Dancing As spontaneous Ritual by Dan Firger As the police retreated down G Street and out of sight, overwhelmed by angry black-clad anarchists and a crowd seething with the release of that morning’s nervous energy, I walked around in a stupor, not quite sure what I should be doing with myself. Most people seemed to be in a similar state of confusion, scattered around in small groups or alone, incredulously reviewing the violent events of the previous few minutes in their heads or in animated conversation. I still don’t remember exactly what I was thinking during those moments after the police attacked. I do remember, however, feeling violated in a way that I had never felt before. For me the morning of April 16 had been an empowering, exhilarating experience of community. Our group of 100 or so Wesleyan students g!!athered at G and 21st streets was a small part of a much larger community: a spontaneous, organic, self-affirming, celebratory creation that filled the streets and resonated among activists around the world. When the police charged us, batons swinging and boots kicking, they weren’t trying to clear the intersection at all; they were trying desperately to stop a process that was clearly happening all around them. They (obviously with orders from above) were trying to keep us from coming together, to keep us from forming a community of people who are ready and willing to challenge the status quo, to stop us from standing up and saying “No, we don’t agree with the way you are running our world.” For a few brief moments, it felt like they might have succeeded, turning our defiant, celebratory gathering into a panicked mob. However, less than fi!!ve minutes after the police violence and the crowd’s panic, a roving parade of giant puppets and Wesleyan’s own Hot Snappy Bombastic Marching Band poured into the intersection, transforming the space through a free and joyous moment of sanctification. As the parade moved further down 21st street, the H.S. Marching Band lined up, pounding out a funky beat on their drums. Soon the intersection was filled with people dancing furiously, dancing with abandon, sweating and grinning and losing themselves in the spontaneous celebration. If our dancing was not a religious experience, I don’t know what is. What we experienced was, in my view at least, the uncontrollable creation of a ritual meant to reaffirm our community and redefine our space, the intersection that we had held in the face of authoritarian violence and intimidation. I’m sure no one was thinking this during our wild dancing, but after twenty minutes or!! so, I began to feel the power and importance of what we were doing. In our drumming and dancing, we weren’t just releasing pent-up anxiety or celebrating our “victory” over the cops. What we were doing was far greater in scope and had implications more profound than anything we understood at the time. Our dancing was a manifestation of the way we envisioned ourselves being together. To put it another way, the masses of people out in the streets of Washington D.C. were embodying an alternative to the way the people in the IMF and World Bank operate. Working together non-hierarchically, staying open and receptive to each other, affirming and utilizing the good qualities in each person, and having fun, we put into practice some of the ideals that we felt were missing from these organizations, and more broadly, from the mainstream global culture as a whole. Dancing in the streets was quite !!literally an awakening for those of us present. It was a magical moment of community affirmation and an embodiment of those hard-to-articulate values that brought us down to D.C. in the first place. These ideas may seem a bit over the top to some people. After all, we were just some kids dancing and drumming in the middle of an intersection. For those of us present, however, the moment conveyed a far richer meaning than any of us had expected or was able to understand at the time. Everyone felt the power of our ritual during those few minutes of dancing. Without words or concepts or any idea of what was happening, the bonds of our community were crystallized, our sense of individual and group empowerment was amplified, and the outlines of our struggle and future work were clarified. Although I would never have asked for it to happen, I thank the police who came charging into our space, full of violence and anger. I thank them because they provided the impetus !!for one of the most important and valuable experiences of my life.