Tommy Faulconer: Blog 4

When looking into van der Leeuw's text on dance and art, the pantomime dance really stands out as a spiritual experience. In putting on the mask of God's creation, it is releasing the dancer from any ties to their mortality. In the freedom of taking on that other form, the dancer can truly connect with the world created by the divine. When we remove ourselves from our humanity to celebrate the creation, we should be freeing ourselves of baggage and insecurity so that we can truly move our divine bodies and connect with the "holy of holies" through our most perfect instrument. We must remove ourselves from the mortal coils to lift our spirits up to a place where we are communing with the divine and its will is working through our bodies without restraint. By removing ourselves from the dance and placing on the facade of another creature or god, we are able to really move to the rhythm of the spirit and create another world in which to inhabit with the "other."