Easter Workshop 1980
INTERPRETIVE DANCE – ANDY RAINE
Interpretive dance is that which seeks to interpret, explain, expand, translate, clarify, declare visually, and express the meaning of the words or music it accompanies. It is never just dancing for dancing sake, nor is form its chief concern. Yet it should be a thing of beauty in itself, more than just a tract.
Psalm 90 says, “Let the beauty of our Lord and God be upon us, and establish thou, the work of our hands.” If we apply this to the use of interpretive dance as a means of Christian Communication was see two ingredients: 1) His beauty seen on us- this speaks of a right-heart attitude that God can bless, a reliance on Him, and the presence of His glory that cannot be imitated. It implies our spiritual preparation, and God’s response. 11) The work of our hands established – this speaks of preparation in practical learning, and rehearsal, painstaking care, attention to detail, so that what is offered to God, be the best we can give. God will not do all this for us. He will establish the work of our hands. Even so, this implies not just practical preparation, but dependence, wholly on God.
Communication may be direct, or indirect, meaning can be explicit or implicit. A direct communication is one which speaks for itself. An indirect communication is one which requires explanation. Both are equally valid forms of communication, but indirect communications on their own are only marginally effective, speak only implicitly. Paul’s comments on speaking in tongues are relevant here. He thanks God that he speaks in tongues “more than ye all” but says he would rather, in public, speak two or three words easily intelligible than a thousand in tongues. Yet tongues with interpretation is right, in public he says, and not forbidden, in fact, it is often God’s way to use this, as a sign that speaks to unbelievers. But amongst other believers, Prophecy (indirect communication) is to be preferred. And where those present, understand the tongue, having learned it, that same indirect communication, has become for them a direct communication. They are no longer in “the seat of the unlearned.”
Interpretive dance, like mime, relies a good deal on convention for its effectiveness as a direct form of communication. In mime, a way to represent a poor man would be to pull out imaginary trouser pockets, or an old man may be suggested by stroking an invisible, long, white beard. But how easily would than come across in a country too hot too wear trousers, and where there was no traditional association of old men and beards? Similarly, in dance, some movements speak more clearly to the ‘initiated’ and this is especially true when the movements are highly stylized. (Did you know that deaf people have an elaborate sign language, and that for some of them it is possible to recognize where another deaf person comes from, or at least where they learned to sign, because they “speak” with a particular accent!! The movements will not speak to anybody if they are sloppy, except perhaps, specifically speaking through their sloppiness, that person does not care enough about what the movement is saying to form it adequately.
Be faithful to the Holy Spirit. Don’t just repeat word for word the movements your mind tells you would probably be appropriate and that you know already. The Spirit will often challenge us by releasing new movements, perhaps that we don’t fully understand the meaning of. I have known the Lord release movements I have expressed in obedience, without understanding, and then long months later, or immediately, he has released the understanding or the interpretation of that movement. Sometimes this will be simultaneously. These things flow into the Gifts of the Spirit, in alternatives, quite naturally. We begin to prophesy in dance, with or without verbal interpretation. Often, what is given in the Spirit, becomes repeatable, teachable, another instrument to sound for God. Dances, interpretative, or otherwise, can be taught validly enough, but new, interpretive, Christian dances, should come from the place of creative prayer. It is what God wants to speak that matters. This is the difference between sermons and prophecy. Often, as an interpretive dance is taught, the explanation of the movements will help the participants to understand explicitly the precise meaning of the individual movements, a meaning which an audience may well have communicated to them but mainly implicitly.
