About

The role of the religious and spiritual in western dance practices has been undertheorized in dance scholarship. This project traces this insufficiency to a blind spot in dance history and philosophy: the renaissance of esotericism and occultism shaping the historical moment when modern dance emerged at the turn of the twentieth century. The aim of this research is to illustrate the simultaneous development of new conceptions in dance (modern dance) with alternatives in religion (esotericism/occultism), towards articulating a philosophy of dance as embodied religious experience. The hypothesis is that in contrast to mainstream religion, esoteric/occult spiritualities supported the view that the body could experience the religious, and thus were influential in the emergence of early modern dance. Unearthing this history and fundamentally engaging with these spiritualities will illuminate a new philosophical understanding of dance as embodying the religious – a conception which defines a crucial moment in early dance history with lasting influence.

The project turns to American and German early modern dancers Ruth St. Denis (1879-1968) and Mary Wigman (1886-1973) as case studies. Both dancers encountered or practiced a variety of esoteric religions, while through their dances and writings advocated for dance as religious experience in its own right, thus providing the grounds to draw connections.

This is a multi-faceted, interdisciplinary project with a three-pronged approach: (1) Close readings of key texts in esoteric/occult practices (which St. Denis and Wigman themselves read). (2) Archival research on their contemporaneous dances and written works. (3) Placing the above in dialogue with compatible current scholarship in philosophy of religion to support a philosophy of dance as religious embodiment.

By working across disciplines and perspectives, the project provides dance philosophers and historians, and philosophers of religion, with an augmented vocabulary for historicizing and theorizing the fluid relationship between dance, embodiment, and religious experience.