Dance your democracy

During the policies restricting human contact and movement, known as “lockdown,” implemented in response to the Covid-19 pandemic, I initiated an artistic and social experiment called Dance Your Democracy. The initiative encouraged people to leave the homes in which we were confined in order to reoccupy public space through a collective improvised dance. The project took place in a parking lot located in a neighborhood considered “marginal,” with the intention of further highlighting the unequal living conditions exposed by the health crisis, as well as the intensified marginalization of those already rendered invisible, confined, and excluded within densely populated urban enclaves.

At a moment when the health crisis was raising much broader questions about the way we live together on this earth, my interest lay in the potential of dance as a means of exploring another way of being together and of constituting society. The moving body became a vector of collective resilience, opening a breach in the gloom of the situation and creating a space for reaffirming our capacity to generate meaning and connection even in times of crisis. It was an affirmation of freedom, an invitation to reconnect with our bodies and to reclaim and inhabit space freely.

Although Dance Your Democracy emerged from my personal initiative and desire, one initial resolution was clear: this event did not belong to me. On the day itself, I sought to dissolve this authority by collaborating with the other participants in order to collectively define how we wished to approach dance. We wanted everyone to have the possibility of inhabiting this moment and investing this space according to their own desires and vision.