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glorify god in dance

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I am an artist currently working on issues surrounding taboos,morality, the body etc
and I saw a short clip in a documentary(don´t remember which one) of little girls dancing in very sheer dresses(possibly just pieces of fabric).
I am fairly sure it was the "glorify god in dance" video. Of whcih you have the end credits.
Do you know if this video is available anywhere or other videos with similar content.
I do NOT want anything involving sexual acts. Just videos or pictures of acts (such as dancing) that under different cuircumstances would maybe not be controversial.
Let me explain that;
A lot of naturist clubs etc have pageants and danceshows where children and teens perform for an audience of both children and adults.
I am interested in investigating the taboo of childnudity (in art) through looking at the depiction of this nudity throughout the world, but especially western society from 50/60s until now.

The children of god comics and videos are good represantatives of the exploitive/abusive uses of childrens bodies and would be good represantatives of that part of the spectrum.

Enough about this, I could ramble on for days.

The reason I want to see the mentioned video(s) is to see if the actions in them could be seen in a different light without the exploitive and abusive context of why they were made.

So, are those videos available(preferably digitally).

I'm not sure if you realize what you are requesting.

"Glorfiy God In The Dance" was a Music with Meaning pornography video with sexually explicit performances by both adults and children. Significant portions of it constitute child pornography that is illegal to possess or distribute (except under certain circumstances for a legitimate and lawful purpose). The remaining part is the text credits (the only part included in our archive) and sexually explicit performances by adults. Some of the latter are also evidence of criminal child abuse and neglect as they were performed in front of children. These videos were not produced by innocent nudists or naturists but by child molesters abusing and exploiting children. I'm sure it's possible for some, but I find it impossible to ignore the context in which this footage was produced. Some Family members have publicly claimed these videos were not pornography while others have acknowledged the irrefutable evidence (which consists not only of the video footage, which alone would be more than enough evidence, but also sworn testimony by those who were there and written publications detailing the production of these videos as well as private correspondence between the leaders of The Family and the staff of Music with Meaning).

The only reason these videos have been preserved is to document specific incidents in which children raised in The Family experienced child abuse and neglect and to provide prima facie evidence to law enforcement and child protection agencies and attorneys representing individual survivors seeking justice.

For those reasons, I will only provide copies to:

1. a law enforcement agency
2. a child protection governmental agency

There are other circumstances in which I will provide a copy to an individual abuse survivor appearing in a video for a legitimate purpose but that clearly wouldn't be applicable to this request.

On xFamily.org, the only place you'll find such footage is edited excerpts used in archived television news reports and documentaries.

I'm not even sure that should be there and, for the record, I think it was an irreversible error to release any copies of the videos to the media when those who did so did not have permission from those who appeared on the videos as children. If it had been up to me (it definitely wasn't), I would only have allowed journalists to view these videos in a secure room at a police station. I do think it's possible for journalists to report certain facts without showing every gruesome detail. Just as the media could have reported on the death of Gadhafi without showing the video of the Libyan terrorist being sodomized with a bayonet, they could also have accurately reported on child abuse in The Family without showing all of that footage (especially when they didn't always take enough care to edit out the faces).

@Peter Frouman,

Peter Frouman wrote:

I'm not sure if you realize what you are requesting.

"Glorfiy God In The Dance" was a Music with Meaning pornography video with sexually explicit performances by both adults and children.
Significant portions of it constitute child pornography that is illegal to possess or distribute (except under certain circumstances for a legitimate and lawful purpose). The remaining part is the text credits (the only part included in our archive) and sexually explicit performances by adults. Some of the latter are also evidence of criminal child abuse and neglect as they were performed in front of children.

Thank you for your reply.
As I said, I have only seen a very short excerpt in a documentary(Lost&Found,maybe?!). I was under the impression that it wasn´t explicit childpornography in itself, but that it was used as evidence to show the kind of enviroment these children were growing up in.
My meaning is not to trivialize what these individuals have endured, but rather to have it be an example of how two comparable actions (or what I thought out of ignorance was comparable) "nude dancing" could be both an expression of innocence and freedom(in the case of naturists) and an action of exploitation and abuse(in the family) and from this extrapolate some insight on our view of the naked body.

