Miles from Nowhere: Teaching Dance in Prison

Dancing Inside Out—Movement Workshops for Incarcerated Women was established in 1994 by Leslie Neal Dance at Broward Correctional Institution in South Florida. Part of a groundbreaking program of the Florida Department of Corrections' Arts Bridge Project, the work deepened the artists' commitment to social action and their belief that movement and performance can be a positive force for change in their community. The dancers would come to be astonished at how much change it would make in their own personal lives. —Eds.

Every week I take the same journey. I travel north past farmlands and zinc fields, toll booths and baby palm trees, industrial cranes and great blue herons, and ticky-tacky subdivisions that all look the same and share swampy Everglades backyards. It's desolate and progressive all at once. A constantly changing, razed landscape that is distinctly South Florida.

The end of my journey begins as I turn east onto a dreary, no-name road off old Highway 27. I pass the Broward County Landfill with its massive incinerator glowering at the top of the only hill around. It's big, bronze and square—nightmarish—always burning. I call it the Gates of Hell.

Strange metaphoric images aren't unusual along this one-way street. I see eagles, owls and osprey lined up on black wires. Once a walking catfish crossed the road. Occasionally, the sight of turtles sunning on the yellow line causes me to stop the car and move them to the safety of the edge. Once a red rolling feather blew by. The air is always filled with the alien call of black crows mixed with mourning doves and sporadic splashes of fish in the lily ponds.

For some, this road is the end of the road. It leads you directly to the pink awnings and silver razor wire of Broward Correctional Institution.

Once a week I go to prison.

The need to do this came on me suddenly, with certainty. One morning two years ago, I woke up and said to myself, "I'm going to work in prison." Six months later, I was sitting face-to-face with 25 female inmates trying to act as if I knew what I was doing while explaining my intentions to share creative movement and dance with them once a week. I got in quickly. I didn't know how long I was in for. Unlike the women inside, I went into prison without knowing when I would get out. Now, almost two years later, I still want to go there. I may be one of the few people in the world who waits for hours outside trying to get in. I keep finding new answers to the question of why I go each week.

Broward Correctional houses an estimated 650 inmates and is the only maximum-security prison for women in Florida. I looked up "prison" in the dictionary and was surprised by the simplistic definition: "a place of confinement or restraint." To me it is much more than that.

The majority of women in prison are victims of extreme violence and sexual abuse. They have histories of addiction to drugs and alcohol. We have a lot in common.

To reach the entrance to the compound I follow a narrow sidewalk contained within a chain link fence. Since my tour of Death Row, I always look toward the thin rectangular windows up ahead and know I'm being watched by the dark eyes that I saw that day, staring from the dark cells off that horrible pink hallway.

Chilling air blasts as soon as I walk through the glass doors of the reception area. They keep the climate-controlled temperature very low. Prison always feels cold. Indifferent. Freezing.

Keep cool. Think cool. Stay cool.

Here's where the waiting begins. I used to be able to stand at a window behind the control booth and view the prison yard. It felt voyeuristic, unreal, removed—like watching a movie. Pacing, freezing, waiting to be cleared and escorted through the compound.

That sound. Rolling heavy door. Sliding and locking down. Standing in that tiny space. Waiting for the opposite door to snap up and roll back. Walking through that threshold. Clanging lock slams shut behind me. Separating one world from another.

Now each Monday I wait at the new "sally port" while they remodel the reception area. It looks like a huge new warehouse with industrial garage doors on either end. The buses pull in here with new arrivals, as well as those in transport. This arrangement is much more secure—meaning less chance of escape. Lining the walls are the compressed cardboard boxes that are handed to the newcomers to store their personal belongings: jewelry, clothes, keys, photographs, money, credit cards, make-up, etc. Just like in the movies. They are given the option to deliver their belongings over to family members, or have them held until their transfer or release. The length of their sentences often determines their decision.

This new sally port was built by taxpayers' dollars and inmate labor. Male convicts. I would see them each week, counted down and hanging around in the yard. Working out. Waiting for the bus. One step away from the chain gang. To kill time during breaks, they built a set of weights out of cement blocks. Each week as I passed by the restricted construction area I was reminded of The Flintstones.

Having done this project for almost two years now, I'm no longer a stranger. The correctional officers who have been there awhile know me. They usually make some joke about dancing. It seems as though the staff has finally accepted my weekly appearances. They are much friendlier. The Sergeant even sang me "happy birthday" this year. Maybe it's because I've been consistent each week, and I haven't presented any problems. But still, occasionally a new officer is on duty and the standing memo to approve my entry is misplaced, or the whole prison is in lock-down, and I can't get in at all.

"ATTENTION ON THE COMPOUND. ATTENTION IN THE DORMITORIES. RECALL. ALL INMATES REPORT TO THEIR ASSIGNED STATIONS."

I follow the sidewalk circling a grassy mall surrounded by pink buildings. There are a few trees, lots of shrubs and planted pink impatiens. My first few walks through this compound felt surprisingly familiar. Communal. Reminded me of the women's college I attended. Familiar—the confinement, the discipline. The women like birds in a cage.

Once during this weekly journey I was surprised to see a bevy of ducks waddling through the green. This became the immediate topic of conversation in the workshop. Visiting ducks are not unusual, however they are "removed" fairly quickly.

"ATTENTION ON THE COMPOUND. ATTENTION IN THE DORMITORIES. CEASE FEEDING THE DUCKS. INMATES CAUGHT FEEDING THE DUCKS WILL BE SENT TO LOCK-UP. CEASE FEEDING THE DUCKS."

Depending on the time, there's a variety of activity inside. Before the workshop, the place is fairly quiet. Most of the women are working or in class, except for the ground crew and the women pushing the food carts from the kitchen to the dining hall. The dining hall is purposely located away from the kitchen. The kitchen contains weapons.

