Dancing Bodies, Walt Whitman, and the Gloria: Queer Sacramentality in Paul Taylor’s "Beloved Renegade"

According to Andrew Greeley’s notion of the Catholic imagination, the (material) culture of Catholicism produces and represents an enchanted world and pervasive religious sensibility “which inclines Catholics to see the Holy lurking in creation.” Grace permeates the natural world. The Catholic imagination “sees created reality as a ‘sacrament,’ that is, a revelation of the presence of God.”(1) Thus, sacramentality is a kind of worldview in which aspects of mundane existence hint at the nature of God and reveal truths about the transcendent. Queer folk often understand this on a visceral level: bodies and desires the world marks as “different” are revelatory of something the “ordinary” world has yet to fully understand or grasp. In this way, the queer becomes extraordinary, even as queerness is also grounded in the most mundane aspects of life. Indeed, it is quite “queer” that ordinary bread would represent Jesus Christ in the Eucharist. Queer sacramentality finds the Holy in the seemingly least likely of places.

The arts have long been central to the Catholic sacramental imagination. The church’s repository of visual and musical arts is so massive that one cannot effectively study these fields without encountering Catholicism. And it is no secret that queer folk have played a prominent role in the production of music and art. In this paper, I want to explore this interaction more deeply by focusing on a particular example of “queer art” that in this line of thinking becomes an example of queer sacramentality on three different but related levels. First, it combines two art forms in unexpected (queer) ways; second, it is a creation of and about artists we may identify as queer; and third, this exploration itself encompasses gay subjectivity.

Paul Taylor’s "Beloved Renegade" is a modern dance choreographed to the music of Francis Poulenc’s "Gloria." Even though the music is liturgical, a setting of one of the ordinaries of the Catholic mass, Taylor’s choreography is based on the life of Walt Whitman, a poet who largely eschewed traditional religion. It is a surprising combination that has been characterized as both puzzling and brilliant. Taylor, Poulenc, and Whitman are all “queer,” inasmuch as their personal lives did not conform to heteronormativity.(2) Of the three, Poulenc seems to be the only Catholic (and apparently devout). The fact that Taylor and Whitman are not Catholic make this project all the more queer; and as Trebor Healey says in his preface to Queer and Catholic, “Catholicism is sometimes best understood (as is the case with so many things) objectively by those who were never trapped in its confines.”(3)

Poulenc’s "Gloria" represents his musical vision of the ideas expressed in the words of the “Glory to God” prayer from the Catholic mass. It is not meant for congregational participation but is rather a concert piece. While inspired by Vivaldi, Poulenc’s setting is much more romantic, reflecting its mid-20th century origins. With colorful orchestral writing, the music is melodic and often soaring, conveying an ethereal quality that feels both close and transcendent. It is inviting, yet filled with unusual harmonies. While there are some broad soprano solo lines, the choir sings throughout the entire piece, often repeating short phrases in various keys. Though it feels essentially affirming and optimistic, there are tender moments which feel like liminal spaces between heaven and earth, quite appropriate given the content of the words. One of the most “queer” elements is the fact that the piece ends with an extended and shimmering GMaj7 chord, which makes it feel both celestial and unresolved.

Perhaps this ambivalence in the music is what motived Paul Taylor to base his dance on the life and work of Walt Whitman rather than the Latin words of the mass. The choreography is grounded and earthy, evoking a range of human experience from playful children to the afflicted and war-wounded. The costumes and backdrop are generic, so the imagery is entirely suggestive rather than definitive. Using lines from “Leaves of Grass” to punctuate the sections of the Gloria, Taylor operates from a sense that body and soul are one. The artist (lead male dancer) of the piece encounters and loves the human beings around him but then faces his own mortality through the guidance and care of a feminine spirit who hovers over his body at the end of the piece. Just as the music conveys a liminal space, so too does the artist-hero occupy that space between earth and heaven, between the dead and the living, between body and soul.

In my paper, I will analyze the piece as a whole, using the conversation between the liturgical text/music and the choreography to see what is revealed. How does it enhance the meaning of the Gloria? What does it convey about the whole concept of humans glorifying a Trinitarian God? More broadly, what does it mean to combine dancing bodies, Whitman’s poetry, and Catholic theology in such an overt way? I believe this is a prime example of queer sacramentality finding the Holy in the earthiest of spaces, transforming a prayer of praise and petition into a celebration of incarnational theology.

1. Andrew Greeley, The Catholic Imagination (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000), 1.

2. I don’t want to overdetermine this aspect of their lives, as the very notion of sexual identity has long been challenged by queer theorists. See Mark Jordan, Queer Callings: Untimely Notes on Names and Desires (New York: Fordham University Press, 2024).

3. Amie M. Evans and Trebor Healey, Queer and Catholic (New York: Routledge, 2008), xvi.