Quote:

These videos were not produced by innocent nudists or naturists but by child molesters abusing and exploiting children. I'm sure it's possible for some, but I find impossible to ignore the context in which this footage was produced. Some Family members have publicly claimed these videos were not pornography while others have acknowledged the irrefutable evidence (which consists not only of the video footage, which alone would be more than enough evidence, but also sworn testimony by those who were there and written publications detailing the production of these videos as well as private correspondence between the leaders of The Family and the staff of Music with Meaning).

I meant in no way to imply that the family is(or was) a group of innocent nudists. I used that to exemplify how setting and context determine how we view(or could view) public displays of nudity.
Obviously I was not aware of the full extent of the contents of that video. Also one would have to take into account that the glorify god videos were not meant for public viewing. A fact that plays a part in how it should be viewed.

Again thank you for your reply. It gave me good things to consider in my continued research into this issue(nudity, not the family).
I certainly didn´t mean to offend anyone with this request and I wasn´t aware the video itself constituted pornography which would make it problematic to possess even if I were to find a copy.
Any misunderstandings about my intentions that is not a direct complication of my ignorance about the video I blame on the fact that english is not my first language.

@Peter Frouman,

My late wife, a deacon in the Episcopal Church, was also a dancer on Broadway.
She was asked to help with a production at on of their camps and found out about Liturgical Dancing. Its very expressive and flowing. Very beautiful. and one really has to be a trained dancer. I think it was taken from Middle Eastern dancing, Turkish and Indian ethnic dancing. The women wear skirts that are somewhat loose, but not anything above mid calf. Leotard tops are often worn as are peasant style blouses. Some dancers wear leotards under their dresses. Much of it is done barefoot, sometimes ankle rings and bells. Hairdress is what is called for. The best I've seen is open flowing tresses, but others are as needed. The dance must be communicative. Arms and hands are used as major expressives. I bet you're already doing most of it now. Its religious. that's why its called "Liturgical". It expresses a story, a moral, an atmosphere, a psalm or can even be one of Seba's verses to Solomon. (Now there was hot pair, eh?) Ask at any Episcopal church. There'll be someone who knows. Its happening all over.

@Seumas,
The topic of discussion in this thread is not Episcopalian "liturgical dancing" but rather a 1981 "Music with Meaning" pornography video ( titled "Glorify God in The Dance") that included performances by children and was produced at the specific instruction of child molester David Berg and distributed worldwide to thousands of Family members (not a single one of whom immediately reported the crimes against children documented on the video to law enforcement agencies).

As Lord Justice Ward noted in his judgment (see excerpt below), there is no question that the video included sexual performances by children that were specifically intended to sexually arouse child molesters David Berg and Karen Zerby and others. Comparing child pornography produced in a religious cult to "liturgical dancing" is not persuasive.

Quote:

He then gave encouragement to the girls in their exotic dancing. He gave detailed descriptions in this and a subsequent letter as to precisely how they were to dance and he condescended to such detail as to specify the length of their pubic hair and the manner in which they were to rub their nipples to make them erect. He concluded:-

Quote:

"I know on some of these I have been making love to Maria and she to me, and the rhythm has been so slow that in our love making it was almost difficult to eventually arrive at an orgasm because the beat was too slow, and in making love to your beautiful love videos we always like to keep time to the music, believe it or not! It just is natural and automatic with me, I can hardly do anything rhythmic without keeping time to the music or rhythm to which I am listening. If you don't speed up a few of those numbers, it's going to take me forever to goose her or her forever to jack me to the point where we can reach the final glorious conclusion! So do step up the tempo a little bit as you go along, make it a little more rapid, and I think some of you in particular would find it easier to dance and more comfortable if the final tempos were a little bit more rapid as you're getting into the fiery fury of the glorious climax, both of your dance and our sexual fervour!"

Source:
JUDGMENT OF LORD JUSTICE WARD, W 42 1992 IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUSTICE FAMILY DIVISION PRINCIPAL REGISTRY IN THE MATTER OF ST (A MINOR) AND IN THE MATTER OF THE SUPREME COURT ACT 1991h, 1995-10-19. Page 57
http://media.xfamily.org/docs/legal/uk/ward-judgment/pages/medium/ward-judgment-scan-medium-page057.pdf

Hey all, long time viewer of this place and it´s great for acquiring facts and detail, BUT...

I had to write in this thread, because, even though I respect the fact that people were abused, I have always been in favor of transparency.
Surely all involved parties are adults now, so releasing this video especially in an educational context such as this is valid.

I need to get a hold of a copy, can anyone help me? Surely someone has posted it online somewhere?

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