ART OF MOVEMENT AND NON-VERBAL EXPRESSION IN THE

INTER-RELIGIOUS DIALOGUE

This paper is on the relationship between the Art of Movement and non-verbal expression in the inter-religious dialogue. Beyond verbal conversation, it considers dialogue a way of getting in relation with others through any conceivable means. Thus, we believe that through non-verbal exchanges in movement based workshops, one can develop abilities such as to look at, listen to, touch, and relate to another person; and all these are done physically, spatially, emotionally and spiritually, since one can forget all about reasoning and logical argumentation for a short time. To base this approach, we link the integrative power of movement and non-verbal communication to the thoughts of the theologian Lieve Troch, as well as to Maurice Béjart’s and Rudolf Laban’s ideas. The former was a French choreographer that created and directed one of the most important dance companies of the day, and the later was a Hungarian dancer, choreographer, and artist as well as a theorist of the human movement that died in the middle of last century.

Keywords: Ecumenism. Religions. Frontiers. Relationships. Performing arts.

Man is alone before the incomprehensible: anguish, fear, attraction, mystery. The words are useless. Why to call it names like God, Absolute, Nature, or Fortune? The necessary thing is to get in touch. What man seeks beyond comprehension is communication. Dance springs from this need of uttering the unutterable, of clearing the obscure, of being in relation with the other. Maurice Béjart (GARAUDY, 1973, p. 8)

1

Physical movement is the normal first effect of mental or emotional experience. John Martin (2007, p. 8) What Christ is saying always, what he never swerves from saying, what he says a thousand times and in a thousand different ways, but always with a central unity of belief, is this: “I am my father’s son, and you are my brothers.” And the unity that binds us all together, that makes this Earth a family, and all men brothers and so the sons of God, is love. Thomas Wolfe (THOMPSON, 1977)

1 O homem está só diante do incompreensível: angústia, medo, atração, mistério. As palavras de nada servem.

Para que dar a isso nomes como Deus, Absoluto, Natureza, Acaso? O que é preciso é entrar em contato. O que o

homem busca, para além da compreensão, é a comunicação. A dança nasce dessa necessidade de dizer o

indizível, de conhecer o desconhecido, de estar em relação com o outro.

Introduction

I believe the term inter-religious dialogue came about because the human kind

widely experienced its opposite, intolerance and violence, both justified by religions,

either Christian or not. Up to nowadays, fundamentalist religions hinder or even block

the dialogue between nations, between people from the same neighbourhood or

even between members of the same family.

Nevertheless, globalization brought us a plural religious situation that is not an option

anymore, but rather a daily reality. In Lieve Troch’s words “we must leap into

dialogue to truly live in this reality...” (PIERIS, 2008, p. 12), and we certainly agree

that a dialogue implies, at least, in the ability to listen to each other.

Thanks to my basic training in the Art of Movement and also due to a lifetime

fascination for the non-verbal expression, when I think over the above I remember

Maurice Bejárt’s excerpt quoted as an epigraph.

It came from the choreographer’s experience during a holiday trip to a Mediterranean

Island, when he had the chance to live the fishermen’s lives for some weeks. He

points out: when after the working day the men got together and started talking, they

ended up quarrelling; however, when instead of talking they danced, they celebrated

life without the need of words. At these moments, opposite to what happened in the

former situation when incomprehension and heated debate took over, the key notes

were harmony and union (GARAUDY, 1973).

This experience suggests the importance of movement to the harmony and union

among people; in addition, it also hints that motion may be even more effective to

those than the verbal word. I believe it happens because the interaction through

movement enables a dialogue based on feelings and emotions rather than on

rational arguments; therefore, such an exchange is easy and fluid without the

clashing of cognitive ideas.

In effect, this kind of exchange allows that persons from different religions drop their

guard by looking at and touching the others, as well as by developing a physical,

spatial, emotional, and spiritual relationship with them. After that, a verbal and

quieter dialogue may take place, since a form of interaction doesn’t replace the other

one: actually, the human beings share both of them.

Therefore, there’s nothing more natural than to follow the approach of ancient

civilizations. Since they gave the fair importance to non-verbal expression even in

their religion forms, they never detach the verbal and rational from the non-verbal

and inexpressible through words. (AMARAL, 2003; GUERRA, 2007).

