About:

Sentenced to Dance is a creative arts program of Reentry Rocks that is free to previously incarcerated women. It is a course in which participants engage in movement as a form of self expression, empowerment, and healing. Participants have a safe space in which to explore their bodies, their histories, and the breadth of their own creativity.

This program has six weeks of classes: classes meeting twice a week for two hours. At Reentry Rocks we utilize dance, theater, writing, and other forms of expression and storytelling as a means of healing from our past traumas. The work that we create is shared with the wider community to educate and increase empathy and understanding. In the first 8 weeks of this program we have 5 creative workshops and at least 3 rehearsals that result in a performance piece to be shared with the public.

Each workshop has a theme. With that theme in mind, we warm up our bodies, engage in an ice breaker activity to help us get to know each other, and then we use exercises to embody the theme and create our own authentic movements. Each week participants grow more comfortable creating movement, eventually creating movement that expresses aspects of their own stories. In the fourth week, we begin to piece together a movement compilation to be used in our larger dance piece.

All members of the Sentenced to Dance program have additional opportunities to engage in performance opportunities, participate in workshops inside correctional facilities, and engage in outreach activities to educate the broader community.

Workshop Topics Include the Following:

• PERSPECTIVE

• SACRIFICE & ACCOUNTABILITY

• RESTORATION & EVOLUTION

• FREEDOM & REENTRY

• EMERGED & ANEW