Dance Context Journal 2026 announces its call for papers on Politics in Dance
“All art is political in the sense that it serves someone’s politics”, wrote the American playwright August Wilson.
Fifteen years since the publication of the first anthology on Dance and Politics, edited by Alexandra Kolb, this topic is even more relevant today. The world faces multiple crises: rising extremism, wars, migration, global warming… Therefore, in the 2026 edition of Dance Context Journal, we want to investigate the role of art, and more specifically dance art, in responding to and communicating urgent themes relating to these challenges. Does dance have the capacity to highlight certain issues and offer solutions, and, if so, how? Can dance become a part of political propaganda and struggle?
Dance Context Journal
We consider the specific position of body-based artistic practices to be particularly relevant as a specific politicum, with a unique apparatus of bodily experience, memory, and knowledge, in which experiences of diverse socio-geo-political backgrounds are constantly inscribed, layered, and reconfigured.
Art and politics have been inseparable throughout the ages, and, for this reason we would like to open up the publication to issues from both the past and the present. From ballet de cour as a means of embodying the ruler’s legitimacy and controlling the courtiers in the 17th century, to modern dance and body culture practices of the 1930s as a response to the intensifying Nazi ideology, history offers a wide range of experiences and case studies as a source of knowledge for the present day.
Topical issues that may be covered in articles include (but are not limited to):
- Dance in the shadow of extremism
- BodyPolitics or how bodies are regulated, politicized, and mobilized in performance
- Discussions on gender, race, migration, and national identity in dance
- Dance as propaganda instrument
- The effects of politics on state-funded theatres and companies
- Funding cuts, censorship, and the marginalization of independent artistic practices related to right-wing populism and politics
- How dance achieves its politics
- How notions of the political are themselves expanded when viewed through the perspective of dance
- The historical development of the relationship between dance and politics
- Dance against the background of colonialism
You can apply to different sections of the Journal:
The first thematic section, in which articles of a popular and educational nature, essays by critics, theoreticians, artists, etc. are published. These articles range in length from 9,000 to 18,000 characters.
The second thematic section, in which peer-reviewed studies are published. These articles must meet the standards of scientific articles in terms of theory, methodology, citation of sources, and range in length from 18,000 to 36,000 characters.
As of more recently, we now also offer the opportunity for shorter opinion articles to be published, addressing a live current issue, with lengths ranging from 3,600 to 5,400 characters
Abstracts with article topics of 150 to 300 words and a short CV (100 words) should be submitted by 25 November 2025 using this form.
Selected authors will be contacted by 31 December 2025. The deadline for submission is then 31 January 2026 for non-peer-reviewed articles and 15 February 2026 for peer-reviewed articles.
Contact: silvia.nemcova@dancecontext.com
