The AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power is an internationally situated organization that was created in 1987 to change public rhetoric, policy, and opinion on the AIDS pandemic and the lives of AIDS victims (Crimp & Rolston, 1990, p. 49). The Coalition was founded to assemble the LGBTQ communities and promote policy change. The organization focused on direct action to end the AIDS crisis by pressuring government agencies and spreading awareness. ACT UP was unique in the fact that it consisted of many persons with different motives, because of this, the group was broken down into smaller divisions, known as affinity groups, to streamline communication and ensure that commitment and involvement was maximized. ACtT Up is renowned for their many protests some of which were on Wall Street, outside the Food and Drug Administration building, and at the NYC General Post Office.
The purpose of this research paper is to answer questions that will help explain why the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power, more commonly referred to as ACT UP, has been so successful in their effort to change public opinion and policy about AIDS despite discrimination with a closer look at how the art of protest can be viewed in a performance perspective. According to research conducted by Christiansen and Hanson (1996), ACT UP immersed itself in the complex rhetoric regarding AIDS, choosing instead to take on the humorous approach to such a dark subject matter in order to recreate the art of the protest rather than a tragic and victimizing approach. The discussions of this paper will be centered around defining protest, the choreographies of protest, and ACT UP, to show how ACT UP created a new perspective that has shifted public policy and opinion in regards to the AIDS crisis. Understanding how dance, as a form of protest, took public matters to the streets will be crucial when comparing ACT UP as a well choreographed ‘dance’ and how meaningful the choreography was in the wake of their movement.
Defining Protest:
According to Jasper (2008), the theories of protest have become increasingly aware of the many factors of a complex protest movement. In recent years, social media has taken over as the biggest protest initiator, especially with hashtags circulating mass attention and awareness. Choreography as well is a large form of protest, such as the flash mobs seen during the general elections back in 2016 (Franko, 2016, p. 58). During their active years, ACT UP, redefined peaceful protest through structure, organization, and practice of nonviolent tactics. Instruction and communication that flowed from the higher ups in ACT UP is similar to the direction given by a choreographer in dance.
Choreography of Protest:
There are a wealth of individuals that can be given the credit of defining the choreography of protests. For example, Associate professor at the Department of Performance Studies at Tisch School fo the Arts at New York University, André Lepecki has published numerous texts on the study of performance and choreography, under what he calls “choreopolitics”. In later texts, Lepecki (2016) argued that dancers, such as the 7 pleasure dancers, have continued to make it clear what it means to be a dancer in today’s world (p. 102). The objective is to understand the societal role of the theatre as a gathering place, and see that the dancer’s labor can be connected back to the state of the world during the moment of choreography. In the case of the AIDs pandemic, authors such as Goodall III (2016) have examined dance as a medium of revolt (p. 6).
According to Goodall III (2016), the course of the AIDS epidemic within the United States was inevitably shaped by the way dancers and choreographers used this art form to rebel, and to become anarchists, agaisnt concepts of sexualtiy, masuclinity, and diesase transmission. Through confronting audiences with the reality of their loss and humanizing themselves and their loved ones that passed away, Goodall III (2016) argued that dancers were able to change the image of the epidemic, pushing for necessary social and political reform for the betterment of those suffering with AIDS, and who had lost loved ones to the disease (p.98). Goodall III’s (2016) paper also analyzes the ways that norms of masculinity and the stigma of effeminacy in modern society developed, which was done through tracing the development and disappearance of the male dancers on stages across the world.
Within dance performance theory, Rossen (2007) argued that since the 1990’s, dance scholars have made incredible strides in applying theories and methods from a variety of disciplines and fields of thought to dance studies in order to undergo choreography that meets the model of the moment (p. 85). Take, for example, the work conducted by Bragin (2015), a doctor of philosophy at University of California, Berkeley, who found that within African American communities, the mode of dance has far reaching social consequences.
Bragin (2015) argued that street dance draws a theoretical force from its informal status, and challenges assumptions of where and how the study of dance, in relation to aesthetics, intersects politics through kinesthesia. Kinesthesia is also known as the sixth sense of motion, and under the research of Bragin (2015), was argued as promoting a dimension of movement and study that intertwined the inner tensions of the United States with the choreography of protest (p. 59). Such studies have also led to the introduction of using dance and themes of choreo-politics to educate younger generations about HIV/ AIDS, which has led to dance being considered one of the 189 different methods of nonviolent protest observed by political groups around the world (foster, 2003, p. 395).
In more recent evolutions, authors such as Kedhar (2014) who are deeply involved in topics surrounding dance and the expression of protest, have furthered concepts initially introduced by Bragin (2015) as emerging in the 1990’s, such as the race, and evolved them into the modern era (p. 102). Kedhar (2014) uses the examples of the deaths by police brutality of Michael Brown and Eric Garner, as well as the Occupy movement, as basis for movement. She argued that these protests and horrendous crimes are deliberate in their mobility, and as a result, so should any choreography intertwined with these political measures.
