Dance: Language Of Protest

Protest has its own language. And, protest has its many languages. Silence sometimes speaks as protest. Dance also. In countries, protesters, in group or individually, have danced as protest.

In Chile, student demonstrators took to the streets of Santiago. They danced as protest in June, 2011. Dressed as goblins and ghouls from Michael Jackson’s iconic “Thriller” video they protested, as they described, the country’s “rotten” and “dead” education system. The protesting students re-created Jackson’s moves in front of presidential palace. They said: the zombie motif was an appropriate metaphor for the country’s education system.

One student said: “Public education is dying so we took this Michael Jackson creation and we united to this movement that is dying, the zombies.”

A 72-year-old woman on the floor of a George Washington University dance studio, a 39-year-old Maryland woman in her apartment, a 38-year-old dancer in Charlottesville, and many others danced to draw attention to refugees, particularly the Iraq and Afghan wars refugees. They, the 31 solo dancers, took humanity’s problems seriously while millions turned busy with New Year celebrations. (Washington Post, “31 Dance Performances Protest Results of Wars”, Jan. 2, 2009)

The Maryland woman danced for 24 hours. “It’s not about being radical for the sake of being radical,” said the dancer before commencing her in-home performance.

One of the dancers “chastised the United Nations in particular for maintaining its ‘impressive composure’ in a world soiled by ‘war, starvation, refugees, pornography, slavery, you name it.’” Others planned to bring to notice the “plight of Iraqi refugees, the bombing of Gaza and the scourge of war in general”. One of the dance-protest participants said: “You know you want to do something. You become like an antenna for an idea, and an antenna for a value system. … It’s saying, ‘Hey, let’s think, let’s move, let’s consider.’ It’s a lot about tapping into basic human things like compassion and memory”.

The plight-protest-project was conceptualized by New Yorker Miguel Gutierrez. Miguel described it as an “endurance-based action”. “It was either art, depending on your view of such things, or a political protest, or both.” The idea was of having dancers around the country to “make a social-justice statement for the new year by wearing blindfolds and earplugs, denying themselves food and letting the world watch their improvisational performances via the Internet.”

In 2008, a group of persons gathered at the Jefferson Memorial to dance in silence. They were dispersed and one woman was arrested on misdemeanor charges. A year later, a judge affirmed a ban on dancing at the memorial, “in order to maintain an atmosphere of calm, tranquility, and reverence.” The charge against the arrested was demonstrating without a permit.

Reports across the internet inform, on a late-May afternoon, five protesters were arrested by US Park Police in the Jefferson Memorial for dancing in silence. Titled as “civil danceobedience”, the dancers were there protesting the court decision in early-May that upheld a ban on dancing within the memorial.

Dance Anywhere, an annual, conceptual public art performance, invites people to stop and dance on a specific date and time. By co-opting art into daily public spaces and demonstrating audiences to dance, DA “transforms perceptions of where and how art can occur, demonstrating that art does not need to be exhibited in a gallery, and dance does not need to be performed on a stage.” The initiator, a professional dancer, conceptual artist and printmaker exhibiting nationwide for 30 years, is “committed to changing the world through community service and art.”

DA is an open invitation for people to stop and dance at a specific time around the world. Participants are encouraged to document their experience through photography and video, which is shared on the DA website. In 2010, it was March 26.

DA tries to engage people, many in number, in a global public art performance, to build community and change the world through dance and art, inspire audiences to reconsider art, public space, and community, make art accessible to all by bringing dance to public spaces.

Why do people dance? At certain age, under 16, Dr. Peter Lovatt says, “dancing is for fun.” At other stages, “dance has different meaning and motive, drive and desire.” Dr. Lovatt, principal lecturer in psychology at the University of Hertfordshire and known around the campus as Dr. Dance, found reasons behind dancing is related to age, gender and genetic makeup. He has completed a research into dance, analyzing 13,700 people’s responses to issues related to dancing. Lovatt says: “Some dance because they are told they have to, and it has been used to show strength and fearlessness”. (Guardian, “Why do people dance? And what makes some more confident than others? Dr Dance has the answers”, mid-Dec. 2009)

Many ethnic groups, studies have found, use dance in their regular activities as a way to keep communities and larger population together. Dancing help societies keep younger generations within guidelines. But, dance cannot transcend socioeconomic condition in the society it performs. It reflects the divide that economy imposes on society. Under-classes fail to accept dances of upper-classes. To the under-classes, dances of upper-classes that tell stories of only the upper-classes appear abstract. Dance also turns into tool of the upper-classes to perpetuate their hegemony. Then, people, depending on their level of learning, develop their own domain of dance. Hegemony doesn’t allow people to have their own dance. This leads hegemony to narrow down people’s space for their dancing. That’s done by lengthening people’s working hour, increasing hardship in life, and by making language of dance imperceptible by people.

Dance “may reflect or challenge the social, cultural, even religious traditions and values of their root cultures.” (Michael Crabb, “Why People Dance, Dance & Dancing: Just Doing What Comes Naturally”)

Why do people protest? Science provides the answer. Luxury of arrogance or indulgence with ignorance or denial of undeniable rights produces protest. Is it possible to torpedo the reasons behind protest? It is also science that provides the answer. It is a nay, an emphatic no. Protests look for language within limits of reality. Protest denies power. Protest disobeys authority. But it can’t deny reality. Dance with delicate steps, with complex expressions extends parameter of protests. But it can’t restrain reality. These, dance and protest, live within reality, evolve within reality. Pace and speed of dance and protest depends on reality. That’s its strength.