Research Catalog
Ringleaders of redemption : how medieval dance became sacred
- Title
- Ringleaders of redemption : how medieval dance became sacred / Kathryn Dickason.
- Author
- Dickason, Kathryn
- Publication
- New York, NY : Oxford University Press, [2021]
- ©2021
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| Status | Format | Access | Call Number | Item Location |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Available - Can be used on site. Please visit New York Public Library - Performing Arts Research Collections to submit a request in person. | Text | Use in library | *MGRI 21-1536 | Performing Arts Research Collections - Dance |
Details
- Description
- xv, 369 pages : color illustrations, color facsimiles; 24 cm.
- Summary
- "In popular thought, Christianity is often figured as being opposed to dance. Conventional scholarship traces this controversy back to the Middle Ages. Throughout the medieval era, the Latin Church denounced and prohibited dancing in religious and secular realms, often aligning it with demonic intervention, lust, pride, and sacrilege. Historical sources, however, suggest that medieval dance was a complex and ambivalent phenomenon. During the High and Late Middle Ages, Western theologians, liturgists, and mystics not only tolerated dance; they transformed it into a dynamic component of religious thought and practice. This book investigates how dance became a legitimate form of devotion in Christian culture. Sacred dance functioned to gloss scripture, frame spiritual experience, and imagine the afterlife. Invoking numerous manuscript and visual sources (biblical commentaries, sermons, saints' lives, ecclesiastical statutes, mystical treatises, vernacular literature, and iconography), this book highlights how medieval dance helped shape religious identity and social stratification. Moreover, this book shows the political dimension of dance, which worked in the service of Christendom, conversion, and social cohesion. In Ringleaders of Redemption, Kathryn Dickason reveals a long tradition of sacred dance in Christianity, one that the professionalization and secularization of Renaissance dance obscured, and one that the Reformation silenced and suppressed."--Publisher's website.
- Series Statement
- Oxford Studies in Historical Theology
- Uniform Title
- Oxford studies in historical theology.
- Alternative Title
- How medieval dance became sacred
- Subject
- Genre/Form
- History.
- Bibliography (note)
- Includes bibliographical references (pages [237]-364) and index.
- Contents
- Part I: Gracing the Idols. 1. Dance Typologies: The Medieval Bible ; 2. Ghost Dancers: The Saints ; 3. Dance of the Hours: The Liturgy -- Part II: Grace before its Master. 4. Discipline and Redemption: Dances of Penitence ; 5. Partnering Divinity: Mystical Dancers ; 6. Romancing the Dance ; 7. Decadence and Death -- Epilogue: Mastering Grace.
- Call Number
- *MGRI 21-1536
- ISBN
- 0197527272
- 9780197527276
- OCLC
- 1204134530
- Author
- Dickason, Kathryn, author.
- Title
- Ringleaders of redemption : how medieval dance became sacred / Kathryn Dickason.
- Publisher
- New York, NY : Oxford University Press, [2021]
- Copyright Date
- ©2021
- Type of Content
- text
- Type of Medium
- unmediated
- Type of Carrier
- volume
- Series
- Oxford Studies in Historical TheologyOxford studies in historical theology.
- Bibliography
- Includes bibliographical references (pages [237]-364) and index.
- Chronological Term
- To 1500
- Research Call Number
- *MGRI 21-1536