I just love Betsey’s music and dance. It’s a way of freeing the body with music and movement and getting closer to God. Thank you Betsey and colleagues — the videography was very well done.
Marie Gibson
Welcome to The Dancing Word
Connecting your body and Spirit through movement, prayer, creativity, and scripture
Do you long to feel more at home in your body?
Do you sense there is something sacred waiting to be expressed through movement?
The Dancing Word invites you to reconnect body and Spirit in a way that is creative, prayerful, and deeply life-giving.
Through guided dance videos, live classes, retreats, and beautifully crafted resources, you’ll discover how movement can become prayer — and how your own body can become a place of joy, healing, and sacred expression.
You don’t need to be a dancer. You only need a body — and a willingness to say yes.
Take your first step and enter the dance.
Explore
Explore dance in worship and discover what 50+ years of embodied ministry can offer you.
Explore the dance
Dance with Community
Connect with a global circle of Dancing Monks through Abbey of the Arts.
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ConnectSeeds of Hope: Stories for Lent!
My longtime friend, Fr. Michael Sparough has a great commitment to making scripture relevant for our time, and I am delighted to join him in this creative venture! Each day for 40 days, you will receive a story to break open the daily scripture readings. The stories are enacted by
Fr. Michael Sparough SJ, ValLimar Jansen, Dev Kennedy, and me!
What a beautiful way to ponder the possibilities of how scripture is calling you this Lent.
The Love of Thousands Dance Collection is Released!
The Love of Thousands: Dancing with Angels, Saints & Ancestors is a collection of 20 prayer dances plus teaching videos created by Betsey Beckman to accompany The Love of Thousands CD and prayer cycle.These resources companion Christine Valters Paintner’s book The Love of Thousands: How Angels, Saints, and Ancestors Walk with Us Toward Holiness. Dances in this collection celebrate Angelic Guides, Mystics and Saints, (including Julian of Norwich, Clare of Assisi, Teresa of Avila, Mechtild of Magdeburg, and Angela of Foligno,) Ancestral Wisdom and Blessings, Grieving the Passage of our Loved Ones, Pilgrimage, Ancestral Earth, and Spiritual Healing. Dances were filmed at sacred spaces in Seattle and the Pacific Northwest, California, France, Spain, Bali, and Uganda.
The collection features guest artists Soyinka Rahim gsp, Leah Mann, Karin Stevens, Vania Bynum, Agnotti Cowie, Corey Action, and the Friends of Hope Cultural Center in Uganda.
Holy, Holy, Holy
Our latest collection of dances at Abbey of the Arts accompanies Christine Valters Paintner’s beautiful book – The Love of Thousands: How Angels, Saints & Ancestors Walk with us Toward Holiness. I am currently working on completing all the dance offerings to embody the songs on the accompanying CD: The Love of Thousands: Singing with Angels, Saints & Ancestors. When I began to dream about how to depict the ecstatic feeling of dancing with a whole collection of saints on the “other side,” what came to mind is a church in San Francisco called St. Gregory of Nyssa where the rotunda is full of beautiful icons of saints through time — all depicted dancing together in a ring! I just knew that I needed to step foot into this holy place and join in the dance with this circle of heavenly saints.
My beloved friend, Soyinka Rahim, introduced me to some wonderful dancers in the Bay Area, and we got permission to film this beautiful song, Holy Holy Holy in the sanctuary of St. Gregory of Nyssa. Enjoy this offering, and may the saints dance with you!
The Dancing Word Video Collections
In collaboration with Abbey of the Arts we’ve created a series of DVDs and videos to inspire your dancing.
The Love of Thousands: Dancing with Angels, Saints, and Ancestors
Birthing the Holy: Dancing with Mary and the Sacred Feminine
Monk in the World: Moving with Mystery
Earth, Our Original Monastery: Dancing Our Way to the Divine
The Soul's Slow Ripening: Dancing the Sacred on a Celtic Path
Dancing with Monks and Mystics
Testimonials
“During the workshop, Betsey told the story of the Creation using her whole body. When she got to the part about God blowing the breath of life into humanity, she used her whole body to blow the ‘breath of life’ into us. A radically new awareness broke through for me in that moment: I began …
Sharie Bowman