The Art of Movement and some of its applications

This system of movement analysis was created by the Hungarian movement

researcher and artist Rudolph Laban (1879 - 1958), and was introduced in Brazil

during WWII by his fellow countrywoman Maria Duchennes, with whom I had the

privilege to study for five years. It allows the description, recording, and analysis of

the physical, spatial, and dynamic features of movement, so that through their

observation new possibilities of action can be suggested. This method has been

used to coach athletes and business managers, as well as to interpret politician’s

and religious leaders’ non-verbal communicative styles, and even to examine the

behavioural patters of animals such as dolphins, bears, and wolves.

In its version called The Art of Movement, this system can be applied to a number of

different situations. Below, we shall list some that are more meaningful to the aims of

this article.

The Art of Movement in therapy

The Art of Movement offers ways to organize one’s body, feelings, emotions, and

thoughts

by enabling the person to relate internal attitudes with external shapes of movement, by increasing their expressive vocabulary and by giving them the ability to transform their actions into emotional symbols through ordered patterns and rhythms (MIRANDA, 1980, p.

12).2

In other words

movement considered [...] — at least in our civilization — as a servant of man employed to achieve an extraneous practical purpose

2 levando o indivíduo a relacionar suas atitudes internas com suas formas externas de movimento, aumentando

seu vocabulário expressivo e dando-lhe capacidade para transformar suas ações em símbolos de emoção, através

de padrões e ritmos ordenados

was brought to light as an independent power creating states of mind frequently stronger than man’s will (LABAN, 1975, p., 6).

For Laban, action or movement lies behind EVERY human activity; then, it’s logical

for him to suppose that mind and body relate to each other through it. Therefore,

movement allows the expansion and change of mental patterns that will become or

that have already become frozen and rigid.

Words and action

Taking into account some Eastern and Western roots of theatre such as Noh theatre

and Commedia dell’arte, and also considering the contemporary theatre, we can see

that the actor craft is based on action rather than on spoken words. Since the Art of

Movement deals with movement at large and always links it to the performer’s inner

stance, it doesn’t see actors, dancers or ordinary people as very different from each

other. The Art of Movement also deals with how the movement is performed, since

such differences give it expressive qualities. As an example, just imagine the same

movement being performed quickly or slowly.

Well, then contemporary dramaturgy tries to capture the human purposes that are

always expressed through actions whether they’re visible or not, and is based on

ones possibilities to catch one’s vital impulses. As a result, the main expressive

vehicle of contemporary dramaturgy is the acting body. In order to reach it, the actor

is required to get in close contact with his inner self by empting, quieting, and

silencing his mind. Once he gets through, it shows itself by means of outer physical

and expressive actions. Besides that, we can say that these actions take place

because the muscles “sing”, and since the soul is expressed physically, the actor

reaches the state of introspective quietness, the source of the physical actions and

finally his soul, by listening to this song. Just like him, we, the ordinary people, depart

from the concrete and profane body to reach the spiritual, the transcendental and the

sacred. (JANÔ, 1986; MARTIN, 2007)

Peace and conflict resolution

To illustrate the above, I refer to the blog Embody Peace. It’s an

international embodied peace resource centre, as well as a forum in which practitioners, students and newcomers can share questions, ideas, and experiences. This blog was launched in February of 2007, beginning with the inspiration, knowledge and resources of Martha Eddy (2007).

As part of her doctoral research at Columbia University’s Teachers College, Martha

Eddy worked

for over a decade to gather information about those people and organizations who have years of expertise based in somatic, arts, and activist approaches to conflict resolution, violence prevention, and community building at the grassroots or international level. The blog was started with a listing of these organizations, and has since welcomed any posts or links that include this understanding of how we perceive our bodies and interact with one another through our bodies (Ibid.).

Dr Eddy states that our physical condition “affects our feelings, our behaviour, and

our creative work in the world” (ibid.). Besides that, she gathers in her blog accounts

of “physical approaches to peace, conflict resolution, and violence prevention

accessed through the arts, sports, somatic education, non-verbal communication,

and biological sciences” (ibid.).

Mute theatre and cinema.

Regardless of the above practical examples on the power of non-verbal

communication, I dare add three more illustrations to the already given ones.

