The first video I saw of the dancer in the Super Bowl halftime show breaking the choreography and unfurling a Palestinine/Sudan flag is still the most jarring. He runs around unimpeded with his flag, joining the crowd of flag wavers during Kendrick Lamar’s performance, and you can imagine him hatching plan in rehearsal. Seeing the A Minor flags, and Lamar’s mic drop ending where he stands amid a field of Black men in red, white, and blue gear, forming a giant American flag around him, and asking, “What flags are missing? Which flags aren’t being raised at this moment that should be?”
The chill comes from the end, though, where suited security agents tackle him while a grid of focused dancers continue their stepping in the foreground.
The next morning, the AP’s report of the incident, which did not make it onto the main broadcast, said the individual had been detained by New Orleans police while “law enforcement is working to determine applicable charges in this incident.”
[a few minutes later update: no charges, and a lifetime ban from the NFL.]
@jphillll.bsky.social [bsky.app]
Gonzalez-Torres Forbidden Colors, May 2021—