Go Forth in Dance

Since high school, I’ve been a fan of folk dancing, often known as contra dancing or English country dancing. These are usually group dances where multiple sets of couples interact with each other, sometimes even trading partners. At times, as in the “Gay Gordons” dance, there is a shuffling move that means that every man will dance with every woman at some point in the dance.

I have always found that these, together with other more traditional ballroom dancing such as waltzing, constitute a normal and good part of the “village experience”: that plexus of cultural and artistic communal activities which make up the rich inheritance we receive as heirs of Western Christendom. From religious processions to communal feasts, from strongman competitions to crowning our Lady in May, all of these activities arise from a glorious Christian humanism with roots that reach deeply into the Christian Middle Ages. Dancing is one of these beautiful expressions of our nature as social and rational animals.

Of late, however, I’ve noticed quite a lot of animosity toward dancing coming from “traditionalist” Catholic communities. These tend to be supported by quotations from various saints—especially St. John Vianney—as well as various Fathers of the Church. They come to the conclusion that any and all dancing is evil, even sinful. Provided we are talking about graceful dances conducted among morally upright people, nothing could be further from the truth. Making such a claim reveals an imagination that is deeply out of touch with our Christian culture.

It is firstly, therefore, a matter of context. When St. John Chrysostom condemned dancing, he was speaking of lascivious and frenzied pagan dancing, often connected to various pagan cults. It is similar to St. Paul warning early Christians not to eat meat sacrificed to idols: because they once believed in the false gods, an act that was once homage might trouble their conscience or scandalize a neighbor even if they knew it was technically moral. Much of today’s rock and rap dancing is thoroughly pagan as well, as the godless promoters of it show by their lifestyles; such grossly sexualized music and accompanying dance as that performed by Taylor Swift has no place in the life of Catholics.

But Taylor Swift never was and never will be (God help us) the normal Christian village experience. Think of these passages from the Bible:

• “A time to weep, and a time to laugh. A time to mourn, and a time to dance.” (Ecclesiastes 3:4)
• “I will build thee again, and thou shalt be built, O virgin of Israel: thou shalt again be adorned with thy timbrels, and shalt go forth in the dances of them that make merry…. Then shall the virgin rejoice in the dance, the young men and old men together.” (Jeremiah 31:4, 13)
• “Now his elder son was in the field, and when he came and drew nigh to the house, he heard music and dancing.” (Luke 15:25) 

In the passage from Jeremiah, dancing is shown as Israel’s appropriate response to God’s mercy, so it is hard to issue a blanket condemnation of dancing. And in the parable of the Prodigal Son, the father of the house and the celebration—including the dancing—are meant to represent the superabundant love of God the Father for sinful mankind. Christ chose to represent His Father’s mercy as welcoming sinners to a feast replete with dancing.  In the passage from Jeremiah, dancing is shown as Israel’s appropriate response to God’s mercy, so it is hard to issue a blanket condemnation of dancing. Tweet This

Far from being an occasion for lust, traditional dancing—from the Virginia Reel to the Viennese Waltz—can be an opportunity for forming good habits of interaction between men and women, forming friendships, and even becoming a context for courtship.

What exactly, then, is the primary objection against dancing? It seems that it often stems from a lack of recognition that just because anyone can make a good or neutral action into an occasion of sin means both that they will and that that good or neutral action should therefore be forbidden to all!

Sharon Kabel’s “Catholic fact check: Did the Vatican condemn dancing?” quotes a pamphlet from a Latin Mass parish which sums up the rad-trad take on dancing as sinful. The text reveals a significant case of psychological inflexibility and a view of the Church’s moral teaching unnecessarily colored and caricatured by a moralistic OCD compulsion. At its center, it has four main points that are worth addressing.

(1) “The moral problem is unmarried young men and women dancing together in bodily contact.” This implies that unmarried men and women should never touch each other. I’d like to see someone argue that. But if they did, how could courtship ever include hand-holding, hugging, and kissing of any sort—on the hand, cheek, or lips? (I’d be prepared to argue that it is permissible for engaged couples to kiss on the lips; but that is another topic). It’s helpful to look at the question of physical affection between unmarried people as treated in Prümmer’s Handbook of Moral Theology. First published in 1921 and reprinted more recently, this is an international classic in moral theology. Look at his clear and reasonable take on physical affection between those contemplating marriage (no. 517, p. 220):

SCHOLIUM. FAMILIARITY BETWEEN PERSONS OF DIFFERENT SEX. Such behavior is common between persons contemplating marriage and is frequently the source of sexual pleasure. The confessor should keep the following general rules before him.

1. If sexual pleasure is intended, such behavior is grievously sinful and therefore to be forbidden. This is clear from what has been said already.

2. If venereal pleasure is not merely not intended but also strenuously avoided, mutual signs of affection are permissible, such as kissing, embracing, words of affection, and so on.

3. If this familiar behavior is occasionally but not always a proximate occasion of sin, it should not be forbidden immediately under pain of denying absolution, but the confessor should first inquire whether such acts are morally necessary…In these circumstances the confessor should warn the penitent to refrain from anything which is the proximate cause of lust and to take the necessary precautions. If such behavior which gives rise to occasional sin is neither necessary nor really useful, the confessor should strictly forbid it.

