The 2019 annual Reading of the Sacred Texts Lecture will be held on Wednesday, March 13 (reception at 6:30 pm, lecture at 7pm) in the Dinner Board Room. Dancer Carla DeSola will be our featured speaker. Sr. Martha Kirk will introduce the speaker and moderate the Q & A following the lecture.
A Reading of the Sacred Texts
In God we live and move and have our being:
A Dancer’s Exploration of Sacred Texts
Drawing upon her life time of work introducing sacred dance in a variety of settings, including a broad range of liturgical and peace gatherings, De Sola will recount how she draws inspiration from biblical sacred texts, sacred texts from nature and the urgings of our life. She draws upon prayer and improvisation, integrating body, soul, mind and spirit to illuminate what she envisions as the movement behind the word. Her presentation will include both lecture and demonstration, as well as video excerpts of her dances, including simple experiential movement prayers.
A question and answer session will follow the talk.
Carla De Sola, a pioneer in liturgical dance, has a Diploma from the Juilliard School, Dept. of Dance, and a Master’s Degree in Theology and the Arts from the Pacific School of Religion (PSR), Graduate Theological Union (GTU). She founded the Omega Liturgical Dance Company at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, New York City, in 1976, and currently directs Omega West Dance Company in the Bay Area. The Omega Dance Companies were founded to express the spiritual-human-social-healing dimensions of dance, exploring inner aspects of movement integrated with the world’s spiritual resources. De Sola has taught classes through PSR and the Center for the Arts, Religion & Education (CARe) from 1990 – 2017, as well as offered workshops and created liturgical dances for most all of the GTU schools.
Sister Martha Ann Kirk, Th.D. is a Professor of Religious Studies at the University of the Incarnate Word, San Antonio, Texas. She holds a Th.D. in Theology and the Arts from the GTU. While getting an M.A.’s from Fordham University in 1976, she first studied with Carla De Sola who was directing Omega Liturgical Dance Company in New York City. Her first of seven books Dancing with Creation: Mexican and Native American Dance in Christian Worship and Education (1983) was written as part of her GTU studies. Kirk is particularly interested in arts inviting justice and peace. She has been recognized with several peace awards including the Texas Pax Christi Peacemaker of the Year.