From public flash mobs to live theatre, dance activism can play a powerful role in communicating experiences that are sometimes difficult to put into words.
“Dancing insists we take up space, and though it has no set direction, we go there together. Dance is dangerous, joyous, sexual, holy, disruptive, and contagious and it breaks the rules. It can happen anywhere, at anytime, with anyone and everyone, and it’s free. Dance joins us and pushes us to go further and that is why it’s at the center of One Billion Rising”
– Eve Ensler.
One Billion Rising is one of the biggest mass actions to end violence against women. On 14 February each year people across the world have come together “to express their outrage, strike, dance, and RISE in defiance of the injustices women suffer, demanding an end at last to violence against women”. It also has a growing number of young people taking part.
Over 30 children (age 8-11) created a dance to show their families and community how they are using movement to explore body image pressures and what a positive relationship with their own bodies and the bodies of others looks and feels like.
Find out more about the EveryBODY Matters project here.
See the annual Big Dance festival, where people of all ages learn a piece of original choreography, make it their own, then perform it wherever they are as part of a worldwide performance day.
See winning young streetdance groups perform at Pride Cymru.
Find out more and take part in the next One Billion Rising! View the multiple versions of the dance Break the Chain from different countries as communities make it their own.
For more on the power of dance, see Youth Dance Wales and Community Dance.
Download this Idea for Change PDF here:
