How do you imagine worlds/dance/the arts/otherwise into the future— “how” as in what do I imagine, or “how” as in the actual practice of imagining? As I continue to heal my inner child and various traumas while navigating the current state of the world, I’ve found myself revisiting processing practices (the healthy ones, teehee) of my childhood and younger adulthood. In middle school, I would draw word-collages of inside jokes with my friends, much like the one included here (probably more intricate and exciting back then though), and in young adulthood—and now, although less often—I would open discussion on social media on nuanced topics via micro-essays on my Instagram Close Friends Stories. Because I am constantly being stimulated, answering big questions like, “How do you imagine THE FUTURE?” is more easily digestible when I connect the inner child to the present adult human. Please envision these paragraphs as a “tap / hold to read” IG Story post, white text on a black screen, and that privileged little green-highlighted white star in the top corner.
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When I imagine worlds into the future, I’ve realized that descriptively, none of the anti-isms are the first things that pop into my head. Of course I imagine a world of anti-racism, anti-capitalism, accessibility, trans and queer as f*ck existence— but I’m not using those descriptors as the main foundation of the world I imagine.
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Anti-racism, anti-ableism, anti-capitalism, anti-sexism, etc. only exist because of the systems of oppression that they aim to dismantle. Though they are in opposition to these systems of power, they are still created constructs and spaces that ultimately center the oppressive systems because the systems must first be defined in order to defy.
In my imagined future, all of that goodness is already inherent to basic living. The “how” I’m caught up on at the moment is whether or not we arrive there linearly, or if we’ll have taken a quantum leap across perceptions of time. Likely the latter, as my imagined future is grounded in practices of community building, shared leadership, and humanity and art-centered living, imagined through my personal lens of Filipino indigeneity. Ways of life typically associated with “developing” and “impoverished” countries, ancestral knowledge that existed before colonialism, but also ways of life associated with childlike wonder that somehow still flourishes within colonialism before capitalism has the chance to squash it out. When I imagine this global Wakanda, it’s less heightened— liberation is expected and understood universally, in a common-sense way of, “Well, of course. Well, yes.”
The term “embodied liberation” is nearly unheard of because it’s so inherent to everyday life at this point in the future. (Right now it is nearly unheard of because only artists and activists are really using this language regularly.) Pace of life is easy-going, free from the need to produce goods for consumption in order to survive. The looming air of “The Administration” and “Politics” is nonexistent. It is a very tranquil state where society’s needs of food, shelter, water, preventative health practices are all met easily, willingly, and through community-sourcing (mutual aid as the standard, as opposed to mutual aid out of last-resort).
The kids on the internet would call this tranquility of being “whimsy,” or “delusion.” The older kids on the internet would refer to that as “toxic positivity.” The activist/organizer circles call it “radical dreaming for the future.” I am at the intersection of all three of these pockets so I use all those terms interchangeably and within this context of an imagined future.
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More of my “how,” as in rooted in what has existed for ages:
We are at a period of time where those who are just now awakening to the systems of oppression through which we’re forced to move have finally arrived at trying out the vocabulary of “white supremacy,” “dismantle,” or “colonialism” in their every-other-day language. Whereas those of us who have understood these truths for a while are now at, “DON’T LOSE YOUR FUCKING WHIMSY BRO, DAYDREAM 25/8,” an understanding that reaching back to our inner-child, inherent indigeneity as humans and not only geographical ancestors (hat tip to j. bouey for that concept), and creative wonder will fuel the abolition of all oppressive systems.
That’s not a dig on those who have lived life privileged enough to thrive in these systems that it takes a gentle crescendo into fascism for them to awaken. Truly, it’s not. But I do think we need to put them in little incubators of art therapy so that they can arrive with us at this dreamy state.
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More of my “how,” as in what I imagine:
Imagine if every single human on the earth woke up with a little booty shake, a whole glass of water, a little food treat, and some doodling/painting/scribbling before doing anything else. That’s radical and anti-capitalist as f*ck already, and that’s only the first 45 minutes of the day. A little booty shake to reclaim the body outside of physical labor and awaken serotonin and joy; a whole glass of water and a little food treat as pleasurable nourishment outside of just food for survival; some doodling/painting/scribbling as tangible art not simply made for consumerism or money.
The only way I’ve been able to wake up remotely similarly to a little booty shake, water, treat, and art-therapy was on the tail-end of a debilitating depression. I was only able to have time for these things because my mental health had declined so badly in the months prior that I had no choice but to slow down. Even as I slowed down, I didn’t have other sources of income, so I was still working, as much as I could manage between depressive episodes.
And this is speaking as someone with drinkable water, a grocery store within a block, a conscious practice of desocializing the pelvis over the past few years through dance and discussion, and access to financial support from friends, family, and mutual aid.
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More of my “how,” as in what I imagine, cont’d:
Also, money doesn’t exist in my future. Our currency exchange is Exchange itself. Example: my community has clean water, and we’ve figured out how to filter our water. We’ll teach you how to do this, and in exchange, we’d love for y’all to teach us your particular way of writing and speaking. And we’ll dance and sing together.
At its core, this is just cultural exchange, pre-capitalism and pre-colonialism/imperialism. It’s not that the value of services and goods did not exist; it’s that each community’s well-being and genuine curiosity was the centerpiece to Exchange, and neither community’s knowledge was deemed as superior or more valuable than the others. I’ve been fortunate to have friends in the present already building this future of barter, rooted in the past. Example: I performed in a benefit for my friend under a short rehearsal process, and in exchange they took my headshots. (High quality headshots cost about $300 edited.) I have another friend who provides astrology readings in exchange for having guests on a podcast.
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Cultural exchange and community-building outside of superiority and money, childlike wonder and whimsy, and bodies without social constructs all sounds so basic, and is, at its roots. The part where imagination comes in is how to get back to that from the point we’re at now. We need every single person in on this thought process and brainstorm. For example: cultural exchange happens— everyone is trying their best on their DuoLingo streaks, and Gen Z is very interested in Mykonos, Greece all of a sudden; childlike wonder and whimsy exists in adults– I’m picturing all the sunset content and “I wish I was a fairy in a forest” content on the internet; and bodies without social constructs– well, we’re all still working on that one…but line dances and TikTok dance challenges are out there.
I fully acknowledge and feel that I’m not sharing any new knowledge.
And I love that. We cannot create a future we haven’t imagined, and imagination takes creativity and dreaming. Pieces of my imagined future exist in the present, but we are stuck in such a cycle of survival mode that even though we are shaking our hips, exchanging time and services for other time and services and friendship, and staying whimsical at the first sign fireflies in Central Park every year, we still have bills to pay and mouths to feed.
Liberation is happening on a micro-level, but it will take more people brave enough–or more delusion and toxic positivity–to really push us over the edge to embodied liberation on a macro-level.
This article appears in the Spring 2025 issue of In Dance.
