...Katrina Hazzard-Gordon Copyright © 1993 by Duke University Press 1993 Dancing to Rebalance the Universe: African American Secular Dance and Spirituality Katrina Hazzard-Gordon This article intends to briefly outline and discuss some of the spiritual and philosophical concerns demonstrated...

... Copyright © 1995 by Duke University Press 1995 Chapter 3 Dances, Blues, and Ballads I One may well consider the dance song to be synonymous with the Negro song in general. At one time or another the Negro has used all classes of his songs for dancing. This is very likely due to the fact...

... to the folk of the black community to celebrate and participate in their own transcendent oneness with cosmic origins. Finally, Hammer's hit rap is a praise song to the divine. In this respect, Hammer is a griot with shamanic skills, whose singing and dancing show black folk how they can not merely survive...

...."9 Testimonial sacrifice also benefits the larger unchurched community via the rejuvenated cultus effusing God's "breathing," the "anointing," therein. Those who engage in "representative oscillation" (infrequent in their church atten- dance but dependent on the attendance of a relative or friend...

... that as a creator of American folk-art the Negro stands unapproached. These folk contributions of the Negro may be grouped under four heads: religious songs, folk tales, dancing, and secular music. To these might be added Negro humor, for the humor of the Negro has not only permeated his folk tales, his dancing...

... those holding leadership positions-are required to live a "sanctified life." This means nonparticipation in such "worldly" activities as smoking, gambling, dancing, and drinking. The church also teaches that persons baptized with the Spiritthe experience that enables the holy life-will speak in unknown...

...." This does not mean to relish in food, drink, and merriment, but as the title of another song on the album suggests, to engage in "Dance Music Sex Romance." And in "Dance On" from his 1988 album, Lovesexy, he recounts the insanities of the worldgangs, war, the threat of nuclear armament, murder, and theft...

... and terminate the sale. The tobacco really sells itself. In the latter part of the last century and during the first decade of the present one, Negroes adopted the square dance of the white man (more in principle than in policy). As is well known, it is necessary to have someone call the figures. Right here...

.... These older people still reject the liturgical use of the drum and liturgical dancing as being pagan and outright evil. Ncozana argued against this: There is no aspect of everyday living which, in the final analysis, can be said to fall outside worship. Yet the worshipping church in Africa has totally...

... no choral dances. They also use instead of phalli another invention, consisting of images a cubit high, pulled by strings, which the women carry round to the villages. A piper goes in front, and the women follow, singing hymns in honor of Bacchus. They give a religious reason for the peculiarities...

... of the religion of art had not depicted a chosen sacrificial virgin who dances herself to death.11 Violent blood sacrifice to the powers of nature, to the earth, had supplanted spiritualized, idealist yearnings and ascents to empyrean heights. Musically, Stravinsky had captured something of "the mystery...

..., but rather always in process and constantly open to the possibility of communal re-creation.3 The spirit in which Ellington approached his music and his band was thus in line with that of the African-American religious tradition and with its antecedent African traditions wherein music, and also dance, were...

...-American speech, literature, music, and dance are essential parts of nommo. Nommo creates 1. See Roger D. Abrahams, Deep Down in the fungle: Negro Narrative Folklore from the Streets of Philadelphia (Chicago: Aldine, 1970); Thomas Kochman, "Rapping in the Black Ghetto," Transaction (February 1969): 26...

... of the big dance bands over NBC and CBS. This, I think, is a desecration and the greatest insult to our forefathers and mothers who were the originators of these beautiful spirituals not for an unholy use but to express and depict to a disinteresting world what was taking place inside of an aching...

... as follows : Call: "I will praise you my God" (2X). Response: "I will praise you" (2x). All: "l will praise you/I will give you respect/I will praise you/I will dance for you!' Worship Service S1 All Leader All Leader All As you come in our midst here at Grace Bandawe to plant in our hearts a mustard seed...

... as a means of seeking healing and reconciliation. Throughout the night song leaders, called waimbishaji, heat up the meeting and cause people to sing and dance in praise to a living and powerful God. In the dim glow of a pressure lamp preachers preach, people pray, and Christian witnesses give testimony...

... and dances on MTV) . It seems that the youth leaders heard me complaining about critics who are tone deaf to theological nuances in popular music and about Christians who seek to combat racism, sexism, and economic injustice but are unaware of the value of building alliances with certain aspects of secular...

.... Soon he was back in New York amidst the Great Depression, scrabbling seven nights a week, performing all over town in bars and dance halls, and no longer attending his mother's church on Sunday mornings. Like the early bluespeople before him, Monk found that the life of a jazzman was to be lived...

...Andrew M. Greeley Copyright © 1992 by Duke University Press 1992 1"e Catholic Imagination of Bruce Springsteen Andrew M. Greeley The imagination is religious. Religion is imaginative. The origins and the power of both are in the playful, creative, dancing self. Once influenced by Catholic...

...-such as dance, poetry, art, and music-as a primary objective in their formation, they remained doctrinally similar in content to their parent churches.3 In fact, by the end of World War I, many of these African churches had grown very conservative and elitist and had attracted an educated African membership...