Dancing in the Street: I Found a Way to Protest That Works for Me
This essay appeared in Jenny Magazine.
One night last week, my husband and I tuned into the news and watched the protests in Los Angeles following the ICE raids. It was shortly after President Donald Trump deployed the National Guard into the city without a request from Gov. Gavin Newsom or a local government. The broadcast focused on a confrontation between peaceful protestors and L.A. police officers. We watched as the officers pulled a protester from a pole that she was clinging to and dragged her body across the pavement. Four officers then pinned her to the ground as she screamed.
In another circumstance, I could see myself changing the channel. While I want to be aware of the violence and injustice that is happening in the world, actually watching it occur is a level of intensity that I’m not always prepared for. But this time, I wouldn’t let myself look away.
Trump’s abuses of power awakened a zeal for activism in me. Raising my voice in opposition of those in charge hasn’t always come easily, but the continual threats to the values we hold true as Americans has made me want to fight back. I’ve learned that bearing witness, as I did that day by watching the news, is part of it.
I’ve also learned that I can shape how I speak out. That protests can be about celebrating community, as shown by the peaceful No Kings Day demonstrations across the country on June 14. That the greatest form of resistance is often joy.
For the last several months, on Friday evenings, I put on a pair of fluorescent, heart-shaped sunglasses, wind a spiky boa around my neck, and tie an American flag cape around my shoulders.
I’ve never been one for outlandish outfits. Stylish, yes. Eye-catching, sure. Garish and hopelessly patriotic? Not so much.
But my get-up is attention grabbing, and that’s the point. Because for about an hour, I wave a homemade poster board sign outside of Baltimore’s Penn Station. And, most importantly, I dance.
The roughly 30 other dancers, myself included, shake and shimmy and two-step to music blaring from portable speakers. We wave signs to catch the eyes of rush-hour passengers arriving and departing on the Acela express or the MARC train, wheeling suitcases and lugging briefcases. Our signs display messages: “We want due process for all.” “We refuse to support fascism.” “We’re fed up with human rights abuses.”
Our dancing is what defines us. We are not the image of violent, angry protestors conveyed on social media and in news clips. We wave, cheer, and try to recruit passersby to join us. We sing along to Whitney Houston, Diana Ross, and The Specials. We take a stand with our joy.
My friend Sonia and I got the idea from videos of protestors in Washington, D.C. line dancing. We said to one another, “We can do that, right?” Sonia, who is also a writer, and I met in a hip-hop dance class three years ago. We bonded over our shared love of dancing, which enabled us to express ourselves in ways words could not. The movement freed our bodies and minds. It let us release emotions and find community with fellow dancers.
Gabriella and her fellow protestors
Sonia shelled out for our costume accessories and borrowed a sound system. I brought poster supplies. Sonia used her contacts in activism and community organizing to spread the word, and our first week, eight folks (including our dancer friend Diane) joined us on a corner in front of Baltimore’s Meyerhoff Symphony Hall. One of the protesters, a self-proclaimed retired dad, arrived on his birthday, and told us there was no way he’d rather spend it.
There was a moment before Sonia started the playlist that we looked at one another. Reality set in. We were going to do it—stand on a street corner in our eye-catching gear and dance.
As much as I love to dance, this would be the most public of my displays. Sure, I’ve danced with abandon at outdoor parties under the stars, in clubs, my bedroom, or onstage. But being in the daylight, catching the attention of rush-hour drivers with hip thrusts and shoulder shakes, that was new for me.
The beat from the stereo pulsed and we began to move. We kicked into the air, did some box steps. We experimented with using the signs as props.
The honks started, along with drivers’ waves and cheers. I looked at my fellow dancers. We were all smiling.
The next week, we decided we were brave enough to try Penn Station. We lugged our gear up to the pedestal of the Male/Female statue, a 45-foot steel sculpture that stands outside the 100-year-old train station. We got into our outfits; the boas, capes, and sunglasses enabling me to transform into an alter ego.
Dancing in public forces me to acknowledge that I look ridiculous. That strangers will gawk at the cringey face I make when I concentrate and the awkward parts of myself that I try to ignore. But that is the point.
Becoming a spectacle displays the silliest, truest parts of me. I’m showing the world that no one can make me afraid to be who I am or tell me what to do—especially not a government who wants to divide its citizens so its unlawful policies will go unquestioned. A friend told me after the 2024 presidential election that the opposite of fascism is connection, and I’ve taken that as truth. Being myself and gathering with others is the strongest, surest way I know to not give up or back down.
The word spread, and now dozens of people show up at Penn Station on Friday afternoons to dance with us. We hand out homemade zines that Sonia made. One woman brings her children, and they make chalk drawings on the pavement.
One Friday, a car screeched to a stop in front of the protest, and two men and a child jumped out. The men asked for chalk, and my body tensed when I saw one of them carried an open wine bottle. I shouldn’t have worried. One of the men wrote “FREEDOM” in bright blue letters, the other “We All One” with a heart.
Train passengers frequently stop to film us with their cell phones. Whenever I see someone break into a smile, I carry it in my heart. Some passers-by move their bodies hesitatingly, mimicking our dance moves, like they hope no one sees them. I do. I see you, I say to them in my mind.
Since the protests started in LA, and the No Kings marches across the country last Saturday, the sense of community has gotten even stronger, as has the realization of the importance of the work.
At protests in the past, I’ve become enraged, frustrated, and unsure of what to do with the emotions building inside me. When I’m dancing, that bad energy flows out and is replaced with a giddy happiness. The kind that makes me want to start a conga line with a total stranger.
When happiness fills me, I lift my sign high. I think of my fellow activists who bear witness and stand up for what they believe in. I twirl in the wind, toward the setting sun, and my American flag cape unfurls behind me.