Street dancing, such as that developed by Bragin (2015) and other authors, such as Kedhar (2014), and AIDS protest is where groups like ACT UP intersects the discussion (Gere, 2004, p. 98). Whether it be in the form of traditional presentations, such as planned stage performances, or any other medium where social issues are placed at the forefront of messaging, or in the actual form of peaceful protest, choreopolitics and the choreography of protests have allowed of HIV/AIDS to be brought to the forefront of artistic movements since the 1990’s.
ACT UP:
ACT UP have been criticized throughout their protest movements for being rude, angry, and irreverent in their demonstrations, but this is actually the point of the movement (Christiansen and Hanson, 1996, p. 158). These actions are said to reflect the immediate dangers of AIDS-related illnesses and deaths that many ACT UP protesters face, and have faced since AIDs was discovered. The criticisms of the ACT UP movement also, according to Christiansen and Hanson (1996), reflect the group’s reliance on the comic frame as a way of contending with the stigma of being named the scapegoats for introducing AIDS to the United States. Christiansen and Hanson (1996) argue that, in contrast to the prevailing tragic frame of being undermined with such a falsely accuses brush, comic rhetoric is hopeful and humane as it intes reconciliatio while affirming the importance of rationality and community (p. 159).
The comedic effects of ACT UP were said to have shifted the metaphorical barrier to public opinion gay communities and AIDS sufferers (Christiansen and Hanson, 1996, p.157). Like sit-ins protests, members of the ACT UP movement endeavored to adapt protests to the specific geographical and social environments in which they found themselves (Foster, 2003). Among the earliest actions were “die-ins,” which occurred all over lower Manhattan, disrupting the communities of those working on Wall street , as well as adjacent corporate facilities housing companies known for their profiteering from experimental treatments for AIDS (Foster, 2003, p.395). Die-ins, which featured bodies moving from vertical standing to horizontal lying, occasionally exaggerated the fall with flare and angst, more often transiting pragmatically onto the ground, and became a signature of the ACT UP AIDS awareness movement (Foster, 2003, p. 395).
As a result of the popularization of their protests, ACT up have been cited as being responsible for furthering the reform of clinical trials for AIDS medication, as well sa forging credibility in the importance of the subject matter (Epstein, 1995, p 408). This suggests that the goals and outlines originally developed by ACT UP, that specifically placed an emphasis on using protest as a mean of clearing shifting policy, allowed the movement to flourish despite their unorthodox means of raising awareness (Freeman, 199, p. 135). Similarly, Freeman (1999) argued that the founders of ACT UP were firmly committed to creating a non bureaucratic social movement where member often engaged in such unconventional ations in order to challenge cultural perceptions of AIDS. this movement countered both public and political stigma related to AIDS.
However, by the early 1990’s, the original ACT UP Network had splintered apart due to internal political conflict, but its impact on the political and social systems of the United States remained clear (Gould, 2009, p.182). Through ACT UP’s advocacy, the organization had helped to lower of the price of AIDS treatment drugs, transformed the FDA’s approval -process for AIDS suffered to get the necessary medication they needed, include patients with AIDS in new drug trials from then onwards, and educate people across the country about prevention methods for contracting HIV (Gould, 2009, p. 182). According to Gould (2009), ACT UP’s chosen forms of protest supported medical advancements that, by the mid-1990’s, helped reduce the number of AIDS-related deaths for persons infected with HIV significantly.
Summary:
To conclude this paper, there are a number of arguments that can be highlighted. The first of which is that the body plays the key role in protest, particularly in the case of social and politically-oriented and motivated choreography. The most successful protest organizations contained effective bodies that had the capability to integrate their policies in order to achieve their goals. A great example is how the body was used so effectively within ACT UP AIDS movement. The focus on the body during ACT UP’s protests ultimately helped generate success which was salient in catching the public eye while acting within the comic frame as illustrated by Christiansen and Hanson (1996). Although the organization splintered in the 1990s due to internal unrest, their legacy lived on to the extent that it shifted policy and social opinions of HIV and AIDS from one of stigma to concern. This was likely due to the attention gathered through the strategic locations chosen by ACT UP members to partake in their protests, but these protests, using the personalities and lived experiences of AIDS sufferers in the United States, allowed for an immediate and somewhat wholesome understanding of the realities for this sub-demographic.
Just as the die-ins were considered somewhat tongue-in-cheek, they shed light on the physicality of AIDS, as well as the inner fear of sufferers and those at risk: they could drop dead at any moment. The severity of this message was clearly, as such, enough to from the legacy of ACT UP as outlined by Gould (2009) in the final lines of the discussion. Additionally, the initial section on choreopolitics also shed light on how dancers are frequently within the first demographics to initiate political movements, and mirror them with a coexistence of emotion and grace and unspoken rhetoric that they have the power to change the world. This implies that banding together for a common goal provides individuals with means of striving for changes at a community level.