I remember that a play based on a novel by the Brazilian writer Graciliano Ramos

was staged some years ago, and one of the actors of the production was awarded a

prize as the best supporting actor. This prize was awarded to the actor that played

the rule of a dog and did not utter a single word in his performance. Instead, he

limited his acting to scratch his own body, walk on all fours, hide under the kitchen

table, and show things like happiness, fear, and readiness through body actions

alone.

Another example is the picture stared by Tom Cruise, “The Last Samurai”. The film

depicts a North-American soldier that went to Japan to help the Japanese in the

battle against Samurai rebels. When captured he was sent to the Samurai village

over the winter. Although he was a prisoner, due to the inaccessibility of the village

during this time of the year, he was free to walk around and exchange with its

inhabitants. In the “dialogues” and connections that took place, captors and captive

were unable to communicate through words since they spoke different languages.

However, that difference did not keep them from getting to know each other, and

meaningful looks, gestures, social behaviour, outfits, and the architecture of the

village itself expressed what they could not do through words. All in all, it was from

what they saw in each other and from what they inferred from the observation of non-

verbal elements that the former enemies started to relate to each other until they

finally became good friends.

For me, the richness of the film lies in the recognition of the fact that gestures and

action express more than what one expects them to.

The Deaf example.

For over 15 years I’ve been thinking about the affinity between the Deaf3 and the art

of movement. Concerning that, I’ve wondered: what do they have in common with

hearing people? It’s important to make it clear that when I think about the deaf and

movement, I don’t mean sign language. Although it’s built from movements, its signs

are rigidly set and codified so as to base a structured language (FENEIS Journal. Rio

de Janeiro, year 1, # 3, Jul. /Sept., 1999; SACKS, 1988).

Nevertheless, deaf persons are often marginalized by their own family (parents,

grand-parents, brothers and sisters, as well as other relatives) that neither master

3 The word deaf seemed depreciative to me. However, the members of the Deaf community express their “ethic” status (a

people with an specific language, and with their own sensibility and culture) through a convention where Deafness with

capital “d” is a language and cultural entity opposite to deafness with little “d” that stands for the hearing disability, a health

condition in which the word “disability” suggests the lack of something in the comparison of the deaf with hearing persons.

Finally Deaf people refuse to be called deaf-mutes because if they could hear, they’d be able to speak perfectly well.

sign language nor understand it. So, to do like a seagull4 and fly from this island of

incommunicability, the Deaf make extensive use of movement since birth. Their

experience is similar to ours when, we, hearing people, visit a foreign country where

we cannot verbally communicate because we don’t master its language.

However, non-verbal language, unlike sign language, is not limited to the deaf; in

fact, it belongs to the human kind as a whole and is present in our daily

communicative skills. Animals also use it, but that lies beyond the scope of this

article. Anyway, because the deaf, especially those that were born deaf, can express

themselves through movement wonderfully well, I believe that to watch them doing

that is very rich.

Therefore, I am really interested in the large experience the deaf has in dealing with

non-verbal communication because of the possibility of extrapolating it to other

groups that communicate through movement.

Then, as non-verbal symbols are largely employed by different religions, I see that to

approach inter-religious dialogue with this kind of communication is totally justified.

Non-verbal communication as a transgression of frontiers

In her article Exercises on wonderment: frontiers and transgression of frontiers

(Exercícios em maravilhar-se: fronteiras e transgressões de fronteiras) the Feminist

theologian Lieve Troch (2007) writes about borderlands, empty territories, and no

one’s land. She also tells about the pleasure she felt every time she went to the

beach in her childhood. At these occasions, she enjoyed “staying for hours in the

place where sea and sand met” (idem, p.50). Some lines below she says that this is

a frontier that never stops moving in such a way that it that is recreated every day.

This happens because the borderline between water and land shifts all the time so,

they both get a bit of each other in an unending movement that designs and

interlinks new frontiers (ibid.). For Troch, to walk along the waterline is the same as

to find out “the empty space between two different places, or a third country, and to

walk between two worlds” (ibid). This place “has a different face than either land or

water” (ibid.). She concludes by saying that

4 Refer to O voo da Gaivota (The Seagull’s Flight).

when one walks for hours along the waterline next to the water that’s in constant move as well as the ever changing edge of the land, one often has the experience that he or she can always and again retreat and then face changes more easily [than before] (ibid.).

