Dance
by Rosalie Bent Branigan, certified director of music in The United Methodist Church, specializing in dance and the worship arts. As a freelance clinician she has taught and choreographed liturgical dances for the past 30 years, and has directed dance choirs in California, Louisiana and New Mexico. She lives in Port Townsend, WA. Rosalie is the Worship Areas Coordinator of The Fellowship.
Hymn of Promise
Choreography: Rosalie Branigan, 1992 Words and music: Natalie Sleeth, 1986
The United Methodist Hymnal no. 707
I
use the hymnal version rather than the anthem since the bridges between the verses, included in the anthem, stop the momentum of the piece when it is danced.
This piece was originally a solo, choreo- graphed for what is now known as The Fellowship’s Music and Worship Arts Week at Lake Junaluska, NC, when I was asked to dance “the Angel of Death as a lullaby.” The text of this hymn, to me, is the definitive statement of our faith and belief in a life after death and the music has the lilt of a lullaby. The piece was danced behind a low table covered with an Appalachian quilt with black squares. When an Appalachian woman felt that she was making her last quilt she included the black material she had saved for this quilt. The woman died
SOLO VERSION (changes for group piece follow)
Introduction may be as much or as little of a verse as is needed for the dancer to enter and move to downstage left, facing left diagonal.
VERSE 1 In the bulb there is a flower;
Dancer stands in 3rd position with the left foot in front. On the word “bud,” she does a plié on the right foot and a coupé with the left. Arms are crossed at the wrist, in front of her body, and, with head down, she is “folded up” as low as possible. Fig.1. On “flower” she does a developpé to 2nd, extend-
fig. 2 fig. 1
ing the leg as high as possible. As the leg extends the arms open to above the head as if the “bud” is becoming a flower. Fig. 2.
WORSHIP ARTS • JANUARY-FEBRUARY 2010
fig. 4 fig. 3
within a month of its completion.
The following fall the choreography was redone as a group piece and was danced at All Saints. It has been used at an annual conference retirement service, on Memorial Day, and on Easter Sunday. I have included both versions of the choreography here. I only wish that I had gotten to meet Natalie Sleeth and thank her for the wonderful gift of this hymn.
My group has made a costume “cover” that we call our “cocoons.” It is like a chasuble or large poncho made of fairly sheer fabric and becomes the “bud,” “cocoon,” and “butterfly wings,” and covers the face on “unrevealed,” etc.
in the seed an apple tree;
The dancer repeats the plié/coupé on “seed” with arms and head folded in as before. On “apple tree” she does an attitude to the back with her left leg. Her
arms come up in an asymmetrical position with an angular shape. Fig. 3
in cocoons a hidden promise:
The dancer, again, repeats the plié/coupé on “cocoon,” but this time the left foot crosses over into a turn or spin. With the arms staying crossed at the wrist and slowly rising until they are over
head, the dancer spirals until she is upright.
Fig. 4
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Resources
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