What Does Dance Patriotism Look Like Today?

What Does Dance Patriotism Look Like Today? At this turbulent political moment, as the nation commemorates its 250th anniversary, it’s a complicated time to be an artist in the U.S. The country’s dance organizations appear to be of multiple minds on how to observe the semiquincentennial. Some companies have thoughtfully programmed works that align with the anniversary. Other groups and artists have chosen to ignore the milestone—or to choreograph through it, making works that grapple with its complexities. Under the current political administration, the National Endowment for the Arts has actively encouraged anniversary celebrations. The NEA’s former Challenge America program, which funded arts programs in underserved communities, was cut in 2025; instead, the Trump administration directed the NEA to fund projects aligned with America250. Ultimately, the NEA awarded 50 such grants across the nation, with Carolina Ballet, Dallas Black Dance Theatre, Rochester City Ballet, and Calpulli Mexican Dance Company from East Elmhurst, New York, each receiving $25,000 for American-focused projects. A few produced full-throated celebrations, like Carolina Ballet’s “Celebration of American Music” program in April, which featured George Balanchine’s rah-rah Stars and Stripes. Others took a more nuanced approach. In February, Dallas Black used the funds to support Bodies as Site of Faith and Protest, a powerful work set to the words of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s “We Shall Overcome” speech, with choreography by Tommie-Waheed Evans. And Calpulli presented a program highlighting the contributions of Mexican Americans to the U.S. on tour in April. Many ballet companies—which have a long legacy of American-made works, particularly from 20th-century masters like Balanchine, Jerome Robbins, and Agnes de Mille—have found off-the-shelf rep to honor the U.S.’s 250th year without emphasizing possibly divisive political messaging. At San Francisco Ballet, artistic director Tamara Rojo featured Balanchine’s requisite Stars and Stripes in February, among other U.S.-made pieces. Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre’s February 2026 “America 250” program featured a quartet of works, including a Stars and Stripes pas de deux, Lisa de Ribere’s baseball-themed The Mighty Casey, and Paul Taylor’s ode to American World War II soldiers, Company B. In May, Tulsa Ballet presented its “Made in America” program at London’s Royal Opera House. “I thought we better go there with something that is representative of who we are, so I thought carefully about how to best represent our company and our country,” says artistic director Marcello Angelini. “We are the official cultural ambassador for Oklahoma, and I take that responsibility seriously.” The London evening featured three American-made works—Yuri Possokhov’s Classical Symphony, Nicolo Fonte’s Divenire, and Broadway choreographer Andy Blankenbuehler’s Remember Our Song—which Angelini says were chosen to reflect the diversity of the U.S. Some choreographers are no strangers to patriotic dancemaking. This year isn’t the first time the Mark Morris Dance Group, for example, presented programs under the title “Dances to American Music.” Morris, with his wide-ranging tastes in music across genres and nations, has presented evenings focusing on American music for decades. This year the company offered programs of Morris works set to a range of American composers, including George Gershwin, Henry Cowell, Bob Wills, and Lou Harrison. When asked if he was specifically involved in planning programs for the semiquincentennial year, Morris replies, “Sure. I’m all for it. I think it’s great.” He notes that he moved to New York City in 1976, the year of the bicentennial. “And I’m very glad to be an American artist, but I can’t defend a lot of things the U.S. is doing right now,” he says. As outspoken as Morris has been throughout his choreographic career, he declines to go into further detail about politics. “I don’t want to talk about politics specifically, because I think if you can win a prize for it, whatever it is, it’s less likely to be art,” he says, alluding to electoral politics as a contest for winners. “That’s my feeling about politics as well as political art.” Other companies looked to their own history for programming guidance. The Martha Graham Dance Company has been celebrating its 1926 founding for three years now, completing the cycle this year by coinciding with America250. When thinking about the semiquincentennial, artistic director Janet Eilber followed the lead of Graham’s repertory, which often lionizes the power of the individual and democratic ideals. The company chose classic Graham Americana pieces like Appalachian Spring and Frontier, as well as older works like Lamentation and Steps in the Street, which remain relevant with their emphasis on social justice and the power of community. But Eilber also programmed new works by Hope Boykin and Tommie-Waheed Evans, inspired by Graham’s revolutionary spirit. “There is often a lot of talk about her choreographic legacy,” says Eilber, who worked closely with Graham for nearly a decade. “What we’re interested in is [Graham’s] legacy of innovation. She was always looking to the future. That was her directive: We need to keep our eyes open.” Not all dance artists are marking the semiquincentennial with red, white, and blue patriotism. Doug Varone pulled his eponymous company out of the Kennedy Center’s 2025–26 season earlier this year, in response to the purge that instated Donald Trump as chairman of the nation’s performing arts center’s governing board. Varone is in no mood to celebrate America250 with flag-waving and fireworks displays. “Given the moment the country is in right now, I’m looking at my programming in terms of the messages I’m sending out,” he says. He pointed to his recently premiered No Matter What the End (to Radiohead’s In Rainbows), a response to the changes in the nation and its capital. “While it’s not a political work, the dance is about all the things we’re feeling right now: It feels aggressive, lonely, isolated, confused,” Varone says. “It is an opportunity for me as an artist to talk about what’s important to me. I love that the art speaks for itself, and becomes the place to talk about what we’re actually seeing and feeling.” And some have turned dance into explicit political protest. Over the past few months, Broadway choreographer and former dancer Matthew Steffens has created two site-specific works called ResistDance for the First Amendment Troop. The first piece—which dramatized the final moments of Renée Nicole Good and Alex Pretti, the two civilians killed by ICE officers in Minneapolis in January—was performed and filmed in Washington, DC, in front of the Kennedy Center and the Lincoln Memorial, and has earned more than 70 million views. The second—which was also performed in the plaza at the Lincoln Memorial and also proceeded to go viral online—was inspired by the controversy surrounding the release of the Epstein files. In Steffens’ view, making art that wrestles with the realities of this political moment is a patriotic act. “In celebrating the 250 years of our country, we can celebrate its greatness, as well as celebrate the obstacles that we have had as a country, and are continuing to face as a country,” Steffens says. “If we don’t say anything in our art, and don’t make audiences think, how are we going to make any forward progress? And if art goes away, then we leave a vacuum.”