Dance in revolutionary period is futile (2-4)
I believe the answer is:
no-hope
'futile' is the definition.
I don't know anything about this answer so I cannot tell whether this works.
'dance in revolutionary period' is the wordplay.
'dance' becomes 'hop' (hop is a kind of dance).
'in' is an insertion indicator.
'revolutionary' shows that the letters should be reversed in order (letters revolve around).
'period' becomes 'eon' (eon is a kind of period).
'eon' backwards is 'noe'.
'hop' put inside 'noe' is 'NO-HOPE'.
'is' is the link.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Another definition for no-hope that I've seen is " Having no chance".)