Visiting York Correctional Institution for Women 1/5/08

Yesterday I taught a guest dance class at York Correctional Institution for Women. The women in the education program at York have been taking dance class once a week with our dance company, Avodah Dance Ensemble, since 2003 and some of them have been participating in our week long residencies since 2002.

The theme that we are working with this year is based on a quote from e.e.cummings, "It takes courage to grow up and become who you really are."We are focusing on peeling away layers of what we are not to reveal what we truly are.

I taught the first session for women living in the mental health unit. We used a hallway in the unit. We started with a warm up exercise using basic modern dance principles, warming up the upper body and working with plies. I introduced the ideas of peeling, cocooning, and blossoming within the warm-up. The women followed along with the music and were able to repeat the exercises without me leading them. Then we discussed the quote and the idea of removing that which we don't need through the following images: a sculptor chiseling a large slab of stone, peeling an onion, weeding a garden. The women created gestures that we then abstracted into bigger movements. We separated into three groups and created short phrases from the abstracted gestures. Each group performed their phrase both with and without musical accompaniment (Bach). At the end of the class, we practiced a non-stop shaking exercise to play with releasing anything we don't "need." The women were extremely responsive. I noticed that many times people in the group would sit down or quit or get frustrated quickly. However, after even the slightest bit of encouragement, they would more often than not join back into the group.

The next session was in the education department with many women that I have worked with before through the ongoing classes and residencies. One of our teachers had taught them a set warm up and dance, and I led them through the warm-up. They showed me the dance and recalled the whole thing even though it had been a month since they had met.

Following that, I guided a movement improvisation to generate movement. In the vein of "layers" I asked them to generate movements that reflected having extra layers on the body, peeling those layers off, having extra weight on the head and having that throw one off balance. I taught a duet phrase that the women then had to work with. The assignment was to complete the duet phrase as if they had really big heads. This would limit movement choices. The women then performed their interpretations to movement. Running out of time, I was unhappy that I couldn't share more of my plan, including an improvisation with peeling and a similar shaking exercise. However, I did assign a shaking exercise of 1 to 5 minutes a day of non-stop 'shaking' or 'peeling' movements with an optional goal of inventing one's own clearing movement. I also asked that they write about their observations.

We will continue building on these ideas as we move closer to the residency in March/April.

We are currently funded by grants and individual contributions. We have a musician, several dancers, and sometimes a storyteller go in to the prison for the weeklong residency. The women perform in a culminating performance for fellow inmates in the school and for visiting family members in the visiting room. It is amazing to see what this work does for each woman's self esteem.