Dance and Activism: Moving bodies as catalysts of change
By Jenn Edwards
A ballet dancer performs a solo among the ruins of Palmyra, a historical site in Syria destroyed by ISIS. Palestinian children dance like butterflies in ballet class as an escape from the harsh everyday realities of war. French street protesters break out into a performance of the Macarena. These are a handful of scenarios that writer, dancer and activist Dana Mills brings to light in Dance and Activism: A Century of Radical Dance, published by Bloomsbury Press.
Growing up in Israel, Mills became involved with anti-war activism at the age of 13, volunteering with Peace Now, of which she is now director of development and external relations. In this book, her third, she surveys the last hundred years for examples of moving bodies acting as catalysts for change. From modern dance pioneers such as Martha Graham in the United States making radical feminist work in the 1920s, all the way to British rapper Stormzy performing with dancers from Ballet Black at Glastonbury in 2019, Mills artfully weaves together a massive array of case studies, drawing connections across the globe and throughout the century. 
The book is organized into themed chapters, but also drifts intuitively across topics, locations, decades and artists. Topics include racism, sexism, homophobia, the atrocities of war and the ongoing refugee crisis. The diversity of forms represented speaks to Mills’ egalitarian ideals, holding community dance, recreational dance, folk dance and flash mobs to the same level of importance as stage works by renowned choreographers. She ties in stories from Palestine, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and Egypt at least as often as stories out of New York, London and other Western centres of dance discourse.
One chapter is dedicated to ballet, exploring how the classical form can be radical, despite its conservative roots in Louis XIV’s court. She writes about combatants of systemic racism, such as the New York-based organization Final Bow for Yellowface, which seeks to eradicate Asian stereotypes from classics like The Nutcracker. She then brings us to Egypt, where a 2009 photo project called Ballerinas of Cairo helped bring attention to street harassment by changing how women’s bodies are seen in public spaces.
Dance and Activism also makes space for emerging artists. Hussein Smko, for instance, is a contemporary and breakdance artist from Erbil, Kurdistan, who grew up surrounded by tanks and machine-gun fire. When an American soldier showed him a breakdance video on his phone in 2003, at the age of 10, he began teaching himself using videos on the internet, and eventually travelled to New York to work with Battery Dance. He now has his own company there, Project TAG. Heartwarming stories like that of Smko posit dance as an affirmation of presence and visibility — a way of claiming physical ground and demanding to be seen.
It’s clear this is a text written by an academic, meant for a scholarly, not a general, readership. Mills opens with a lengthy discussion of the socialist theories of Eleanor Marx, and ties the ideas of postcolonial theorist Edward Said into later chapters. But YouTube links in the endnotes bring life and colour to the text, proving Mill’s central point about the power of dance to elicit a visceral response, to directly communicate an idea and ultimately to create solidarity.
Tags: activism in dance Ballerinas of Cairo ballet breakdance Dana Mills Dance and Activism diversity equity and inclusion (DEI) Final Bow for Yellowface Hussein Smko international dance news Martha Graham modern and contemporary dance Stormzy