Move When The Spirit Says Move
Move When The Spirit Says Move
Move When The Spirit Says Move
Says Move:
Contemplative Dance, Witness,
and Embodied Testimony
by Christopher-Rasheem McMillan
Christopher-Rasheem McMillan in Rapture Dance for the Camera Series, University of Iowa, I am not a fan of hippy-dippy dance (i.e.,
Iowa City, Iowa, March 20, 2017. photo © Tony Orrico
Authentic Movement). I don’t want to feel my body,
scapula, or pelvis on the floor, but as I sit here on
the dance floor in a studio, I am aware of how still
my body is and how busy my mind is. I am also
painfully mindful of the fact that I am the only
black man at this workshop on Authentic Move-
ment. How my Christian upbringing and scholar-
ship colors this experience. How I keep saying the
Lord’s Prayer to try and silence my mind, which
wants to do everything, be anywhere but here. I am
reminded of how terrified I am of my own body and
what I may bear witness to.
—Excerpt of writing from my
movement journal, 6/10/2014
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We have to call the sources (where we draw informa- emerge. As we make more space for the “other” in our
tion from) and the authority (who gets to decide the value practicing and witnessing, applications of the practice
of such sources) into question. Which bodies get to frame diversify. Thus for me, Authentic Movement becomes a
what somatic knowledge is? What this means for me is way of interrogating my Judeo-Christian tradition—also
that my bodily location (histories, oppressions, and privi- an embodied practice, as Christianity (and most faith
leges) affects my AM practice. Even as I am witnessing and practices) consists of embodied, ritualized, and lived
being witnessed, it’s in my racialized and gendered body. experiences. I see this application most clearly through
As cultural theorist Tara Yosso argues, communities of the use of the term “witness.”
colour have other kinds of cultural wealth, which may go
unnoticed as possible sources of information from which Witness and Testimony
to draw (2005). The phrase “to bear witness to” or “to witness” conjures
The majority of the practitioners in the AM work- up my own history of growing up in the South as a child
shops I have attended have been women. They are experi- of a minister. The word “witness” for me represents a spe-
encing and giving an account of their lives in the practice cial time in the Sunday service, a time at which a member
based on their social location and bodily becoming, would stand up and tell the whole congregation the good
something that I, as a male-bodied person, cannot fully that God had done in their life. This telling served two
sense or know. According to feminist standpoint theory, purposes: the first was to encourage people who may also
women’s narratives hold a different knowledge and view- have been struggling by saying if God made a way for me,
point than do men’s, especially concerning gender subor- even me, She will also make a way for you; and the second
dination. As a result, it is important to include first-person was to provide “proof” of God’s involvement in one’s life.
female-based narratives in theoretical analyses and in This witnessing moves through a cycle of observation,
accounts of movement practice. reflection, and dissemination. The practice of seeing God
So, how do we as practitioners go about making clearly comes from the practice of looking for God. One
more room for other voices to be heard in our AM and observes how God interacts in one’s life and often on
other somatic practices? Let’s not just assume that one’s behalf, reflects on that experience in the context of
white, heterosexual, normative bodies are the bodies previous evidence, and then communicates that account.
from which knowledge concerning these practice should
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this 30-minute torture and an account of Jacob wrestling “I will not let you go unless you bless me.” The
with an angel. This account is recorded in Genesis 32:22– man asked him, “What is your name?” “Jacob,”
32 and excerpted here: he answered. Then the man said, “Your name
will no longer be Jacob, but Israel, because you
That night Jacob got up and took his two wives, have struggled with God and with humans
his two female servants, and his eleven sons and and have overcome.” Jacob said, “Please tell me
crossed the ford of the Jabbok. After he had sent your name.” But he replied, “Why do you ask
them across the stream, he sent over all his pos- my name?” Then he blessed him there. So Jacob
sessions. So Jacob was left alone, and a man wres- called the place Peniel, saying, “It is because I
tled with him till daybreak. When the man saw saw God face to face, and yet my life was spared.
that he could not overpower him, he touched the The sun rose above him as he passed Peniel, and
socket of Jacob’s hip so that his hip was wrenched he was limping because of his hip. (Holy Bible,
as he wrestled with the man. Then the man said, New International Version)
“Let me go, for it is daybreak.” But Jacob replied,
While reflecting on the AM session, I saw various
parallels with the Jacob narrative. This story has been
interpreted in many ways. Some say that Jacob was
Christopher-Rasheem McMillan in Rapture Dance for the Camera Series,
wrestling with God, with himself, or with an angel.
University of Iowa, Iowa City, Iowa, March 20, 2017.
However, my experience of AM seemed to have several
parallels with this piece of scripture. In the first instance,
like Jacob, I was alone with my own voice and my own
thoughts, and after my aloneness, my struggle began. It
is not enough to say that through the tears I wanted and
needed other stimuli to save me from myself. This struggle
yielded its own discomfort. During his struggle, Jacob was
renamed, and in fact, this blessing came from the struggle
and Jacob’s refusal to let go, or give up, during this process.
What AM does as a spiritual practice allows me to
consider my body as a site for biblical discourse. It was
James Nelson in Body Theology (1992) who articulated that
bodies are sites of revelation. He makes the argument that
body theology is not a theological description of the body,
nor is it a theology that is primarily concerned with the
proper uses of the body, but that this theology comes from
the concrete experience of the body, while recognising
that those experiences are tied to the meanings we attach
to our bodily life.
Jacob’s renaming is not simply “a divine speech act,”
but this change of name, this becoming, was instituted
through his psychical struggle; he “became” through
embodied action. It is here that “speech acts” and “bodily
becoming” merge. If acts have the power to name, then
through the process of experience, reflection, and testi-
mony we might begin to see how describing our embodied
experience, or testifying, is a form of proof. For me, this
proof is the deep spiritual possibility/utility of the somatic
photo © Tony Orrico
u Lowell, Daphne. 2007. In Authentic Movement (vol. 2), Moving the Body,
Moving the Self, Being Moved: A Collection of Essays, edited by Patrizia
To contact the author: Pallaro, 50–55. London and Philadelphia: Jessica Kingsley.
Christopher-Rasheem McMillan,
[email protected]; Yosso, Tara. 2005. “Whose Culture Has Capital? A Critical Race Theory
strategicrebellions.com Discussion of Community Cultural Wealth.” Race Ethnicity and Educa-
tion 8 (March): 69–91.
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