Learning a new dance is both an exciting and awkward process.  Exciting because the dance can engage our entire body today to express with freedom our own reality an experience.  Yet, it is also awkward because the steps are new and unfamiliar.  It requires a lot of practice to be able to internalize the movements and to dance freely with others.

A dream was born twelve months earlier, at a theological conference in India, called to reflect on "Ecclesia in Asia", the document from the Synod of Asian Bishops, held in Rome.  At this meeting, women were a very (in)conspicuous minority.  Were there women theologians in Asia?  What would they say about the Asian reality?  About the church?  About being women in this church?

More than fifty women (and two men) from 21 countries gathered for 5 days in Bangkok, from the 24th to 29th November 2002.  Their challenge:  to find an identity and a voice as Asian Catholic women theologians. 

The participants of the Ecclesia of Women in Asia (EWA) conference, composed of women theologians from all over Asia, EWA explored the difficult yet challenging steps of the "dance of liberation and transformation," using the hermeneutical methodology of Elizabeth Schussler-Fiorenza.  The resource person, Prof Lieve Troch, a Systematic theologian from the Catholic University of Nijmegen, The Netherlands, painstakingly demonstrated the dance step-by-step as applied to a particular theological issue of women's oppression.

The first step of the "dance' 'is an important one to begin the analysis.  This is where the dancer learns to reflect on experience and do a systemic analysis of oppression.  The second step is the most difficult one because it requires one to begin to look at the issue with suspicion and do a critical analysis of it.  "Women are normally socialized not to ask difficult questions," suggested Prof Troch.  As such, women have to question "who" is benefitting from any particular concept, theological image, symbol or religious situation.  The third step is the movement of critical evaluation and proclamation.  This will bring one to a position of knowing what is truly redemptive and what is not in the issue, structure, or concept.  The final step is a movement toward a new construction.  Although this is the final step in the "dance", this is not the end because when a new construction is done, we need to go back again to the first step and begin to analyze whether or not the new construction is bringing about a new level or experience of oppression.

Showing great interest in applying the steps to women's issues in Asia, the participants wondered how the complicated dance steps could be adapted to the various contexts of Asia. What would the dance be like if applied, for instance, to the issues surrounding land and migration, or the issues of poverty particular to the women in Asia, or to women and structures of society and church in Asia?  There were other issues, themes, and sub-themes such as women and religions, as well as women and violence.  How would the movement of the dance be like considering these complex situations?

This was the great challenge:  how to try-out the steps and begin to be at home with the dance itself, adding their own unique way of expressing the steps in their particular contexts.

As the participants grouped themselves according to themes they were interested in, the dance steps were taken with a mixture of seriousness, humor, eagerness and doubt.  However, as the groups rehearsed the steps, they began to find their own rhythm and unique grace.  Gaining greater confidence in themselves, some found the process liberating as it challenged their own thinking and mindset.  It also confronted them with the reality that the only way they can invite others to dance this "dance of liberation and transformation" is for each one to first be at home with it and find her own way of dancing it that would express what is truly feminist and Asian.

The conference ended on a high note with the appointment of contact persons from each country and the formation of an on-going EWA committee consisting of both academic and grassroots theologians who would look into creating networks of different Asian women's theological movements and the publication of a journal containing women's theological reflections.