American dance companies today must follow in Graham's footsteps by refusing to perform at the Kennedy Center in Washington D.C. in protest of President Donald Trump's administration and his recent purge of the historic arts organization's leadership. Performance at the Kennedy Center legitimatizes President Trump's authoritarian grab for power and indirectly aligns with the Trump administration's explicit and continual assault on identity, freedom of expression, diversity, equity, inclusion, and democracy.  

In the spirit of Martha Graham, dancers and dance companies must maintain the responsibility of the artist to oppose authoritarianism, bigotry, and censorship. If invited to perform at the Kennedy Center under the leadership of President Trump: Do not dance.

Since his inauguration on January 20th, President Trump and his administration have moved to impose an extremist agenda on all facets of American life that has largely gone unchecked. With particular assault on American minorities, the administration has censored the use of language related to diversity, equity, and inclusion in any federal or state communication. In place, they have moved to coercively homogenize and exclude while exacerbating rampant inequality.  

Additionally, the administration has reaffirmed its support for authoritarians worldwide, with Vice-President J.D. Vance aligning himself with extremist German politics, and President Trump's betraying both Ukrainians and Palestinians by allying himself with Vladimir Putin and Benjamin Netanyahu and encouraging the mass resettlement of Palestinians in Gaza.   

With his coup of the Kennedy Center, President Trump has made it clear that artists are next on his list. It is clear that President Trump intends to censor the Kennedy Center's programming in alignment with his administration's agenda, beginning by canceling LGBTQ+-pride shows scheduled for the summer. 

He expects that artists will fall in line. They must not.   

Engaging with the Kennedy Center legitimizes an authoritarian regime that censors free, diverse, and critical expression, all of which run antithetical to the role of artists who, according to James Baldwin, must “be divorced from and even necessarily opposed to any system whatever.” Should artists fall into systemic obedience, “if [art] adapts itself to what the majority of our society wants, art will be a meaningless recreation. In this way, we shall have the production of entertainers or of formal grammarians, and in both cases, this leads to an art cut off from living reality,” Albert Camus wrote in “Create Dangerously.” 

It is certainly possible to lean into art as protest: For example, on Feb. 17th, a group of dancers performed Pina Bausch's “The Nelken Line” outside of the Center in a striking act of solidarity. 

However, to publicly perform inside the Kennedy Center—even if while internally maintaining values of freedom and justice—empowers President Trump's agenda and grab for power. At this point in time, it is essential that dancers and dance companies reject any alignment with the Trump administration. They must refuse to perform on the Kennedy Center's stage.    

This is not an easy decision for dancers and dance companies to make, and it will certainly not be without sacrifice. Dance companies, almost all of whom are struggling for survival coming out of the pandemic, will risk performance income, prestige, and good standing in the eyes of federal funders. Before refusing to perform, it is imperative that both company leadership and dancers be in conversation and for all parties to be made fully aware of any resulting consequences. 

But dancers and dance companies alike must be prepared to accept these consequences. Dancers and dance companies must refuse to comply. They must refuse to dance for President Trump's administration.

To turn again to Baldwin, let artists remember that while the cultivation of artistry may be personal, “none of it belongs to you. It is a total risk of everything, of you and who you think you are, who you think you’d like to be, where you think you’d like to go. You can only take if you are prepared to give, and giving is not an investment.” 

Amidst an overwhelming and discouraging atmosphere of compliance among Congress, courts, academic leadership, and law enforcement—to name a few—artists must not forfeit their integrity and independence. 

Let it be the artists—whose very character lies in freedom of identity, the bearing of truth, and the pursuit of beauty—who lead the struggle to reject a fundamentally oppressive, untruthful, and ugly administration. Let dancers and dance companies find the courage to refuse performance at the Kennedy Center and resist becoming the faces and bodies of President Trump's anti-democratic, authoritarian, and unconscionable regime.