Don't Act, Just Dance: The Metapolitics of Cold War Culture

At some point in their career, nearly all the dancers who worked with George Balanchine were told "don't act, dear; just dance". Drawing on archival material, Don't Act, Just Dance places dance at the centre of the story of the relationship between Cold War art and politics. Catherine Gunther Kodat takes Balanchine's catch phrase as an invitation to explore the politics of Cold War culture - in particular, to examine the assumptions underlying the role of "apolitical" modernism in US cultural diplomacy.