help is on the way

By Diogenes ( articles ) | Jun 06, 2004

Jesuit pastor and dancer Fr. Robert VerEecke is part of a discussion of pop culture and the Catholic Church:

I just did a dance piece called "Melodrama." I dance it with another dancer, who's Jesus, and I'm a priest. And the first part is my commentary on going to the Gibson "Passion" and looking away most of the time, and trying to figure out why. Then I segue into other images of Jesus we need to see, for example a comic Jesus. Jesus and I go into a duet to "Make 'Em Laugh" from "Singin' in the Rain," doing all this kind of Three Stooges movement, slipping on banana peels, walking into walls. I bring this up because someone who is Catholic and who heard about the piece was very upset, even hearing that I would do something that could possibly be offensive to Catholic sensibilities, whatever that means.

...So my very being belies what people think. I like the fact that it's jarring for people, because it allows you to enter into a conversation about "What is this Catholic experience and expression?" And particularly something like dance, which is so physical, so embodied.