The Diocese of Mallorca presented this week as an artistic proposal «specifically conceived for the liturgical context» a contemporary dance intervention held on August 15, the Solemnity of the Assumption of the Virgin, at the Church of San Juan Bautista in Muro, Mallorca (Balearic Islands).
The performance, titled El Vol Màgic, was not a show held in the church apart from the services. Both the official program and the information subsequently disseminated by the diocese explicitly place it within the celebration: the Diocese of Mallorca states that it was conceived for the «liturgical context of the celebration of the Assumption of the Virgin,» while the Consell de Mallorca announced it as an intervention «integrated into the liturgy.»
«Sound, body, space and ritual»
El Vol Màgic was directed by musician and anthropologist Txema González and was developed together with dancer and choreographer Mar Aguiló, with the participation of organist Rafel Riera.
According to the Diocese, the project was born from research on one of the rituals of Mallorcan cultural heritage and aimed to explore the relationships between «sound, body, space and ritual.» During the intervention, the diocese adds, dance, live sound composition and the organ «dialogued with the architecture of the church and with the liturgical celebration.»
The project also involved Sebastià Riutort, archivist of Muro, responsible for historical documentation, and Carlos Anguera, responsible for sound spatialization and technical support. The ACA Foundation and the City Council of Muro also collaborated.
The diocese itself specifies that the proposal had the support of Pere Gerard Bestard Muntaner, parish priest of San Juan Bautista de Muro.
An intervention scheduled for the liturgy of the Assumption
Nor was it an improvised initiative during the celebration. The performance was scheduled in advance for 8:00 p.m. on August 15 as part of the activities organized for the Solemnity of the Assumption.
The Consell de Mallorca’s program already described it at the time as «an intervention of contemporary dance and sound art integrated into the liturgy of the feast of the Assumption.»
Dance in the liturgy
The Holy See specifically addressed the introduction of dance into Western liturgy half a century ago. In a text published in Notitiae in 1975, the then Congregation for Divine Worship distinguished between those cultures in which dance retains a properly religious character and the Western tradition, where its incorporation into liturgical celebration introduces an element foreign to the nature that dance culturally has.
The general principle, in any case, is set out in number 22 of the constitution Sacrosanctum Concilium: «No one, not even a priest, may add, remove, or change anything on his own initiative in the liturgy.»
The instruction Redemptionis Sacramentum, published in 2004 by the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, again recalled that the celebration of the Eucharist is not at the disposal of the particular creativity of priests or the faithful.