On July 29, 2023, O’Shea Sibley, a 28-year-old Black, gay, professional dancer, was fatally stabbed in his heart while he and his friends were voguing to Beyoncé outside of a gas station. His murderer shouted, “Stop dancing, stop dancing, stop dancing”—as if dancing is a crime, an assault on life, a blasphemy to the living.
Author: Jan Erkert
Jan Erkert is professor emerita and former head of the department of dance at the University of Illinois. She is the author of Harnessing the Wind, and is currently writing Every Body Has a Body Full of Wisdom: Stories of Leadership and Life. She is a Fulbright scholar, a public voices fellow with The OpEd Project and director of the University of Illinois’ Alumni OpEd Project.
Throughout History, Women Have Forged a New Type of Leadership
Women’s History Month is an opportunity to recognize the ways women throughout U.S. have redefined effective leadership.
It is time to embrace the lessons learned from the “silenced but not silent” generation, who forged a new perspective on leadership in which strength is bolstered by vulnerability.