Dance, Human Rights, and Social Justice

Dance, Human Rights, and Social Justice: Dignity in Motion presents a wide-ranging compilation of essays, spanning more than 15 countries. Organized in four parts, the articles examine the regulation and exploitation of dancers and dance activity by government and authoritative groups, including abusive treatment of dancers within the dance profession; choreography involving human rights as a central theme; the engagement of dance as a means of healing victims of human rights abuses; and national and local social/political movements in which dance plays a powerful role in helping people fight oppression.

These groundbreaking papers—both detailed scholarship and riveting personal accounts—encompass a broad spectrum of issues, from slavery and the Holocaust to the Bosnian and Rwandan genocides to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict; from First Amendment cases and the AIDS epidemic to discrimination resulting from age, gender, race, and disability. A range of academics, choreographers, dancers, and dance/movement therapists draw connections between refugee camp, courtroom, theater, rehearsal studio, and university classroom.

Naomi Jackson, Ph.D. in performance studies, is associate professor in the Department of Dance at Arizona State University. She is the author of Converging Movements: Modern Dance and Jewish Culture at the 92nd Street Y (2002).

Toni Shapiro-Phim, Ph.D. in cultural anthropology, is director of research and archiving at the Khmer Arts Academy in Takhmao, Cambodia. She is the co-author of Dance in Cambodia (1999).