myself, apparently this occurred in Metro NY, not North Carolina. Be that as it may, I, too, would be interested in just how Charles would "defend" this is the midst of the worship of God's people, not within a local parish that may have wandered from the tracks, but within an entire Synod Assembly! If the good folks of Iowa with whom you were raised would have been exposed to such a thing 40-years ago, can you even imagine the riotous response? Is this "progress" in any constructive sense of the word for Christian witness and the Kingdom to which we have been called to serve?

[Charles Austin]

This is a case where a picture is not worth a thousand words. Without context, without the actions involved, without the larger experience, we cannot really know what the whole deal was.
But the picture alone, out of any context, gives some people the "ain't it awful!" ammo they like to shoot.

[Pilgrim]

Nice non-answer answer, you sly reporter you!

[BrotherBoris]

I think it would work best liturgically during an extended Allleluia during a Gospel Procession. As the Alleluia is sung in three times in rapid succession, three groups of three female belly dancers could erotically add "life".....

Especially if the dancer was named Zoe.

I'm glad to see SOMEONE caught on to the fact that I was being facetious!   


Zoe the Orthodox Belly Dancer from Damascus? Perhaps a new form of outreach for the Antiochian Archdiocese.   

[Dan Fienen]

This is a case where a picture is not worth a thousand words. Without context, without the actions involved, without the larger experience, we cannot really know what the whole deal was.
But the picture alone, out of any context, gives some people the "ain't it awful!" ammo they like to shoot.

And the response gives you the "ain't it awful!" ammo you like to shoot.

[Sandra]

Here is a video of the dancer at a gathered worshipping assembly in which he is actually clothed.  He is a gifted dancer.  Elegant, graceful, athletic.

Are men in pointe a new thing now?

[Buckeye Deaconess]

Here is a video of the dancer at a gathered worshipping assembly in which he is actually clothed.  He is a gifted dancer.  Elegant, graceful, athletic.

Are men in pointe a new thing now?

It worked for The Rock in The Game Plan.     Well, not actually "en pointe," but ballet techniques.

[Charles Austin]

listen carefully. That dance might have been the worst thing ever since somebody decided to put pineapple on pizza. My point is that we do not know exactly what it was, how it looked or in what context it was presented. So I don't know whether it was a good thing or not and neither does anyone else who wasn't there.

[Steven W Bohler]

So if the dancer had been totally nude, we still couldn't object since we weren't there and don't know how it looked?  The objections here seem to be for the young man's attire and not for liturgical dance, per se.  And we know what that attire looked like based on the photograph.  So, no, one does not need to be there to have an opinion or make a judgment.

Oh, and by the way, I have had pizza with pineapple. And it was good.

[LutherMan]

This being the internet, I found the picture.  Click here for it (though I feel like I need to give a trigger warning).

I wear more than that to bed at night...