Dance for Freedom

Aunty used to have a picture on the wall in her hallway so that everyone who passed through, and many people passed through, would stop and take it in. A woman dancing, multi-coloured scarves swirling around her writhing shape. The words 'Dance like nobody is watching' printed underneath. Jas thought it was amusing because she had never seen Aunty dance. Although that didn't mean she couldn't, maybe she just wouldn't.

In this new, austere world where women had few rights or freedoms, dancing in public was now forbidden unless it was choreographed by the central ringmaster of entertainment, a white man in his 70s who had no clue about culture. Imagination was now a sin, writers had long since been driven underground and most of the theatres had closed. What passed for entertainment now took place in stadiums, on dates that were deemed important. History had been rewritten so these 'spectaculars' were dedicated to the first great leader and his many achievements. He had proclaimed himself the ender of wars, the man who found miraculous cures for deadly diseases that weren't really diseases at all, the hero who had silenced the devilish minorities, applauded genocide, silenced the laughter and made martyrs of the spewers of vile hatred. The shows always followed the same pattern and the great leader and those who had come after him, always won. There was nothing original, nothing at all beautiful, nothing remotely inspiring, about them. Attendance was compulsory. 

Today the minister for what passed as culture was launching a new 'work.' It was to celebrate the eradication of neurodivergence. It wasn't actually titled 'Everyone is Neurotypical,' but it might as well have been. Today, the girls at Jas' school for young ladies had been invited to perform a dance demonstrating a woman's place in society. It would depict women as home-makers, happy mothers of normal children, stoic sufferers of pain, worshippers of their husbands and fathers. Jas had a solo, she was a great dancer. 

The atmosphere backstage was tense as Jas and her fellow students waited in the wings. Dance was her favourite subject, even though the forms they could choose were, of course, restrictive. The other subjects on the curriculum; cooking, sewing, religious studies, the reinvented 'history of women,' she could take or leave, but dancing was in her very bones, driving energy through her body, shaping her very existence.

Finally, it was their turn and the girls walked calmly onto the stage, taking up their starting positions. They performed small, ritualistic moves, depicting their humility and gratitude towards their masters. They wove a tale of repression for anyone who wanted to read between the lines. The dancers moved back leaving Jas centre stage. Her job was to represent the bravery of women who managed their pregnancies without recourse to medication who, in the words of that first great leader, 'toughed it out'. Her solo had been precisely choreographed by her teacher. The music began, dull and dirge like. Jas ignored it and moved to the beat inside her head. Wild, swooping movements, spinning around the stage, throwing off her dark cloak to reveal a dress of many colours. She leapt, she rolled, she reached for the sky, not caring when the music stopped. Dancing to her own rhythm, the rhythm of women everywhere. Behind her, the other girls shrugged off their cloaks and joined in. Women in the audience did the same. The men tried to stop them, but they were too many, too wild. The women danced for freedom, for a brighter future, for a world where they could dance like nobody was watching.