Responses to "Dance, Human Rights, and Social Justice: Dignity in Motion" by Halley

Ch. 8: The hidden Authoritarian Roots in Western Concert Dance

By Robin Lakes

“Why is it that the onstage visions of anti-authoritarianism and social justice do not translate into reforming educational practices in the dance studio? What are the roots of the authoritarian pedagogical heritage of the concert dance world?” (110).

“The authoritarian personality structure harbors such characteristics as low opinion of human nature, punitiveness, fatalism, contempt for the weak, cynicism, aggression, an ironic submission to authority, intolerance for ambiguity, and projection, ascribing to another person attitudes present in oneself” (111).

“The embedded pedagogical message is that it is acceptable to view dancers as the raw material in dance, similar to inanimate paint. When dancers are being utilized for an artistic vision, their thoughts and feelings do not matter” (114).

I think the best type of rehearsal is one that troubles the notion of the teacher/student or director/performer hierarchy. It’s important to allow the performers to have a sense of control over what they’re doing. At Youth Creates, every rehearsal starts the same way: we gather in a circle and we check in. By doing this, it becomes clear that this rehearsal is a safe space where everyone is encouraged to speak. Everyone should bring themselves and their ideas to this rehearsal.

Similarly, at Moving in the Spirit, Dana explained to us that she always adapts her classes to her students. Regardless of what her original lesson plan was, she will change her class so that it best fits the needs of the students. If her students are angry about something, how can she incorporate movement that allows them to work through the anger?

Adapting choreography to the ensemble is imperative. This is the only way you allow dancers to own movement as their own. When Mama Ye Ye came in to teach an African dance workshop to Youth Creates, she asked a student to help her teach. Mama Ye Ye said that the student should take the choreography and adjust it because she actually knows the ensemble and has a relationship with them. Mama Ye Ye realized that as an outsider to the ensemble she couldn’t just barge in and tell them how they should move. Ultimately, the student didn’t adjust the choreography very much. However, the fact that Mama Ye Ye gave her permission to adjust it is what mattered. It still made the ensemble feel like the choreography was theirs and like they weren’t just being told what to do. To borrow Robin Lakes’s words, she didn’t treat the dancers like they were just inanimate paint.

Ch. 2: Practical Imperative

"Is dance by its nature inevitably authoritarian?  Can human rights coexist with the aims of dance, the art of the body? Or will dance be acutely bound to represent stifled individuals, their humiliation and their desire for freedom because it is so interlinked with suppression and violation of the human body itself? And what would a democratic or a rights-based dance look like? Can such a thing exist? Would this be the ultimate anti-art, so politically correct and unprovocative, that it becomes absurdly boring?” (18).

Honestly, I’m not sure how to answer these questions. I’ve been dancing since I was a kid and I didn’t really start to think critically about it until…well, this summer honestly. I am an extremely critical person, always questioning everything. In the past, I’ve always thought very critically about my visual art and my acting. However, I never really questioned my dance training.

I grew up with mostly conventional dance training (ballet, jazz, and hip hop). I NEVER spoke in dance class. I’m a pretty loud, talkative, goofy person, but in dance class I always silently learned the choreography. I didn’t question anything.

After this summer, I’m learning how dance allows room for personal expression. Movements can be altered to fit the dancer. Dancers can create their own movements! There’s so much more to dance than proper technique.

Okay, here is a weird confusing thought I have:

I feel like no movement will ever be “natural” (the way we hold ourselves, the way we sit, etc.). Is doing a pirouette less natural than walking? Even the way I walk is the result of existing within society. How does gender/socio-economics/race affect my walk? Is there a “normal” walk? A “natural” one? I don’t think so. Sometimes I feel like none of my choices are truly my own, because they are influenced by all of these outside factors (and even unconscious processes). So who am I to say certain kinds of dance isn’t natural?

I do think that what’s important is interrogating what we consider dance. There is so much more than ballet and modern. I think the best way to explore human rights through dance is to open up the possibilities of what dance can be. Any purposeful movement can be dance. Everyone moves differently (even if, as I argue, a lot of that movement is potentially based on societal factors and unconscious processes). Instead of dance being about forcing everyone to move in the same way, a way that is often Eurocentric and limiting, it should open opportunities for new movement.