Fifty-seven years ago this week, with the memories of World War II still fresh, humankind had cause for hope. On December 10 1948, the General Assembly of the United Nations adopted and proclaimed the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, noting, amongst its many articles: ‘Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person,’ and that the promotion of ‘the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world.’
Yet, accepting the Nobel Peace Prize in 1986, noted Holocaust survivor and human rights activist Eli Wiesel drew attention to the fact that human rights were still violated on a daily basis on every continent and that more people were oppressed than free. And in 2005, our global media forums bear daily witness to all new examples of horrific human rights abuses.
What went wrong in the push towards implementing such a worthy cause?
He tellingly declared that as a global community: “We must take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented…when human lives are endangered, when human dignity is in jeopardy, national borders and sensitivities become irrelevant.”
To this end the global arts community has not hesitated. The realities of human rights abuse have indeed been explored on countless occasions within many arts forums across the world in both first and third world climates, and significant results have been achieved. Most interestingly perhaps is the work currently underway in the dance sector. An arts sector that some would argue difficult to interpret amongst its own establishment – let alone easy to use as a form of global protest.
In her treatise on the art of dance, I am a dancer, world-renowned choreographer Martha Graham noted: ‘I think the reason dance has held such an ageless magic for the world is that it has been the symbol of the performance of living.’
Often called ‘activist art’ in the context of promoting human rights, this category of dance performance and creation, not surprisingly, has both impassioned supporters as well as fierce detractors.
Critics of the form believe politics should be left to politicians, and art as a political tool is a foolish, ignorant and irrelevant exercise. It does not empower – it merely distracts. Some go further, arguing that any art with a political message immediately becomes propaganda, diminshing its value and status as art.
On the flip side, proponents of activist art such as the organization Speak Truth to Power, hold that “art is, at its core, about true freedom, about untrammelled speech, unbridled expression of the spiritual and the relentless search of conscience…art explores our every corner- high, low, sublime and sorry alike; it is the mirror of man”.
So who is right, if such a thing can be asked?
Earlier this year, CORD (Congress in Research on Dance) brought these and related issues into focus with the staging of the International Conference on Dance and Human Rights. The event espoused the aim of bringing to a global platform ‘the ways in which dance, in its various popular and theatrical forms, is intimately connected to human rights issues.’
In discussing the ways in which the arts have been used to champion human rights issues, Amnesty International representative Paul Woods observed: “Because dance, unlike film and drama, uses movement not words to convey ideas and emotions, it gets into our consciousness in a different way and thus can be a very effective additional tool in making our case for human rights.”
In an article charting the staging her own dance piece, Wreath Of Memories, Assistant Professor of Dance at Cornell University, Chris Johnson, logged: “I needed a new framework in which to express my reaction to the Holocaust. I choreographed this dance so that people would know the terrible depths of hatred, but also see the passionate beauty that still can arise out of those who experience such horrific atrocities.”
Concurrently however, history shows that political dictators have and still seize control of the arts as a mechanism of control and subjugation.
Despots such as Joseph Stalin banned, persecuted and even killed artists who wouldn’t conform to the strict guidelines laid down by his regime. A cultural arm of the Stalinist state, the Bolshoi Ballet was considered the premier showcase of Soviet art. Yet far from being a haven of artistic freedom, the lives of the company’s dancers were rigidly controlled.
The works staged, in keeping with Stalin’s political ideology in promoting an image of a progressive Russia to the world, one that only existed in his imagination, had to be unambiguous, patriotic, and rousing with no room for fresh ideas or viewpoints. To escape these personal and creative strictures, noted dancers as Rudolph Nureyev and Mikhail Baryshnikov fled to the West.
Perhaps it is Holocaust survivor and human rights activist Nesse Goldin who best sums up the symbiosis that exists between the medium of dance and the power it affords both activist and oppressor.
“Every form of art we create conveys a message’, Goldin declared, after viewing Wreath Of Memories. “Everything we do in our lives and our lifetime can send a message; every part of our life is a story.”
