A first look at the teaser trailer for a new series exploring the joy and meaning of folk and social dance.
Over the past few years, I’ve noticed a growing hunger in our churches and schools for more shared, embodied activities that bring people together across ages and strengthen our sense of community. One of those activities, of course, is dancing.
Not the dance of a club or stage performance, but the kind of joyful, communal folk and social dancing that our grandparents would have recognized and loved. Reels, circles, contra dances, and waltzes are simple patterns that let men and women, boys and girls, move together to music in wholesome and celebratory ways.
This short clip is from an upcoming project we are calling The Good Life, produced by my friend and Roman Roads Press. It is a series of short video lectures (and possibly printed materials) that explore the principles behind folk and social dance, why it matters, and how to revive it thoughtfully in our communities.
We talk about ideas like:
Painting the music: letting the dance picture the music, rather than using the music as mere background noise.
Honoring creation order: recognizing that God made us male and female, and that dancing together can reflect that truth in a wholesome and joyful way.
Rehearsing the Good Life: learning to eat, sing, and dance together as a kind of rehearsal for The Good Life to come in all its glory and splendor on the other side of the resurrection.
As my friend and I have often said, “The good life is eating, singing, and dancing together, and we get to taste it every Lord’s Day in miniature.” On a larger scale, The Good Life is about recovering the joy of dancing, singing, and feasting as part of the Christian vision of life together. The project will likely include future content on feasting and singing, but this is a sneak peek into the folk dancing portion of that larger picture.
More details will be coming soon from Roman Roads Press. Stay tuned.
