Dear Dancing Friends, 
We had wonderful performances of Christmas Reflections and dance at the Masses on Christmas Eve but now it's time to turn our thoughts to Lent and Easter. Fortunately, Lent doesn't begin until March so we have some time to prepare. If you are interested in dancing with us for Lenten evening prayer we will be rehearsing on Saturday mornings from 10-12:30 beginning on March 1st. Please contact Jamie at huggins434@gmail.com if you would like to join us.

I was blessed to be in Jamaica again for a parish immersion trip and offered a dance workshop for about 50 people. Steven Cornwall, our favorite Jamaican dancer assisted me.

Hope to see you at the Lenten Evening Prayer,  April 14th if you're not dancing with us.

Fr Bob

If you are planning to come to Christmas Reflections on Saturday December 21st (3PM), why not support the work of the company and come to a festive wine tasting at the Manse (Jesuit Community) following the performance. Price is $50 per person and includes a ticket to the performance. The wines will be wonderful and the food so much more than Wonder bread!
My apologies to those who have tried to contact me through the website. Just figured out how it works! If you don't hear from someone in a timely fashion, email me at frvereec@bc.edu. 
Please do what you can to promote the production with likes and tweets and whatever!
Hope to see you at a performance! Fr Bob

This year's production of Christmas Reflections will take place in the Robsham Theater at Boston College on the weekend of December 20-22. We have assembled a wonderful cast of professional dancers as well as BC students, alumni and others. Helen O'Dwyer's company will also be with us. One of the special blessings of the performance is having dancers from A Dancer's Christmas, like Daisy Merritt, Kerri Melley and Tatiana Obeso dancing with their children. If you were a fan of A Dancer's Christmas, make sure you come and see Christmas Reflections!

I can't believe I haven't posted since June! I may have been so amazed at seeing the bishops dancing at World Youth Day that I completely forgot to let everyone know about what I wrote for America Magazine. Here it is
More than 10 years ago (March 2002) America Magazine published an article I wrote entitled “Shall We Dance”. The question that I raised in the article was whether we as a people of God would respond to the invitation to “Praise God’s Name in the Festive Dance” (Psalm 49). When I saw millions of people including bishops and priests joining in a simple but lively dance at the closing liturgy of World Youth Day, I received an answer. 

As a Jesuit priest, trained dancer and choreographer who for more than 40 years has been exploring the power and beauty of dance as a very human form of prayer, praise and worship, I was moved to tears and laughter when I saw so many people responding to the call to praise God with “timbrel and dance” (Psalm 150) I was particularly moved to see many bishops enjoying themselves as they were taught the dance.

The criticism that we hear of using dance in a religious context is that dance in Western Civilization is only used for “courtship” or “entertainment”, refuses to acknowledge the wonderful tradition of “folk” dance in Western culture These are the dances that are usually very simple where people join together to express their joy and the beauty of human community. We saw a wonderful example of such a dance of the “folk” on Copacabana beach last week. It does seem that the Holy Spirit was “taking the lead”

On Pentecost Sunday we had 7 wonderful dancers who represented the 7 gifts of the Holy Spirit. Kristina Wright, Sarah Martinez, Cecily Power, Luisa Donovan, Sarah Duehren, Ava and Sofia Moreno danced the opening procession, the sequence and the Gospel procession. It was wonderful!

I'm very excited to let folks now that more and more of my choreography is now available on this website. I was just able to download two performances of A Dancer's Christmas. 25th anniversary and the Final performance for 2008. Just go to repertory and you'll find these performances available for viewing.

We are almost at the half point of the Lenten Season and we have been preparing for Monday of Holy Week. The danced/prayer service takes place on Monday March 24th at 7:30 in the upper church. I'm still working on some of the aspects of the service but we'll be doing Tree of Life, God Beyond All Names, Deep Within, In the Quiet, You Will Know, On Holy Ground and a new piece "Peter's tears" danced by Steven Cornwall and Kristina Wright. As usual we will be participating in Palm Sunday liturgies, Good Friday Stations of the Cross and Easter Vigil. Hope you can join for some of these special services.

Catch Karen Campbell's interview in the Sunday, December 9th, Boston Globe with Father Bob, where they talk  about  "Christmas Reflections", "A Dancer's Christmas" and his heritage  as a Jesuit and a choreographer:


 'It's such a  passion, for me there is no separation between religious  expression and  movement expression. It always comes together quite  spontaneously. It's when I'm most alive.'

Q.  At the core, what do these shows mean to you and perhaps to the others  who come to them year after year? What is the takeaway message? 
 
A. It's about the profound sense of joy that is available to all of us in  the Christmas season, no matter how we celebrate it. From a religious  point of view, it's about God loving us so much that he wants to dance  with us. These days there's so much negative  about God and salvation. My image is that God is enmeshed in the flesh of Jesus. He wants to have  arms and legs so he can dance with us.




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Read the full article in the 12/9/2012 Boston Globe:

    'Christmas Reflections' from Boston College's 'dancing priest'