Politics & Power Quote by Suzanne Farrell

Control is the quiet drug in Suzanne Farrell's line: not the swaggering kind, but the hard-won, daily kind that arrives when everything else feels prewritten. As a dancer, she’s speaking from a world where your body is both instrument and battleground, where outside forces decide what gets funded, who gets cast, whose stories are centered, and how art gets measured. The phrase "so little say" lands like a shrug that’s also an indictment - of politics, yes, but also of any system that makes a person feel acted upon rather than acting.

What makes the quote work is its inversion of authority. Farrell doesn’t romanticize the studio as escapism; she frames it as a rare jurisdiction. "Tell yourself what to do" is blunt, almost comically unpoetic, and that’s the point. In a profession built on obedience - to choreographers, directors, traditions, even the mirror - she identifies a pocket of autonomy that’s earned through discipline. The studio becomes a miniature democracy with a demanding constitution: you get freedom, but only if you can govern yourself.

There’s subtext here, too, about the politics of the body. For dancers, agency isn’t just ideological; it’s muscular. Choosing how to move, what to repeat, where to push and where to stop is a form of self-authorship. Farrell is suggesting that when the world is noisy and indifferent, making a decision - even a small one, even a brutal one like "again" - can feel like reclaiming your name.