Amanda- The Art of Dance

Sacred and profane beauty goes into great detail about the imperialistic nature of religious art, and the overpowering presence of the religious standpoint over all other life views held by science, art and ethics. I thought Van Der Leew’s definition of the word ‘beautiful’ was very interesting, focusing more on the personal reaction to a particular object or experience, rather than the thing itself. His definition of culture works off of this and is then defined as ‘the movement of man through nature.’ I found the introduction laid out by Van Der Leeuw to be very insightful and vitally important to understanding the direction of his writing in the following chapters.
I have a hard time entertaining the idea that art can be separated from some form of religion or spirituality, but have had trouble personally articulating this crucial connection. This is why I was very interested to see how this distinction between holy and profane art was going to be made in the course, specifically dealing with the first topic laid out in the text, dance. Dance is probably one of the last forms that come to mind when I think of the word ‘art,’ and is probably the one I relate to the least. Although I do understand that there is a stark difference between the current popularity of people grinding on each other in a club and ancient tribal fertility dances, I was a bit skeptical that this distinction could be clearly defined in words based around the idea of the holy.
At the beginning of his text, I found Van Der Leew’s claims about dance to be a bit outlandish and although his examples supported his writing, it didn’t mean I was going to agree with him. In particular, his use of the quotation from The Would-be Gentleman made me wonder what planet this man was living on: “all human unhappiness, all blows of fortune which history reports to us, all mistakes of politics, all defeats of the great commanders result solely from the fact that the dance is not understood”(p. 20). Not only did he start his text about religious art with the topic of dance, he was now claiming that everything negative that occurs is due to an inability to understand dance? But as I read more, the use of this quotation became quite apparent.
The first piece of background information provided that pushed me closer to understanding this ‘unity of dance and religion,’ was the idea of dance not only being a form of prayer, and worship, but also as a form of work. The example of Indians in Mexico who have one word for dancing and working, and who give an individual the specific job of dancing all day was a whole new concept for me. This is certainly very far from the current view of dance, and this separation between dance as an expression of the holy, as an intense, necessary experience of worshiping and losing oneself in sacred communication, rather than recreation or entertainment, became clearer to me.
As I continued reading, and we talked about sacred art in class, I realized why I had such a hard time with the beginning of the text, and the overall distinction between sacred and profane. My schema for language is very dependent on my own culture and experience, and in this case my understanding of the word ‘dance’ is very far from what Van Der Leew was trying to express. My inability to initially understand is a perfect example of this ‘break-up of unity’ talked about in the text. The ‘rhythm of life’ which allows for the unification of the mind, body and soul is dependent on dance. Dance is the requirement for us to be in many domains in once, not to compartmentalize our lives into academics, business, religion, and recreation. This is what is meant by the quote above, that the fluidity of life must continue in order for anything to become a success. I think that Van Der Leew’s biggest points is, once religion is set aside and made it’s own aspect of a person’s life, rather than an all-encompassing factor of being, they have lost touch with the ‘unity of life’ which can only be unified by coming to know the power and intoxication of the dance. When this information clicked in my mind, I suddenly got the image of David dancing before the Lord with all his might, and suddenly this all made sense. "When dance is genuine, one can no longer speak of an action which one performs, but of a dance which sweeps one away." (p. 29)