Through presentations, performance and discussion, students will learn about the relationship between dance and gospel principles on Friday and Saturday.
The BYU Dance Department and the Museum of Art will host a symposium called “Embodied Believing: Faith in Motion” on Friday and Saturday in the Museum of Art and the Stephen L. Richards Building dance studios.
Registration on Friday begins at 6 p.m. and Saturday registration is at 8:30 a.m. The fee is $35, which includes a boxed lunch on Saturday.
A panel on Friday will focus on three aspects of the body: religious, aesthetic and philosophical.
“The panel is about the body and what we feel is important about the body,” said Pat Debenham, a contemporary dance and music theater professor.
Panelists include religion professor Robert Millet, BYU alumnus and visual artist Chris Young and philosophy professor Travis Anderson.
After the panel and throughout the weekend, participants will enjoy many performances.
“I think one of the most exciting things about the symposium is there are people from all over the United States doing dance that celebrates what it is we believe as Mormons,” Debenham said.
There will be many solo acts as well as group performances from Las Vegas, Idaho and California. The Behold Dance Collective, a group of seasoned Mormon dancers from the San Francisco Bay Area, will also be performing at the conference.
The performances are meant to focus on the good works the performing arts cause.
“That doesn’t mean it has to be directly spiritual dances or dances of praise or about the Book of Mormon,” Debenham said. “We are focusing on the good work [dancers] are doing all over the United States.”
The main theme of the conference is to celebrate the interconnectedness of dance and spirituality.
Caitlin Sangster, an Asian studies major from Grass Valley, Calif., danced for 10 years and has seen this connection between the discipline of dance and the doctrines of the LDS church.
“If you aren’t disciplined when you dance, you won’t develop the right muscles,” Sangster said. “It’s the same with the gospel. If you don’t learn discipline then you can’t succeed in life.”
The conference is not limited to the dance community.
“Anybody who is interested in art would find this interesting,” Debenham said. “It’s for anybody who wants to understand more about how their testimony and their faith can be expressed through an artistic medium.”
According to the Web site, found under the conference section of the BYU Web site, dancers will study the “integration of the body and the spirit,” and maintain a “focus on dance and dancing as it reveals eternal truths.”
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