What Freedom Might Be Like

Get ready to feel freedom alongside Gund Curatorial Fellow LaTanya S. Autry as she leads a discussion and disco dance workshop in the exhibition Temporary Spaces of Joy and Freedom. “What Freedom Might Be Like” will consider how various Indigenous and Black people have defined freedom and used dance as both coded political resistance and celebration of life.
Through acknowledging how enslaved people and Native Americans’ devised Juba and Ghost Dance traditions, respectively, as subversive and community building modes, the program will explore Michi Saagiig Nishnaabeg artist and scholar Leanne Betasamosake Simpson’s meditation on the power of performance in creating freedom.
Autry will also work with Red Carpet by Vaimoana Niumeitolu and Kyle Goen, in order to—as Simpson urges—get the feeling of freedom in our bones.
The title for this program, “What Freedom Might Be Like,” was gleaned from a 2018 conversation between Leanne Betasamosake Simpson and Dionne Brand.