Christmas VerEeckes first ballet lesson: For
me it was an epiphany
By ARTHUR JONES
People somestimes say, Boys
dont dance. Its sissy. If its a problem for boys today,
it was an even bigger one for 5-year-old Bobbie VerEecke in the 1950s. It
just wasnt appropriate for boys to study dance at that time, he
said. It wasnt manly enough.
VerEecke danced and choreographed alone on Long Island, where he
lived. He made up dances, even at Regis, the Jesuit high school he attended in
Manhattan. But he settled publicly for theater. That led to a Faustian
bargain.
I knew I was entering the Jesuits, said VerEecke,
so I told God that if I got the lead role [in Oedipus Rex],
then Id never ask ever to do theater again. It was 1966. He was a
high school senior.
VerEecke got the part. The irony was that two months after he
joined the Jesuits they asked him to direct Jesuit novices in their plays. Four
years later the Society of Jesus held its first summer-long Jesuit Artists
Institute, said VerEecke, primarily to do theater.
In 1971, VerEecke attended the institute at the University of
Santa Clara, Calif., a gathering that brought in sculptors, painters,
musicians, writers, playwrights, players and others from around the Jesuit
world.
A dance teacher on the Santa Clara faculty, Diana Welch, offered a
ballet class for attending Jesuits. There were probably 12 to 15 of
us, said VerEecke, all sizes, shapes and backgrounds. For me it was
an epiphany. It was just like, How is it I am 22 years old and I have
finally found myself? I never knew anything could be this
beautiful.
Welch was essentially choreographing dance, religious in nature,
using works such as Stravinskys Symphony of the Psalms. Not
only was it my first exposure, said VerEecke, it tapped into the
religious formation I was going through.
VerEecke was hooked. Back in New York, he started a theater
program, but he really wanted to dance. On a lark, he ascended to the
provincials study and asked for permission to study dance at Santa Clara
for a semester.
I just assumed hed say no, commented VerEecke.
It was not the ordinary thing to do. But the provincial said yes.
Maybe boys didnt dance, but Jesuits could.
After dance at Santa Clara in the early 1970s, VerEecke returned
to New York, taught at Regis and studied ballet at various studios. Later, in
Boston studying theology, he studied ballet for a further decade, well into his
30s, with Margot Parsons. He did his master of divinity degree at Weston and
got a masters in sacred and liturgical dance in an independent study
program at Lesley College in Cambridge, Mass.
In 1980 he gave his thesis to Fr. Virgil Funk, who combined it
into a book with works by Paulist Fr. Thomas Kane and Missionary of Our Lady of
LaSalette Fr. Ronald Gagneas. The book, Introducing Dance in Christian
Worship, was recently revised and re-released.
In that period, the idea of a Christmas work began forming. Though
VerEecke had never had any formal training as a choreographer -- it was
something that was just intuitive, he said -- he did have a strict
teacher hovering over it: his ballet teacher, Margot Parsons. She danced in the
initial presentation. VerEeckes father sang in it.
VerEeckes parents were both opera singers, though they did
not sing professionally. In the earlier years of A Dancers
Christmas, it was his fathers voice on tape that opened the third
act with, O Holy Night. It was a bittersweet moment, for by that
time VerEeckes father was living in a nursing home.
O Holy Night is a milestone in VerEeckes life in
another way. It was his first choreographed piece. He was a fifth grader in
charge of the Christmas singing, a lad much taken with the line in O Holy
Night that ordered, Fall on your knees. When the class
reached that line in performance, on VerEeckes instruction, down they all
went onto their knees.
Ordained in 1978, VerEecke by 1989 was pastor of Boston
Colleges parish church, St. Ignatius. Its a very dynamic
parish, lots of outreach, spirituality programs, education, arts
programs. And liturgical dance.
Each semester at Boston College, VerEecke teaches Dance, an
Invitation to the Sacred. He also teaches it during the colleges
summer Institute of Religious and Pastoral Ministry.
Boston College has a Liturgical Dance Ensemble program that sends
out touring troupes. One touring piece, For the Greater Glory of
God, is dance theater based on the Ignatian spiritual exercises.
VerEecke tours with it. Last year, in the Cleveland Plain
Dealer, a reviewer said, VerEeckes inspirational performance
was a tough act to follow.
Not bad for a Jesuit in his 50s.
National Catholic Reporter, December 22,
2000
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