Dancing Behind Barbed Wire
How Keshet helps teens create moments of liberation while incarcerated
A dozen teenagers laugh as they practice their dance — one of them stumbles, throwing off the choreography. Time to rehearse from the top.
Their dance teacher laughs with them before calling for attention. With only a few weeks left in the semester, their final performance is almost here. Five, six, seven, eight!
At a glance, this might look like any other dance rehearsal at any other school. But this isn’t a school you can glance inside: It’s a state-run youth lockdown facility. The teens wear matching rec clothes, and their class is monitored by corrections staff and security cameras.
Another stumble. Normally a dance teacher might step in to offer some hands-on instruction, but this facility has strict guidelines about physical boundaries. Instead, the instructor offers verbal feedback from a distance.
The teacher is a faculty member at Keshet Dance and Center for the Arts, an Albuquerque-based nonprofit that is celebrating its 25th anniversary this year. In addition to your typical weekday dance classes for kids on “the outside” — ballet, contemporary, hip-hop — the center also runs several programs that are focused on inclusion and justice.
