Sex Squad, a UCLA Art & Global Health Center program, blends performance, community engagement and arts activism to advocate for sexual health, gender equality, LGBTQ+ inclusion and mental health. Credit: UCLA Art & Global Health Center / ART Global Health.
Joy as Resistance
If anger sparks the flame, joy keeps it burning.
When you think about it, joy, celebration and care have become powerful (and sometime radical) forms of resistance across arts disciplines.
Joy in activism is far from naïve. It is a refusal to let oppression define our lives.
Joy builds connection, strengthens resilience and invites people into movements who might otherwise shy away from anger alone.
Beyoncé performing in New York City. Her 2020 single Black Parade turned celebration into an anthem of pride and resilience. Image via Beyoncé / Facebook.
Music
Sound can spark joy, and when it carries purpose, it becomes a rallying cry. Music has long turned celebration into activism, giving voice to resilience and pride.
Black Parade (2020) celebrates Black pride and resilience as activism through sound.
Before Beyoncé’s anthem, many mainstream listeners lacked a shared soundtrack of unapologetic Black joy. Her release brought it surging into the cultural spotlight.
Dancers at the Gathering of Nations in Albuquerque, New Mexico. For more than four decades, this powwow celebrated Indigenous pride, survival and joy through movement and song. Photo courtesy of the Gathering of Nations.
Dance
Music moves us, but dance carries that energy into bodies and communities. Celebration in motion becomes a powerful form of resistance.
The Gathering of Nations powwow united thousands of Indigenous dancers, singers and musicians from hundreds of tribes.
Before national platforms amplified gatherings like this, many Indigenous traditions faced marginalization or erasure. The powwow carved out a shared arena where cultural survival radiated as joyous resistance.
For reasons not yet clear, the largest powwow in North America announced it would close after its celebration earlier this week.
A 1963 Theatre Workshop production of Oh, What a Lovely War! at Theatre Royal Stratford East. Joan Littlewood’s legendary staging used clowning, song and satire to skewer World War I. Photo courtesy of Theatre Royal Stratford East Archive.
Theatre
Where dance expresses through rhythm, theatre adds story, humor and spectacle. Joy on stage can challenge norms and shine light on hidden truths.
Oh, What a Lovely War! turned joy itself into critique. Soldiers marched, sang and joked their way through the absurdities of war, exposing the human cost behind patriotic spectacle.
Before Littlewood’s production, mainstream portrayals of the Great War reinforced sacrifice and honor. Her playful staging cracked open a new, shared lens of skepticism and laughter.
Detail from Official Portrait of President Barack Obama by Kehinde Wiley (2018). The portrait redefined presidential imagery with bold color and unapologetic presence. Courtesy of the artist.
Visual Art
Theatre may play out in time, but visual art captures moments that speak across generations.
Bold imagery can claim space, celebrate identity and defy erasure.
Kehinde Wiley’s Official Portrait of President Obama (2018) disrupted centuries of austere presidential portraiture.
Before Wiley, these works rarely reflected cultural vibrancy. His painting placed Obama within a lush, symbolic landscape, forever shifting how artists portray leadership.
The AIDS Memorial Quilt (1980s–present) transforms grief into collective memory, honoring lives lost while celebrating care, community and resilience through vibrant, stitched panels. Credit: National AIDS Memorial.
Craft
Craft transforms personal care into public testament. Quilts, stitched panels and handmade works turn memory into shared celebration and collective resilience.
The AIDS Memorial Quilt is a vast patchwork of individual panels commemorating people who died of AIDS, each panel stitched with personal care and memory.
By displaying it publicly on the National Mall, it shifted silence into shared recognition, giving communities a visible, emotional touchstone to honor loss and resilience.
“…and you definitely do not have a small penis!”
Personally, I savor the dark satire of the Peabody and Emmy® Award-winning animated series South Park.
Trey Parker and Matt Stone, the show’s creative duo, have mastered irreverence as a scalpel for joyfully dissecting cultural and political absurdities.
👉 How have you seen joy resist oppression in your community?
Randall White
Abbetuck
👉 Coming next: The Many Faces of Arts Activism – Part 3: Hope as Strategy (Fri, Aug 29, 2025). Forward this email to friends or colleagues and invite them to subscribe for free. The more voices we bring into the conversation, the richer arts activism becomes.
👉 Also read: The Many Faces of Arts Activism – Intro: A Three-Part Series (Sun, Aug 24, 2025) and The Many Faces of Arts Activism – Part 1: Anger as a Spark (Mon, Aug 25, 2025)
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