Anarchology of Art (3/5): “Dance” as Repressed Rebellion and the Discourse of Silent Protest

 

Anarchology of Art (3/5): 

“Dance” as Repressed Rebellion and the Discourse of Silent Protest

Mahmoud Sadeghi Janbehan

Translation assistance by ChatGPT

From Ritual Dance to Clinical Dance

Abstract

This article analyzes dance through the lens of the Anarchology of Art, interpreting it as a repressed rebellion and a discourse of silent protest. In its earliest origins, dance was a pre-linguistic language for regulating anxiety, soothing pain, and restoring balance between human beings and nature—not merely a display of beauty or skill. Over time, ritual dances became subsumed within systems of control and discipline, losing their essence of liberation; yet a silent, rebellious energy still persists within them.

In the modern era, dance therapy attempts to reclaim a sense of self and to offer limited experiences of freedom, though it remains confined within mechanisms of cultural and social control. The male and female body, within patriarchal structures, are both besieged—by moral and religious norms on one side, and by commodified, performative aesthetics on the other. Yet dance remains the moment when the body escapes objectification and reclaims its agency.

The paper argues that from ancient ritual to therapeutic practice, dance functions as a silent language of resistance, reproducing psychological and social equilibrium while embodying the suppressed rebellion of both body and subjectivity.

Keywords: Anarchology of Art, Dance, Repressed Rebellion, Silent Protest, Body and Agency, Patriarchal Power, Dance Therapy, Pre-linguistic Resistance

From Ritual Dance to Clinical Dance

In its earliest forms, dance was neither a spectacle nor an exhibition of grace—it was a ritual act of connection and refuge before the unseen and fearful forces of the world. It served as a shield against the unknown, and in many ways, it still does—though modern humanity has overlaid it with aesthetic and industrial color.

The primordial human, faced with a mysterious and awe-inspiring nature, moved the body to converse with hidden forces, to ask for help, to soothe unnamed anxieties. Dance was at once surrender and prayer, both an appeal and a means to master anger. Through movement, the human sought to restore lost balance: between self and earth, fear and safety, rage and submission.

These gestures were the earliest human attempts at healing inner trembling, channeling unarticulated energies. The body shook to find peace, leaped to escape the turbulence of unknowing, imitated animal motion to learn survival, and sought solace in a world that offered none.

Early dances were not meant to be seen. They had no audience, for the dancer was immersed in a sacred tension—between fear and hope, submission and revolt. They danced not to be admired but to be liberated from invisible domination. Dance was a biological and psychic defense, a movement toward equilibrium between the human and nature, between inner and outer forces.

Before civilization confined the body within aesthetic and utilitarian frames, dance was purely instinctive and unconscious—a response to the force of existence itself. Like leaves trembling in wind, or clouds fleeing storms, the body moved because being itself compelled it to move.

Thus, primal movement was the first language of the body—a language born of fear, directed toward safety, carrying the human yearning for balance, freedom, and calm long before words existed.

Over time, however, ritual turned into ceremony, and ceremony into structure, order, and control. What had once been a spontaneous act of security and connection was gradually absorbed into systems of regulation. Cultural, political, religious, and aesthetic structures—each born from the human desire to dominate—drained dance of its liberating essence. Movements that once belonged to life’s spontaneity became codified, moralized, and aestheticized, reduced to an object of instruction and spectacle.

In this process, dance transformed from collective ritual to manageable performance—from lived experience to visual display. The body ceased to be the messenger of life and became an object of discipline and evaluation. Yet, in the depths of dance, a remnant of that primal, rebellious force persists—a silent energy that beats beneath the skin of order, keeping alive the yearning for freedom.

In contemporary times, the essence of dance reappears in dance therapy. Here, the constrained body moves again to rediscover its sense of self and to experience a limited freedom. But even this return is conditional: dance therapy, though it claims to heal and liberate, is also part of a soft mechanism of control. It no longer serves the gods, but the systems of care, normalization, and psychological management.

