Tango with God?: A theoretical clarification of bibliodans as a method for spiritual education

This study deals with Bibliodans, a form of improvised dance inspired by texts from the biblical tradition. It aims to be a theoretical clarification of bibliodans as a method for spiritual education and wants to contribute to the discourse about dancing in an ecclesiastical setting. The research question is: What are the distinctive traits of the spiritual education which a bibliodans-facilitator wants to make possible with the bibliodans-programmes designed by her? This study can be considered as a professional doctorate (Graham). It is based on an auto-ethnographic description (Walton) of the preparatory process and the resulting programme design for several bibliodans-sessions I as a professional have led. Inspired by the method for a descriptive practical theology as proposed by Browning, I bring to light the Visual Dimension (Browning) of the description with regard to text, dance and spiritual education. I develop a theoretical clarification of this dimension with the help of theories from the study of literature, dance and spirituality. The resulting thick descriptions form the starting point for a constructive narrative theological reflection as suggested by Graham, Walton and Ward. With dance assignments the facilitator of a bibliodans programme stimulates an aesthetic reading of and a mutually contingent interaction with the text. In this way she invites the participants to discover its meaning and significance (Iser).When she asks them to improvise, she gives them suggestions for the representation of text motives through imitation, resemblance and replication (Foster) but leaves room for their own creativity. At the same time she exercises them in attentional practice (De Spain), dwelling in possibilities (Allbright) and makes them aware of the possible occurrence of a phenomenal (Presston-Dunlop) or a medial experience. When she focuses their attention on the significance of their dancing for their association with themselves, others or the Divine, bibliodans becomes spiritual reading or lectio divina. From the perspective of spiritual education she offers participants exercises in playful ascetism, contemplation in action and in cathaphatic meditation with apophatic traits. As a mystagogue she helps participants to find their way in the tension between a holistic 'physical longing for the divine' (Korte) and biblical spirituality. She stimulates autonomy-in-relation to the tradition and the Divine (Sointu and Woodhead). In the theological reflection the story of the Annunciation and the concepts of grace and perichoresis shed light on the results of my research. Conversely, I show how they bring to light the bodily aspects that remain hidden in the traditional exegesis of the Annunciation and perichoresis. In bibliodans the facilitator invites the participants to experience themselves as physical-self-in-relation-to-God-who-can-be-experienced-in-physical-way. In the dance gendered images of dancer and Divine can be cataphatically embodied and apophatically put into perspective (Keller)