Chapter Two: The Priestess Danced

The image of the Goddess is an important symbol for women as we seek out our sacred dance heritage. Knowing about the priestess and understanding her unique role, however, is essential because the priestess is a real, historical woman—a woman we can identify with. Through the priestess and her sacred dances, we learn that women were once central to religious and spiritual practices and that women had their own rites—their own symbols and liturgies—separate from those of men.

Also: The Story of the Maenads; Amazons: Dancing Priestesses; Was Mary a Dancing Priestess? The Twenty-One Praises of Tara

Chapter 3: Dancing through Theology

One of my main objectives in researching the history of women’s dance was to determine what happened to women’s religion and to women in religious expression. I found that much of women’s ways and women’s power had already been eroded—in different ways and at different times in various places throughout the East and Middle East—by the time of the advent of the Christian era. Still, I wanted to know what happened to the Grandmother as she tried to be a part of the evolving ideas about the sacred and the holy, and to her danced expression of the holy in religions like Judaism and Christianity. This exploration was particularly complicated because the ambivalence developed by religions toward dance has obscured its history, and women, with few exceptions, were not allowed leadership roles or allowed to express the feminine aspect of religion.

Also: The Israelites Were a Dancing People; Did Israelite Women Dance? Shekinah—The Spirit of Divine Dance; Miriam’s Dance of Freedom; The Decline of Dance; Reclaiming the Sacred Dimension: We Are Dancing in the Churches Today

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