These days I am obsessed — as most of you, I believe — by the theme of resistance. How to resist individually and collectively to the present rule of lunatics whose level of arrogance has become astonishing. Much can be done and should be done in the line of analysis: What kind of social malaise are we witnessing? How did we get here? Is this still a democracy? How could it become a democracy again? And so on and so forth. But I feel we also need to work a lot on the level of emotions and body engagement.
Today I came across an old book titled Danser sa vie (Dancing One’s Life) written in French by philosopher Roger Garaudy in 1973. It impressed me a lot when I read it as a young man, and even more now. Even though the book presents itself as a history of modern dance, its first chapter represents an astonishing outline of a spirituality of dance. Here are some sentences from the first chapter:
Not just play but celebration, participation, and not show, dance is closely connected to magic and religion, to work and feast, to love and death. People have danced in all the solemn moments of their existence… To dance means primarily to establish an active relation between the human and nature, it’s becoming part of the cosmic movement… To identify oneself, through dance, with movement and with nature’s forces, in order to capture them by imitation, became a primordial necessity when, after settling on the land and birthing agriculture, the knowledge of nature’s rhythms became a vital need.*
In Creation Spirituality, dance is found both in the via positiva and the via transformativa. At the root of Creation Spirituality, in its via positiva, dance expresses the basic vitality of the body and the recognition of its value through experiencing its value.
That is, not just through an intellectual validation. Important as it is to say to oneself and others: “My body has ontological value, it is sacred, etc.,” it is only through movement and dance that the individual acquires a correct perception of such value and sacredness. That’s why in my CS retreats I always include “free movement” — possibly in the context of trees and fields — as a via positiva grounding of the whole experience.
Dance is also essential in the via transformativa as it embodies and expresses human solidarity and communal joy. Not anymore free movement, but organized circles and other shapes, typical of folk dance. Of course, one can also dance freely with others and experience the rising energy of the group, but to me it is important always to include in my CS retreats a moment of folk dance, even a very simple one. It is in itself a whole ritual, symbolizing and making real in that very moment the unity of the human family, as well as the cosmic order.
So dance is a fundamental element of the first path and the fourth path. I don’t exclude the possibility of using dance as an element of via negativa (expressing sorrow, for example) and the via creativa (as artwork, of course), but it seems to me that dance is especially relevant, or rather a necessary element, at the beginning and at the end of the circle of the four paths.
At the beginning, in via positiva, dance gives to the person a real sense of bodily identity; at the end, in via transformativa, dance gifts the person a concrete sense of community. Actually, reflecting on it more deeply, the unending circle of the four paths is the cosmic dance.
Dance — writes Garaudy — is a totalizing way of living the world. It is at the same time knowledge, art, and religion. It represents the fullness of wisdom: the awareness that God is the creative force always being born and always working at the heart of every existence.
As we are looking for a way out of the present lunacy, that is, for a new civilization, may we dare propose that dance — in the sense here presented — should be one of its main staples? If we don’t dream big, I am afraid we are doomed.
*All quotes from Roger Garaudy, Danser sa vie (Dancing One’s Life). Available for free borrowing through the Online Library.
Banner Image: Spiral Dance at Faeriworlds 2010. Photo (c) Pat Kight on Flickr.
Queries for Contemplation
What do you make of this encomium of dance? Does it make sense in your life? What is your experience with dance as a spiritual exercise?
Related Readings by Matthew Fox
Original Blessing: A Primer in Creation Spirituality
WHEE! We, wee All the Way Home: A Guide to Sensual Prophetic Spirituality
One River, Many Wells: Wisdom Springing from Global Faiths
The Reinvention of Work: A New Vision of Livelihood For Our Time
The Coming of the Cosmic Christ: The Healing of Mother Earth and the Birth of a Global Renaissance
Creation Spirituality: Liberating Gifts for the Peoples of the Earth
Sins of the Spirit, Blessings of the Flesh: Transforming Evil in Soul and Society
6 thoughts on “Dancing as a Way of Life – part 1”
My favorite depiction of the eternal interwovenness of dance, sacred time, life and death is in Eliot’s Four Quartets:
“In that open field
If you do not come too close, if you do not come too close,
On a summer midnight, you can hear the music
Of the weak pipe and the little drum
And see them dancing around the bonfire
The association of man and woman
In daunsinge, signifying matrimonie—
A dignified and commodious sacrament.
