Yes, it’s political: Dance & Disparities during a Trump term

The first sentence of the 2024 Republican Party Platform is its dedication: “To the forgotten men and women of America.” This powerful message can and should be expanded upon as the toll of inequality continues to rip through America. From attacks on LGBTQ+ rights to stark racial disparities in mortality rates during COVID-19 and the dismantling of maternal mortality committees in states with severe abortion bans, the idea of addressing the needs of those forgotten by America seems lost. As a lifelong American and an academic studying politics and public policy for the past six years, I am outraged by the hypocrisy that emerges from both sides of the political spectrum. Policies are being crafted in the interest of billionaires, our tax dollars are being used to eviscerate communities across the world against our will, and we now face historic cuts to medical and food aid for Americans who need it most. This raises the question: How can we support each other during these pressing times?

If anything has become clear over the past decade, it is this: Americans must come together, not for the sake of their politicians, but for each other. These events have shaped our personal, academic, and professional lives from a global pandemic to three contentious elections and the recovery from a global recession. Americans have been through enough. Combined with the historic levels of distrust in government and expansive political polarization, the need for a new approach is obvious, especially concerning “We the People.” This calls for a radical proposal: stop relying on politicians or the government and start relying on each other to build a better country. But this idea goes even further: this is where dance emerges to take the front line.

While seemingly bizarre and abstract as an ideological method of building community and resolving trauma, dance has repeatedly been proven through empirical evidence in programs across the country to be effective in curbing aggressive behaviors and aiding in the healing process of community members affected by violence and post-traumatic stress disorder. A widely cited pilot program for elementary school students from 2004, titled “PEACE through Dance Movement”, found a statistically significant decrease in students instigating fights, failing to calm down, throwing classroom items, and showing frustration intolerance after participating in a 12-week dance program.

Similarly, a NEA research study from New York City demonstrated that dance movement, taught by the organization Move to Move Beyond, resulted in a statistically significant improvement in the symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder among survivors of domestic and gender-based violence. While these examples represent just a fraction of the many programs across the country, they illustrate that community-based dance programs significantly mitigate aggressive behavior, trauma, and the aftereffects of violence in both individuals and communities, results that this country sorely needs.

Additionally, dance is unique among other art forms, allowing people to express themselves through movement instead of words. It is both performance-based and social, encompassing a wide variety of movements that can express cultural identity, lived experience, and humanity in a way many other art forms cannot replicate. Scientifically, dance and dance learning reduce cortisol levels and have been shown through recent studies to be one of the most effective ways to combat depression, more powerful than even some antidepressants. These benefits are essential to our splintered communities, and even if all dance did was provide joy to individual Americans each day, would that not be worth it?

Despite the benefits dance has to offer our communities, it is a primary target of efforts by the Trump administration to restrict arts funding. Dance has historically served as a medium of protest against social injustice and fascist regimes, with notable examples including Lester Horton and Jane Dudley’s protests against Nazism in the 1930s. Accordingly, dance is a powerful tool for political and community resistance, and efforts to restrict our freedom of expression through dance — and the arts writ large — should not be taken lightly. The arts may seem like a trivial issue to many Americans. However, restrictions on the arts are often an early warning sign of impending persecution. To protect each other and our communities, commitment to the arts cannot falter in the face of adversarial policy.

While responses to the Trump administration’s actions have been mixed, support for the arts — and, by extension, dance — is not. 72% of Americans believe the arts play a crucial role in unifying communities, with 92% of Americans in agreement that every student should have access to a quality arts education. Additionally, the benefits of the arts do not benefit just one side of the political aisle: conservative states across the country often receive the bulk of the benefit from arts funding, allowing greater access and earlier exposure to the arts and freedom of cultural expression for their residents, meaning that the arts are essential regardless of political affiliation or background. As such, if Americans are going to take action to help their fellow Americans, the arts, particularly dance, are the first place we need to be looking. Thus, the point is clear: access to the arts and arts education is vital and should be universal, reliable, and communitarian.

Three things are irrefutable: the goodness of the American people, the necessity of “We the People,” and the fact that Americans’ care for each other is greater than any politician, propagandistic advertisement, or government enterprise wants them to believe. Integrating community dance into society will not serve as a mere band-aid on the bullet hole representing America’s challenges. Still, it is a vital first step toward unity and actual greatness instead of being a country defined by power-drunk men past their prime. This is a shared struggle, whether acknowledged or not, and Americans need to be prepared to strap on their dancing shoes and give each other the chance to dance.