Born to Dance
Born in Roanoke, VA, Lindsey spent her earliest years in Blacksburg where her father taught English at Virginia Tech. After her parents divorced, she moved to Connecticut with her mother and new stepfather.
She started dancing when she was three. “I was one of those classic little kids with the pink tutu,” she laughed. Her dancing lessons eventually included all types of dance-ballet, tap, jazz, and at age 12, modern dance. In her junior year of high school, she transferred to a private school in Wellesley, MA. By then she was choreographing for school shows. Dancing was rapidly becoming her life.
Discovering Sacred Dance
“I got into liturgical dance when a woman named Ann Smith in Chapel Hill, NC introduced me to it in 1969,” she said. At the time, Lindsey’s husband, Dick, was on the faculty of the University of North Carolina, teaching modern Italian history.
Ann Smith was teaching a modern dance class in which Lindsey was enrolled. She invited Lindsey to dance with her for the Palm Sunday service at the Episcopal Church. “I was shocked,” Lindsey said. She questioned Ann: “Peopledance in worship services? Why? How?”
Looking back, she says she isn’t sure why she had never been exposed to this form of worship but wonders if it had to do with growing up in New England. I asked if her unawareness of sacred dance might have stemmed from religious conservatism or Puritan influence. She replied that she had grown up Congregationalist. “Congregationalists aren’t conservative, but they are into their heads and less comfortable with their bodies,” she said, laughing. Lindsey remembered Ann Smith’s simple statement: “We’re going to dance the 150th Psalm.” The enthusiasm and joy of discovery were still evident in Lindsey’s voice nearly three decades later as she exclaimed, “The 150th Psalm is thiswonderful Psalm that talks about praising God with timbrel and dance!”
For More Research Info.
http://www.eewc.com/Articles/praise-gods-festive-dance/
No comments:
Post a Comment