In this series we explore the importance of celebration and play as both spiritual practice and revolutionary praxis.

In 1931, Emma Goldman recounted a story in her biography. Emma was known for being "the most untiring and gayest" at dance parties. One evening an anarchist boy chided her, suggesting that revolutionaries shouldn't be given to joy and dancing when the political situation was so grim. Her frivolity would hurt the Cause.

Emma writes:

I told him to mind his own business, I was tired of having the Cause constantly thrown into my face. I did not believe that a Cause which stood for a beautiful ideal, for anarchism, for release and freedom from conventions and prejudice, should demand the denial of life and joy. I insisted that our Cause could not expect me to become a nun and that the movement should not be turned into a cloister. If it meant that, I did not want it. "I want freedom, the right to self-expression, everybody's right to beautiful, radiant things." Anarchism meant that to me, and I would live it in spite of the whole world--prisons, persecution, everything. Yes, even in spite of the condemnation of my own comrades I would live my beautiful ideal.

Later this would be paraphrased as: "If I can't dance, I don't want to be part of your revolution:"