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„What moves you? Dancing must have a reason other than mere technique and routine.”
– Pina Bausch
Die Körper und die Kirche…
“In uns bewegt – Tanz der Sehnsucht” (Movement Within Us – The Dance of Longing) will create a dialogue between art and Christianity, between body and faith, between man and man. How much importance does our body have? What role does the body play in Christianity, in our society? What touches people in their innermost being?
The project “In uns bewegt – Tanz der Sehnsucht” is an interdisciplinary dance project that seeks to ask questions and find answers through dance about the role of the body within the Christian faith. We search for what touches people in their innermost being.
It is produced by the dance theater collective Quizzical Körper in cooperation with Anne Hilpert and three other dancers. Choreographed by Rebecca Mary Narum, this process is accompanied by the theological expertise of Anne Hilpert, who wrote her dissertation on the performativity of dance and religion, and the musical composition of Fiona Combosch.
A final dance performance will be staged in a church in Freiburg in November 2021. This performance will be created through an interactive creative process based on workshops, conversations, and further research. In particular, the audience will experience the strength and potential that the body can hold in spiritual practices.
The goal is to open a fruitful dialogue between the “dance world” and the “church world”.
KÖRPER IM CHRISTENTUM?
On the one hand, the body is central to the Christian faith and theology reflects the bodily dimension of our being in various contexts. On the other hand, church history is marked by the stigmatization of corporeality as sin.
Although theology and the church have made great strides in development in this regard, there is still a reluctance and a certain discomfort with (too much) corporeality. This becomes particularly clear with regard to the arts. While music, literature and visual arts seem to be irreplaceable as Christian cultural goods, the art of dance leads a shadowy existence in Christianity. Yet dance in particular offers an approach to religion that moves people on all levels.
Since most of our Western cultures – if not the entire world – have been strongly influenced by the Christian faith and issues such as shame and stigmatization have shaped the Christian body, we believe that this project is important and relevant for society as a whole.
DER KÖRPER UND DER GEIST?
To achieve our goal, the project chooses a twofold approach: a dance-artistic one and a theological-scientific one.
The dance-artistic part is choreographed and led by Rebecca Mary Narum. It is a full-length dance performance in the contemporary dance style. For this purpose, coined religious gestures and movements – such as kneeling, folded hands or the sign of the cross – as well as abstract movements and Christian music will be used for the piece’s development. Through these particular stylistic devices, we hope that the audience will view this piece through the sensing body, rather than the rational mind.
In the second theological-scientific part, led by Anne Hilpert, the aim is to examine this theme more closely through different perspectives. In doing so, we bring together theologians from the Albert-Ludwigs-University Freiburg, dancers and other people from different spiritual mindfulness and movement practices (such as yoga) to exchange ideas, open a dialogue and create a space for questions and discussions.
Stay tuned for more information on the project’s activities and performances!
Project support
This project is made possible with the financial support of theErzbischof-Herman-Stiftung, the LBBW Stiftung und the Institution Kunst, Kultur und Kirche Freiburg as well as with the support of the Faculty of Theology at the Albert-Ludwigs-Universität and the Katholischen Akademie Freiburg.
Quizzical Körper 