Skip to main content.
Bard HAC
Bard HAC
  • About sub-menuAbout
    Hannah Arendt

    “There are no dangerous thoughts; thinking itself is dangerous.”

    Join HAC
    • About the HAC
      • About Hannah Arendt
      • Book Roger
      • Our Team
      • Our Location
  • Programs sub-menuPrograms
    Hannah Arendt
    • Our Programs
    • Courage to Be
    • Democracy Innovation Hub
    • Virtual Reading Group
    • Dialogue Groups
    • HA Personal Library
    • Affiliated Programs
    • Hannah Arendt Humanities Network
    • Meanings of October 27th
    • Lapham's Quarterly
  • Academics sub-menuAcademics
    Hannah Arendt

    “Storytelling reveals meaning without committing the error of defining it.”

    • Academics at HAC
    • Undergraduate Courses
  • Fellowships sub-menuFellowships
    HAC Fellows

    “Action without a name, a 'who' attached to it, is meaningless.”

    • Fellowships
    • Senior Fellows
    • Associate Fellows
    • Student Fellowships
  • Conferences sub-menuConferences
    JOY: Loving the World in Dark Times Conference poster

    Fall Conference 2025
    “JOY: Loving the World in Dark Times”

    October 16 – 17

    Read More Here
    • Conferences
    • Past Conferences
    • Registration
    • Our Location
    • De Gruyter-Arendt Center Lecture in Political Thinking
  • Publications sub-menuPublications
    Hannah Arendt
    Subscribe to Amor Mundi

    “I've begun so late, really only in recent years, to truly love the world ... Out of gratitude, I want to call my book on political theories Amor Mundi.”

    • Publications
    • Amor Mundi
    • Quote of the Week
    • HA Yearbook
    • Podcast: Reading Hannah Arendt
    • Further Reading
    • Video Gallery
    • From Our Members
  • Events sub-menuEvents
    Hannah Arendt

    “It is, in fact, far easier to act under conditions of tyranny than it is to think.”

    —Hannah Arendt
    • HAC Events
    • Upcoming
    • Archive
    • JOY: Loving the World in Dark Times Conference
    • Bill Mullen Recitation Prize
  • Join sub-menu Join HAC
    Hannah Arendt

    “Political questions are far too serious to be left to the politicians.”

    • Join HAC
    • Become a Member
    • Subscribe
    • Join HAC
               
  • Search

HAC Events

View All HAC Events

[Dance and Politics: Moving Beyond Boundaries]

Hannah Arendt Center and Dance Program present:

Dance and Politics: Moving Beyond Boundaries

A Lecture by Dana Naomy Mills

Thursday, February 23, 2017
Campus Center, Weis Cinema
7:00 pm – 8:30 pm

This event occurred on:  "In acting and speaking, men show who they are, reveal actively their unique personal identities and thus make their appearance in the human world, while their physical identities appear without any activity of their own in the unique shape of body and sound of the voice. This disclosure of 'who' in contradistinction to 'what' somebody is ... is implicit in everything somebody says and does." (Hannah Arendt)

“There is a vitality, a life force, an energy, a quickening that is translated through you into action, and because there is only one of you in all of time, this expression is unique. And if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium and it will be lost. The world will not have it.” (Martha Graham)

Since ancient times and across cultures, dance has provided a powerful form of human expression. This talk examines the political power of dance from a global perspective inspired by—and drawing upon—the work of Hannah Arendt.

This talk by Dana Naomy Mills, a 2017 Hannah Arendt Fellow, explores different dimensions of dance as a form of intervention into a politics more commonly articulated in words. Dance is understood as a system of communication that allows its subjects to speak with their bodies and to create embodied spaces, drawing attention to the radically egalitarian nature of dance with its ability to transcend all boundaries of gender, race and sexual politics. Drawing on diverse examples such as the work of dance pioneers Martha Graham and Isadora Duncan, gumboots dancers in the gold mines of South Africa, Dabke dancers in Palestine and the One Billion Rising movement challenging gender violence through flash mobs, the talk will present a reading of dance as a form of performing equality as well as distinction.
Footer Contact
Contact HAC
Bard College
PO Box 5000
Annandale-on-Hudson, NY 12504
845-758-7878
[email protected]
Join the HAC
Become a Member
Subscribe to Amor Mundi
Join the Virtual Reading Group
Follow Us
Image for Bluesky
Image for YouTube
Image for Instagram
Image for LinkedIn