First of all, the sort of familiarity Prümmer describes clearly extends to traditional dancing. And it is also true that, generally, all young men and women are “persons contemplating marriage.” 

Young men: If you are not dating or courting, you won’t want to kiss or embrace your partner, but in order to eventually get a partner, you need to talk to young ladies! You have to learn how to be comfortable, courteous, and charming! How to socialize without awkwardness and be a true gentleman—a man who is gentle, and that means both attractive in a masculine way (able to dress up and comb your hair), able to give marks of courtesy with restraint (opening doors, etc.), and full of a gentle social strength that makes women comfortable and happy to be around you. If you give the impression of either lusting after them or having a panic attack from saying “hello,” good luck finding a wife—or even a friend.

It seems to me that the sort of dancing we are speaking of is, in fact, a special case of controlled touch that makes young men and women better able to relate with grace toward each other. The structure involves several helpful aspects:

• Most dances last 2-5 minutes: there is a definite and short amount of time you are close to your partner, and so time is an important factor in the healthy structure.
• Choreography is another one. One is not just randomly touching one’s partner: specific moves require attention and coordination, and they are impossible to execute if one is trying to cuddle.
• Group setting is another structured aspect: one is not alone behind the barn, and in line dances one often switches partners. This puts you in a setting where you will naturally want to behave—not just to impress your partner but to impress everyone, both men and women, with your decorous skill.

(2) “Married couples dancing with their own spouses is not a moral issue.” This seems to suggest that married couples could dance as lasciviously as they liked, which strikes me as odd. Obviously, there are plenty of ways of being affectionate that are permissible and good between married couples that decency and propriety forbid on the dance floor. If married couples started dancing like they were in the privacy of their bedroom, nobody would feel comfortable even if they could consult their little moral notebook and check the box that says “no moral issue.” Actually, there would be a moral issue because such behavior would be totally out of place, and that, in and of itself, is a bad example and possible scandal. So, this whole distinction seems artificial and forced.

(3) “When there is also a physical image before the eyes, sin is even more likely. And when one can touch and handle that physical image, sin is very likely.” This is true, but only in certain circumstances. Out of context and in this particular application, it is, at best, a pitiful half-truth. The author fails even to consider the fact that a young man tempted to lust in his imagination might find that interacting with a real woman outside of his imagination might actually help alleviate intrusive lustful thoughts by making the personhood of his opposite-sex interlocutor more real to him.

The state of mind represented here, in this woefully bad advice, is the exact opposite of the good advice young men are given when they are told that if they struggle with lustful attraction to their female peers, they need to “look them in the eyes.” The point, in other words, is to interact personally with female persons rather than objectifying them. I can think of no approach more objectifying than to say that one should not look at or lightly hold a girl’s hand in a dance…because then you might objectify her! The whole point of the social interaction is to not objectify—to treat the partner as what she truly is: a person to be looked at and occasionally touched (since you both exist in a physical world), not an object of fear to be avoided (or worse, merely used when use becomes permissible; note the subterranean connection with point 2 above).

If this rad-trad objection were correct, a man should never even look at a woman—nor hold her hand, give her a hug, lend her his arm, help her put on a coat, or prevent her from falling off a cliff by throwing his arm around her waist. On this logic, men and women should not only sit on opposite sides of the church, they might even be advised to go to segregated services. If you want to know where this train of thought leads, look to Islam: the burka. This is not the normal village experience in Christendom. The “normal village experience”—which is what I’m striving for in my corner of the world—looks a lot more like Pieter Brueghel’s “Village Dance,” the artwork for this article. 

(4) “…sin is very likely. This is what happens in dancing.” Anyone who has tried to dance a traditional dance will simply know that there is so much going on that this is not at all an accurate representation of the dancer’s state of mind. It is a gross oversimplification, done with a moral arithmetic untethered from reality. When I’m dancing, I’m usually thinking so much about getting the steps right and keeping to the music that I don’t have much time to think of anything else! And a structured dance requiring some technical skill—such as the Virginia Reel, or even waltzing properly—requires a lot of attention. In reality, traditional dancing, even waltzing, is more like physical exercise than it is like intimate affection.

I often wonder if the people who oppose dancing have ever actually danced!

I should point out that there are several types of waltzing. In traditional waltzing, one finds that the “frame” of the couple has to be rather stiff. At least in certain styles of waltzing, you cannot “close” your frame by bringing your shoulders together, putting your arm around her waist and cuddling up to your partner. Look at this video. For the gentleman to lead, he needs to be rather stiff, holding the woman a foot or so away from him. No need to do every dip or close move; this is the tippity-top of high-end waltzing. I would be proud of the culture of any parish possessed of young adults capable of dancing like this.

Here’s a scene from the famous BBC adaptation of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, showing how one of the many dances of that period was done. This sort of thing isn’t hard to learn today, nor could there be any possible objection to it (prescinding from the withering dialogue).

Finally, let’s get a good glimpse of the Virginia Reel. I can think of few things that would better socially acculturate our awkward, lonely, and depressed teenagers. This is a normal village experience…not being told dancing is evil. 

Thanks be to God that many traditional lay Catholics have the common sense, life experience, social awareness, and cultural literacy to be able to see that something is deeply wrong with arguments against such regulated social dancing and that, on the contrary, it is a healthy recreation with many virtues and benefits, the presence of which needs to grow considerably in our communities.