This study investigates attitudes towards women's spiritual and ecclesiastical authority in the Presbyterian church in southern Malawi and examines the diverse opinions of dance held by Malawian Presbyterians, early Scottish missionaries, and contemporary members of Presbyterian women's guilds, or Mvano. Through an exploration of the significance and meaning of dance for Mvano women this study concludes that expressive movement is an essential component of the Mvano's communicative vocabulary. Mvano women dance and sing when teaching Biblical principles at their local and regional meetings, when evangelizing in their neighborhoods and providing pastoral care for the sick, needy, and bereaved, and when serving their churches and communities during funerals, weddings, and worship services. Mvano women also dance as a means of theological commentary, individual and collective prayer, and phenomenological social exchange, as well as when greeting one another and when expressing their sorrows, joys, or concerns.

That dance is fundamental to Mvano interactions and activities is significant given the history of controversy among Malawian and Scottish Presbyterians regarding the propriety of certain dances and expressive movements within Christian contexts, particularly in relation to women's bodies. When Scottish Presbyterians established their missions in southern Malawi in 1876, one of their first evangelism strategies was to teach Christian converts European hymns translated into local languages. Over time, Mvano women developed a tradition of re-shaping these hymns to more accurately express Malawian musical preferences and spiritual perspectives by altering them musically and rhythmically, augmenting translated English text with Mvano-composed text, and dancing them while moving counterclockwise in a circle. The Mvano's vast musical repertoire, which includes their own compositions as well as these reinterpreted hymns, is unique for its performance style, which utilizes drama, mime, and synchronized dance steps. Based on experiential ethnography, formal discussions, directed and non-directed interviews, video and audio fieldwork recordings, archival research, published materials, and a twenty-five year association with Mvano by the author, this is an ethnomusicological study of how Mvano use dance discourse to create sacred spaces of spiritual communion, social interaction, and self-expression in their music and everyday lives.