Where have they gone: the protest choreographers?

In June, Boris Charmatz comes to the Holland Festival with manger. He introduced the topic of adult touching of children in 2011 at the former papal palace. A statement on a hot topical issue. Why don't choreographers speak out more often on poignant topical issues?

Go past new works from the past few months and it is striking that there are hardly any choreographers among them protesting against anything. Everyone seems to be fine with society. 'Reactivating the senses', 'hijacking the blackness of movement and textuality', 'words that can become music', all sorts of safe topics pass by. Why don't choreographers shake us up more often?

One who was a good judge of character was Rudi van Dantzig, also known as the vicar of dance. Prophet, by the way, would have been a better title: someone who publicly criticises in a visual way and against the established order. You don't see that much any more. Choreographers now are too busy with themselves. With skillfully articulating a grant application, for example. With hoping for that breakthrough or that commission for that big stage. With pleasing the audience, the sponsors, the stakeholders. Help.

Does the modern choreographer still have ideals, I wonder. Something for which he sets himself aside to thoroughly denounce. Something that does not have to excel directly in choreographic perfection but that has the power of a burning letter that concerns us all? When will audiences still go into theatres not to miss performances like that for anything? Even great classics like Swan Lake had a hidden political message.

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There is an art to protesting big. Boris Charmatz painted in enfant an ominous world with the impact of a crackerjack battlefield. There was no pedantic moral, he presented the subject of physical contact with children in such a way that you were forced to think about it (review here). Because the dividing line between right and wrong is shaky. It is almost hard to imagine that some 20 years ago, the Netherlands had sexual contact between adults and children as young as 12 years old legalised. Now the scandals are breaking open. Dare to address such a topic.

There are plenty of urgent themes you can work on as a choreographer, you would think. And of course we also want to go to ballets where there is no story and where it is just dance for dance's sake. But a choreographer, just like a filmmaker or theatre-maker, also has the privilege or perhaps even the duty to keep society on its toes with lively imagination.

In June, Holland Festival by Charmatz will bring manger from 2014. That uses the everyday act of eating and addresses the question of "how we digest reality. Whether that enfant equals in strength remains to be seen.