Disclaimer: This is the video this article talks about. I highly recommend watching before reading. Feel free to ignore the images edited in, as the only point of focus for this article is on the dance itself: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SJ1CLB0Okug
The dance performance, Strange Fruit, choreographed by Pearl Primus, depicts a white woman reacting in horror at the lynching which she both participated in and watched. The dancers’ movements show both anxiety and outright shock, but is this character meant to be solely an object of sympathy? Or is there a deeper reading to take on both this character, and of the southerners of Primus’s day?
From the start of the performance, the dancer already displays contortions of anguish and panic. The rapid, repeating movements looking up towards what we can only imagine to be the body, only to quickly move back away with fear on her face, shows her horror and confusion over what happened. And the falls, falling hard and staying for long as if physically unable to reach up with ease, shows her immediate guilt after realizing what has happened. Her long, flailing movements signify her struggle with the guilt, and with what she has thought to know her whole life. This is likely the first time she ever witnessed a lynching, and at this moment, her views are being challenged by this drastic event. The movements she makes both towards and away from the body shows her struggle with facing the reality of the situation, of both her own actions, and the truth of the world she has lived in till now.
She has a decision. Either she continues her life as it was, putting to the back of her mind what she has seen and done… or she confronts it head on and attempt to change her world. But her decision becomes clear as the dancer runs in a circle, both signifying her confusion and her final return to what she knows best upon its completion. She has gone all the way around back to the starting point, eager to put this terrifying and eye-opening experience behind her. This is cemented as she rises from the ground, now calm and self-assured. She walks towards the body slowly, with confidence, as she makes a motion of a saw with her hands, cutting down the body that challenged her world. Removing the body from her sight signifies her inability to face reality, and the ease with which she could fall back into familiar comfort after something so horrible. She is not ready to face changing the world on her own, to go against everyone and everything she knows.
The point of this character, this southern white woman, is not to display only a sympathetic character. And it is not meant to show a change in her ways. If anything, that’s the opposite. Primus’ intent was to show the humanity behind those deemed too awful to be human. For what kind of human being could possibly do such evil? But in reality, this capability for both decency and the terrible, for both empathy and forced apathy, is incredibly human. For not even the entire mob is made up of people terrible by nature, because very few are. Instead, it implies the difficulty in those with fleeting conscious in the South to set aside what they know for what they clearly see is terrifyingly wrong. How conformity plays a part in their words and actions. But that is still no excuse for her behavior, and for ignoring what has happened because it’s easier. This is why she is not an entirely sympathetic character. She refuses to face reality. She puts this tragedy to the back of her mind, allowing herself to conform to the terrifying side of southern society. This is a character meant to both bring out feelings of pity and disgust.
The purpose of this dance was to display to audiences the reality of southern life. In showing the humanity of the otherwise monstrous lynchers, she shows the tension-filled situation in the South. Strange Fruit is a dance of humanity and conformity in the South. Its intent is of activism, to show the North the reality, in hopes of creating a spark of change.