Dancing to Transform

Book excerpt: "Since its inception, dance has maintained a tenuous position within Christianity. Yet, despite - or perhaps because of - its contested status, dance persists inside and outside organized religious communities. Using original, multi-site, qualitative studies of four dance companies, this book examines the movements dancing Christians make to transform what they perceive as secular professional dance into religious practices in order to actualize individual and communal religious identities. Dancing to transform is the first book-length analysis that situates developments in contemporary Christian dance in relation to the histories of American modern dance and American Christianity"--Page 4 of cover.