Producing Christian docility: The female body in contemporary American evangelical dance

Abstract

Abstract Contemporary American evangelical dance, both in novice and professional iterations, is a burgeoning subculture, that in its pursuit of excellence in honour of God, deploys many of the dominant discourses of power utilized by western concert dance, such as ideal body type in terms of size, race and gender. In addition to these discourses, contemporary Christian dance establishes additional discourses of power designed to promote an evangelical Christian message through such elements as movement vocabulary, costume and musical accompaniment. Dance studies scholars have utilized Foucault’s notion of ‘docile bodies’ as a technology of power to investigate the practices of ballet pedagogy and performance in western concert dance in general. However, no scholars to date have looked at the particular ways in which these practices are implemented by the subculture of American evangelical dance. This article examines the practices of two contemporary, professional, Christian dance companies in terms of movement vocabulary and costume choices to uncover the complex ways in which these companies cultivate discourses of power that contribute to a particular kind of docile body, the docile body that is controlled, disciplined and de-eroticized for Christian worship. I argue that uncovering the ways in which these practices contribute to docility in Christian dance leads scholars to a greater understanding of the dynamics between religious beliefs and the body in contemporary society.