In this space, the dancing body is simultaneously liberated and regulated—a subject of observation, correction, and rehabilitation. Its movement serves calmness, not rebellion. Yet even within this therapeutic framework, traces of rebellion remain—subtle dissonances that rise beneath the skin of order, granting the silent body a secret voice.

In that quiet rhythm, the body covertly resists control. Dance therapy, often unconsciously, becomes a site of tension between care and freedom, between health and defiance. Liberation, here, lies not in therapy itself but in transcending therapy—in recognizing that true freedom cannot be institutionalized.

Ultimately, whether in ancient ritual or clinical form, dance preserves a single essence: the persistence of rebellion and resistance against all domination, internal or external. It happens on the border between order and rupture, where the body, from within chaos, creates a new balance. Dance is not a show of beauty, but a psychic act of protest—a way of living that defies oppression and manifests fleeting moments of freedom.

In the anarchological view, the dancing body is the silent language of rebellion—a language that speaks under domination, each movement a new possibility and cry for liberation.

Patriarchal Order: Courage in the Suffocation of Protest

Within patriarchal structures, power operates not merely as a historical formation but as a living logic woven through every dimension of existence. Whether traditional or modern, this logic penetrates education, therapy, family, politics, society, culture, and media. Domination often hides beneath the masks of morality, order, law, and even compassion.

Its traces can be seen in every institution and discourse—even in the most humanitarian acts. Concepts like human rights, women’s rights, or animal rights, while appearing as signs of justice, frequently serve as mechanisms for reproducing the same logic of authority. They function as the safety valves of power, granting controlled spaces for dissent so that the system may survive through managed conflict.

Thus, patriarchal domination persists not by eliminating contradiction but by engineering it—feeding on opposition to renew itself.

Within this network of power, both male and female bodies are doubly trapped: by moral, social, and religious norms on one side, and by consumerist, performative expectations on the other. In both cases, the body becomes an object—either of sin or of pleasure.

Yet dance breaks this binary. In movement, the body reclaims agency, becoming the silent voice of resistance. Dance is a field where, even under the gaze of control, the body re-creates itself, reclaims joy, and redefines meaning.

The female dancer, within such a system, dances both consciously and unconsciously—in solitude or in public, for pleasure or survival, sometimes for material exchange. Yet the act itself transcends intention: dance becomes a return to the self, a discharge of pain, a wordless protest against humiliation, confinement, and control.

Even when limited by shoes, costumes, or commodified spectacle, the dancing woman moves to regain subjectivity. Her every turn negates the gaze that objectifies her. In the suffocation of protest, she speaks through movement—a speech no power can censor, because it arises from the pre-linguistic energy of emotion and existence.

In this sense, dance becomes a moment of reclaiming autonomy and authenticity—a moral and existential defiance of the structures that define, confine, and consume. The feminine dance, whether in secrecy or on stage, embodies the supreme form of repressed rebellion: the revolt of the body against patriarchal ownership, the revolt of feeling against the logic of control, the revolt of life against the discipline of death.

Through dance, the body shouts the recovery of cognitive and ethical selfhood, because in that moment, the subject answers to its inner truth, not to external moral approval.

Conclusion

Throughout history, dance has evolved from a collective, biological ritual of restoration and freedom into a controlled, institutionalized practice serving social and cultural order. Yet within its movements persists a silent, pre-linguistic power that reconstructs agency and freedom amid domination.

In patriarchal systems, the body—female or male—is constrained by moral norms and consumerism, yet dance challenges this control, activating the silent discourse of protest and enabling the re-creation of selfhood, freedom, and anarchic life.

From this perspective, dance is not merely an aesthetic act, but an ethical and political gesture—a mode of resistance through which the subject restores cognitive, emotional, and moral balance, reclaiming autonomy in defiance of control.

Reference:

Sadeghi Janbehan, M. (2025). Anarchology of Art (3/5): “Dance” as Repressed Rebellion and the Discourse of Silent Protest. Retrieved from https://anarchology.blogfa.com