Siobhan Burke: Dance didn’t suddenly become political in the span of one tumultuous year. It always has been, and it can’t not be: Being rooted in the body, dance is never abstract, try though it might to elude meaning. A body’s race and gender (or perceived race and gender), for instance, are layers of content in themselves.
Ambiguous by nature, often without the clarity imparted by words, dance lends itself to political readings even when it might not intend to. And how it reads depends on who is reading, on each viewer’s lenses of identity and experience. You may not see what I see; I may just be noticing what you’ve seen all along.
Yet the political dimensions of dance seem especially pointed right now, at a time of heightened discussion about the privileges afforded some bodies and the risks that burden others. However overt or subliminal, intended or accidental, these dimensions rise to the surface, whereas at another time they may have rested beneath it. More here.