About Dana Mills

Dana Mills (CBA ’17) wrote her DPhil thesis, focusing on the relationship between dance and politics at Oxford, where she teaches political theory and feminist political theory. Her first book Dance and Politics: Moving beyond Boundaries is out in November with Manchester University Press. She has held research fellowships in Northwestern Classics Faculty and Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival. She is a Visiting Scholar at the Hannah Arendt Centre at Bard College in 2017. Mills also campaigns widely on human rights and feminist issues.

Ballet on the margins: ballet in fragile states

Ballet has been a lifeline to citizens of many fragile states or states torn by civil and international conflict. Human beings around the world find solace and inspiration in this art form across the globe and beyond borders. This project created an archive of dance in fragile states (1990s onward) as well as provided a theoretical reflection of the unique significance the art form carries for dancers engaging it in those circumstances. For those who love ballet, it is their life, and for some dancers who live in countries torn by conflict, hunger and strife, a very central source of joy and meaning, a fountain of hope in dark times.

Gallery

Dana Mills, Political Theorist and a Resident Fellow at The Center for Ballet and the Arts in Fall 2016.
Dana Mills, Political Theorist and a Resident Fellow at The Center for Ballet and the Arts in Fall 2016.