Two and two, neccesarye conjunction,
Holding eche other by the hand or the arm
Whiche betokeneth concorde. Round and round the fire
Leaping through the flames, or joined in circles,
Rustically solemn or in rustic laughter
Lifting heavy feet in clumsy shoes,
Earth feet, loam feet, lifted in country mirth
Mirth of those long since under earth
Nourishing the corn, Keeping time,
Keeping the rhythm in their dancing
As in their living in the living seasons
The time of the seasons and the constellations
The time of milking and the time of harvest
The time of the coupling of man and woman
And that of beasts. Feet rising and falling,
Eating and drinking. Dung and death.” [East Coker, T. S. Eliot]
Blessings of LOVE LIGHT LIFE WISDOM Healing Peace Beauty Joy Creativity Dance Freedom Transformation Compassion… within and among Us to All Our Beautiful unique sisters and brothers/beings/creatures in all physical/nonphysical spiritual dimensions of Our Beautiful Sacred Mother Earth/Cosmos in the Sacredness of OUR LOVING DIVERSE EVOLVING ONENESS of the ETERNAL PRESENT MOMENT…. 🔥🌎💜🙏
The Baptist church in which I raised myself, preached against dance; so in high school I didn’t attend any dances or proms. Thus, I never learned to dance with a partner. In the 1970s, things changed. I attended an evangelical “hippie” church where we were invited to move. People ask me if I was a hippie in the 1960s. I tell them no. I was a “Jesus freak.” I’m no longer evangelical, but since then, I have loved dancing—wildly, mostly alone, responding freely to the music and my soul. Often, I felt so in touch with the earth and my body, that I would spin like a Sufi dervish, and that made me feel truly connected with Spirit and the earth. My knees and lungs now keep me from dancing the way I used to. There’s a sadness in that, but I recognize that giving up dance (along with other things) is preparation for giving up everything one day when I move on from this realm.
In primary school in the 1940s, my classmates and I were taught to dance, including barn (or square) dances, where the fun and sociability were more important than correct steps. As time passed in America I learned the popular dances. Young adulthood for me seemed not much of a time for social dancing. As a senior with leisure time, I’ve watched dancers of many kinds, including stars like Astaire and Nureyev, indigenous groups of other nations and so on. I think dance of any kind is a creative expression, making something extraordinary out of something not so special. To someone unable to dance, of course, simple movement forward, sideways, going and pausing is a gift to be desired. Humans have dared to swim, fly, climb and race; shy people dare to dance. Dancing (other than aerobic) may not have practical use, but it fulfills my human heart’s yearning for beauty and emotional expression.
on T-shirt worn at the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival 2026: WE STAND, WE DANCE AGAINST FASCISM.
Dear Matthew, as you now, I am all in regarding the dance, identifying myself as a tanguera (one who loves tango) and having written my thesis for psychotherapy on the healing and spirituality found in the tango (In Tango’s Embrace: A Phenomenology and Ceremony, MA Schleinich). Yes, every tanguero/a worth his or her dance knows the via negativa too, respecting the limits of desire being ubiquitous. Mine was seeing what I wanted, deeply and surely, and realizing I was wholly unprepared–thus beginning the long journey to learn to join the collective that is tango that would get me on the dance floor. I live in a city without the community needed, but I will return to it, as surely as salmon find their way home. Meanwhile, I recently discovered Ceili dancing! One idea to prepare for St. Paddy’s day has turned into weekly filling of the hall with all generations, learnings patterns of circles we dance in groups to fast, jumpy, cheerful music, laughing as we go. A stellar antidote to the news. My favourite tango community is in Portland Oregon. So get a new president quickly!! (Of course there are many more extremely serious reasons for doing this, and for regaining your democracy).