5

She further refers to an example from the dance, and says that in this game of the

sort, “the partners meet in the act of playing with the space between them and with

the rhythm in a “balance that must be re-established over and over again” (idem, p.

51). This ever changing ground characterizes an intermediate territory where their

relationship is tried. Besides, it is possible to fall in it (ibid.). She continues by saying

that sometimes the dancers may have the impression that the space itself moves as

the dance constantly transforms it. Therefore, they “play with the middle ground as

well as in it”. (ibid.).

Nevertheless, Troch also refers to the existence of rigid frontiers that need to

become flexible to enable the parts involved in this conversation to establish equal

terms. The dialogue supposes a meeting in an intermediate territory or in a third

country that often doesn’t physically exist so that its creation depends on the will and

predisposition of each one involved in the exchange of ideas. Therefore, in this

territory it’s mandatory to look at and listen to one another.

In sum, as I understand that inter-religious dialogue is a dance of the sort to her, I

believe that there’s nothing better to promote such dialogue than dance itself, or

rather, a movement centred practice focused on the expansion of frontiers.

To further relate inter-religious dialogue to dance and The Art of Movement, let’s

consider the following: at certain occasions, The Art of Movement regards the set of

steps of particular dance styles as unmovable frontiers; i.e., to experiment an only

dance style or movement pattern may be noxious to the person. That statement

arises from the belief that our vocabulary of movement becomes frozen along life

due to socialization, education, life style, and occupation that we as men and women

spontaneously or compulsorily adopt.

Then, The Art of Movement aims to expand this vocabulary, and one of the ways

through which it can fulfil this objective is by bringing the person to experiment the

5 quem anda horas a fio na linha do fluxo da maré, ao lado da água que está em constante movimento, e a terra

que muda sempre de novo, faz frequentemente também a experiência de que, aqui, o próprio ser pode, sempre de

novo, se recolher e depois enfrentar com mais facilidade transformações

largest movement repertoire as possible, be it through different dance styles, sport

activities, or yet a great array of movement based experiences.

If the emphasis on non-verbal communication allows us to think of actions that

validate the “words” (not necessarily spoken) of excluded persons, or of persons

from different cultural, ethical or language backgrounds, what to say of its use in the

inter-religious dialogue? We consider that this approach would

foster the contact of the involved persons with their emotions and feelings,

give them a tool to concretely organize these emotions, feelings, and thoughts,

help them with the development of individual and group identity, which would be

very useful to an ecumenical dialogue,

enhance self-esteem and empower excluded and weakened persons,

And finally by making positive use of one’s differences and abilities,

bring the persons to become aware of the advantages of any difference,

including religious ones.

Final Considerations

My experience with the power of movement was very different from that of Maurice

Béjart’s. It became clear to me more than twenty years ago, when a friend showed

me a video from a company of Deaf American dancers.

As hearing people, we could see in the way they touched each other the respect they

had for their partners’ body and movement. I believe that it was because they knew

movement enabled contact, organization, communication, and expression of

something beyond words; then, it was their way to get through to the other, were they

Deaf or hearing.

Their lifelong experiences proved to them that movement allowed the expression and

the true sharing of something that rather than superficial, came from deep within

their souls and that couldn’t be well expressed through words. Furthermore,

movement allowed it shared with anyone regardless of the language they spoke.

Thus, I believe that whenever emotion and feelings partake in the communication, I

think it doesn’t need — or shouldn’t need — to be conveyed through any spoken

language or words. In these cases, it passes from person to person, heart to heart,

and nothing that separates people really matters.

This kind of communication should also make use of minor face and body expressive

movements. They too are “mirrors of the soul” (MIGLIORINI, 2000) as they directly

express a reality, a feeling, or an emotion, and often go beyond any spoken word or

rational mode of expression.

Would we need to become unable to verbally communicate to understand the power

of non-verbal communication and movement? Are we like the mainstream hearing

people that paradoxically are deaf to many of our brothers and sisters’ words?

Then, instead of talking, thinking, and discussing dogmas, possibly we should

emulate the brilliant Mediterranean fishermen and dance. Maybe, by doing so we

could experiment the true union that we cannot experience from the top of our great

virtue and intellectual knowledge so as trough dance and movement truly relate to

the other and feel we are part of a whole. Finally, perhaps we could say — even if

not verbally —, to whoever was beside us: the God in me greets the God in you.

Namastê.

References

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