Talk:Ceremonial dance

Portal:Dance
Please ahve a look at Portal:Dance --Roland2 09:46, 3 December 2005 (UTC)

Ceremonial Dance as a subset of Sacred Dance
The Lakeshore Chapter of the Sacred Dance Guild developed the following definition of sacred dance: Sacred dance encompasses all movement that expresses or enhances spiritual experiences. It may be a part of a worship service, a group experience or a private spiritual practice. http://groups.yahoo.com/group/GodDance

I would put Sacred Dance as one of the main categories of dance and then put ceremonial and ritual dance under it. Also add the categories liturgical dance and praise dance. Body prayer is yet another form.

I offer the Sacred Dance Guild as a resource http://www.sacreddanceguild.org

MicheleMarie 15:37, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

Structure
We already have an article Sacred dance: it appears (e.g. Morris dance) that not all Ceremonial dances are sacred, though some kinds were or are. At the moment we also have Ecstatic dance, which intersects with Sacred dance but is not identical - not all sacred dances are ecstatic; some sacred dances are both ecstatic and ceremonial, e.g. the Sama whirling dance of the Sufis. It seems apparent that definition isn't easy but should be attempted. Clearly many of the traditions are ancient, so a History is also needed. I'd suggest, therefore, that we need something like the following sections:


 * Definition (nature, purpose, difference from Sacred, Ecstatic)
 * History (ancient, later, modern)
 * Description (geographic spread, types).

Whether a list like the current one is appropriate here may be judged when those are written; if that is done well, probably the main kinds will have been mentioned or described in one or another section, and the list will become redundant. Chiswick Chap (talk) 18:36, 4 April 2020 (UTC)