The Word in the Wings
By: Kaya Prasad
The biblical story of Ruth moves from a foreign land to the land of Israel, from a time of famine to a time of harvest, from the suffering of loss and emptiness to the joy of fullness and life. On the whole, Ruth is a story of provision. The name of God is invoked throughout the story, giving a clearly theological overtone to the narrative’s redemptive arc. Yet human characters take an active role in this redemption; humans and their relationships to one another are the context in which God’s character is revealed in this story (Hawkins & Stahlberg xiv). By using ordinary people as the literary vehicle to reveal God, the book of Ruth suggests that the nature of God’s purpose in the world entails actions that are achievable on an individual level even while these are interwoven with a grander plan that God alone can accomplish.

The Word in the Wings
By: Kaya Prasad
Listen in on my conversation with company artist Kethryn Avery as we discuss her role in Label: Beauty and how she draws on ideas about being made in the image of God as well as experience from her own faith journey to portray her character.

The Word in the Wings
By: Kaya Prasad
As Virginia, Sandra and other characters in Label: Beauty consider what it might mean to find their identity in Christ, they might be asking: What is the identity God offers me when I choose to follow Jesus? Hannah suggested in her interview last week that Gloria’s character views a relationship with God as limiting or distracting from her self-proclaimed purpose. How does God’s purpose for human life compare with the purpose someone might choose for themselves without reference to God’s design?

The Word in the Wings
By: Kaya Prasad
Listen in on my conversation with company artist Hannah Snyder as we discuss her role in Label: Beauty and how her character development and dancing draw on Scripture about the good shepherd.

The Word in the Wings
By: Kaya Prasad
This fall, Glorify Dance Theatre is preparing to perform Label: Beauty, a ballet about finding identity and security in God. This ballet imagines the stories of two young women, Sandra and Virginia, who are each searching for a sure sense of self but find that emulating an admired fashion star or even being that fashion star are unsound foundations on which to establish who they are and what they are meant to do in the world. A third character, Jean, shows Sandra and Virginia how her self-confidence is built on her faith in God and her relationship with Jesus. As Glorify artists develop these and other characters in Label: Beauty, they are attending to a few key theological questions that motivate the story. Sandra and Virginia wonder what to make of Jean’s faith, asking: How does your relationship with Jesus help you understand who you are and who you are meant to be? How do you know you can trust God to provide for your security?

The Word in the Wings
By: Kaya Prasad
Ballet communicates through the medium of movement. It has distinctive capacities to generate meaning and foster understanding of complex ideas. GPA artists work specifically with ideas that are found in the Bible and have significant implications for how we live our lives.