The spirit moves
Christian trance dance in late medieval Losev and early nineteenth-century America
pp. 135-151
in: Karen Bond (ed), Dance and the quality of life, Berlin, Springer, 2019Abstract
Although Christianity has no official tradition of sacred dance, trance dance has been a powerful part of religious practice for certain Christians. Close examination of primary source documents from two periods of religious change and revival – thirteenth and fourteenth-centuries Europe and early nineteenth-century America – reveals that Christians used trance dance to experience and share their faith and to gain spiritual authority. Trance dancers were often outside the traditional structures of power: women and itinerant foreigners in medieval Europe, and women and African-Americans in antebellum America. This research addresses the meanings trance dances had for performers and observers and suggests that trancing increased participants' senses of joy, empowerment, and community – aspects of the quality of life that modern Americans still seek through trancing in contexts as widely varied as rave culture and Pentecostal worship.