Dancing faith: contemporary Christian dance in Norway

Although dance is a common religious expression, its place in the Christian tradition has been contested. In modern Protestant Norway, dance has mostly been considered irrelevant to church life or even sinful. In recent decades, however, dance has become increasingly common in Norwegian churches. Th...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Schuff, Hildegunn Marie Tønnessen 1979- (Author)
Format: Electronic Article
Language:English
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Published: Carfax Publ. [2019]
In: Journal of contemporary religion
Year: 2019, Volume: 34, Issue: 3, Pages: 529-549
Standardized Subjects / Keyword chains:B Norway / Christianity / Religiosity / Dance / Spirituality
IxTheo Classification:CB Christian life; spirituality
CD Christianity and Culture
KBE Northern Europe; Scandinavia
Further subjects:B Lived Religion
B Religious Experience
B gendered spiritualities
B Dance
B embodied faith
B Christianity
Online Access: Volltext (Resolving-System)
Description
Summary:Although dance is a common religious expression, its place in the Christian tradition has been contested. In modern Protestant Norway, dance has mostly been considered irrelevant to church life or even sinful. In recent decades, however, dance has become increasingly common in Norwegian churches. The present analysis of empirical data on dance in Christian settings in contemporary Norway is based on participant observation and interviews. While younger dancers (born after 1990) consider it natural to dance in church, and are usually welcome to do so, older participants have met significant resistance. When dancing, dancers find personal meaning (wellbeing, processing emotions and life events), social meaning (communication, belonging), and religious meaning (contact with God, prayer, growth). Dance emerges as a part of lived religion that clearly highlights how bodies matter, and how spiritualities are gendered, in this contribution to understanding the embodied dimensions of religion.
ISSN:1469-9419
Contains:Enthalten in: Journal of contemporary religion
Persistent identifiers:DOI: 10.1080/13537903.2019.1658939