Celebrate and Demonstrate: Radical politics in somatic practices

This article uses Celebrate and Demonstrate, a project proposing a political alliance between dancers with other workers in the form of rallying and marching together as a lens through which to examine the potential for somatic dance practices to participate in radical politics as they are enacted today. It considers the politics immanent in dance, specifically somatically informed dance, with reference to French philosopher Jean-Luc Nancy’s ontological foundation, being-with, suggesting that this is both the origin and process of the kind of politics recognized in philosopher Judith Butler’s theory of performative assembly. It goes on to propose that, as the somatically trained dancers touch, listen to and engage the world with a particularly heightened sensitivity and openness to the potential for change, they are particularly well adapted to engage in such radical political manifestations.