I'm escorted to a large, windowless, pink room where the inmates are waiting on blue mats, neatly arranged in a circle. They are very good at waiting. They are always happy to see me and often cheer when I pass through the door. This makes me feel welcomed and appreciated. They applaud the fact that I come every week and managed once again to get in. I bring with me the sounds, smells and stories of the free world. Tammy once said that I come more often than their families. As a group, they have allowed themselves to trust me, and I trust them. Since learning about Isadora Duncan, they now call themselves the Lesliehorribles, a take-off on the Isadorables.

They wear funny-looking dresses. Horrible uniforms that snap down the front. Drab colors of blue and mustard yellow. They remind me of the smocks women wear in a beauty salon to keep their clothes from staining. As time progressed, we gained approval to wear more comfortable attire for the workshop. Now, most change into T-shirts and shorts right there by the pool table in that inevitable, surreptitious way women undress and dress themselves among other women.

In this pink room we share of ourselves differently than in any other space and time in our daily lives. We share our movement, our little girls, our children and our mothers, our pain and our laughter. We play, explore, create, draw, tease, cry and make dances together. We never go outside and outside never comes in. We are dancing inside out, within those pink prison walls.

"ATTENTION ON THE COMPOUND. ATTENTION IN THE DORMITORIES. COUNT TIME. ALL OFFICERS CONDUCT THEIR COUNT."

Normally Officer Swanson is there in Recreation/Wellness. She's okay. But when there's a male officer assigned to that post, the energy is distant and reserved. Doing this kind of work often means "shooting from the hip." Unlike the correctional officers, I am not armed. I protect myself by listening, observing and checking in. I have learned to trust my intuition and the faces of the women who come every week, without fail, to the workshop.

Most of the time, once I arrive in our special space, I forget that I'm in prison. It could be a workshop for women anywhere. I have even learned to accept the constant loudspeakers and the ongoing interruptions. I'm so accustomed to "count time" that the correctional officers sometimes count me in with the group.

"You do what? You teach dance in prison? Do you really think you are doing any good? You hang out with murderers? Do you mean to tell me that I can't afford to send my daughter to dance class, and you're teaching dance to criminals? Why can't you be an accountant like your sister? What did they do? Are you scared? Why would you want to do a thing like that?"

Some days as a group they're anxious and frustrated. This is usually caused by some event on the compound. One Sunday they had to sit on their beds for six hours while two inmates were hunted down, found "trapping" in a "cut" above the dining hall. Sex in prison. That's another story.

Once Rhonda came in very agitated because the apparel area was raided and the women who work there were searched, handcuffed and marched through the compound to jail over a pair of missing scissors, which were later found in the room.

"Where's Toni? Sent to Lock-up. Please don't give me a D.R. Come on, Officer, I didn't mean it . Please don't send me to Lock-Up. Please don't send me there. Don't send me to jail. 30 days? What'd she do? She kicked Officer Jones in the butt. Why? Cuz she was pissed. You know Toni's got a mean temper."

Mary was visibly shaken after meeting with her three children, who come only once a year from Indiana. The youngest one was three years old when she came in, now she's sixteen. She got two good Polaroids, though, that the corrections officer in Visitation takes and allows the inmates to keep. A nice family portrait.

They miss their kids the most. Each week we pass the cowry shell and recite our heritage. We speak our names, the names of our mothers, the names of our grandmothers and great-grandmothers, and the names of our children.

"Mother of Tamika, Daughter of Gayle, Granddaughter of Rose and Lilly, Mother of John and Tiffany, Mother of Josef, Mother of Maria and Carlos, Grandmother of five beautiful girls."

Annie's husband writes every day. Sometimes she shares the pictures he sends of home. Land, forests, small house on a field. She's becoming more beautiful every day. I don't know if it is just my perception, but she has blossomed. She used to be so plain and quiet. Painfully shy. She says this workshop has helped her overcome her fear of being in front of people and she recently sang with the gospel choir in the chapel. She was the only white woman in the group.

Celia's mom just died. She hadn't spoken to her for many years. She hadn't spoken to anyone in her family since she went inside 20 years ago. She did get to say good-bye, but for weeks she refused to call the name of her mother in the group circle.

There's a lot of death inside. Santa Claus died this year. Really. The woman who played Santa Claus at the Christmas Jubilee. She was beautiful—mahogany-skinned, with white sparkling eyes. Oh, the whites of their eyes. Once an inmate died in her bunk and wasn't discovered until morning. Walking through the compound you can spot the ones with AIDS, and the elderly on walkers. They have very little time left to serve. Life in prison is very contained. Small events are big. Big events become symbolic.

Suzie's doing really well in class. She's slowly overcoming her fear of dancing. This year she actually enjoyed performing in the shows we present for the other inmates and staff. Once during class, she remembered a bad experience with some guy in a dance studio, when she was young and practicing alone. Besides, she was a stripper, only able to dance after six or so shots of Jack Daniels. Now she's in recovery and facing demons straight on.

Often when they dance their stories, they dance out abuse. They dance out pleading and falling and crawling and shrinking. And sobbing. And Genie always does a split. Lately, they've been dancing out anger. It's also allowed. They say it helps them to release that particular emotion in a way they've never done before.

Louise is a prolific journal-keeper. She draws and writes all the time. She's beautiful and tall and when she dances she lengthens out to her full, powerful self. Celia, the sultry daughter of a Southern Baptist preacher, is deep and mysterious, moody and strong in spirit. And Joy ("what a pistol, smart as a whip" her father used to say), with lovely long fingernails and that contagious smile. Stubborn. Joy's been in prison since she was seventeen. Now she's thirty-six. She didn't do it. I miss her. Her appeal was coming up and she was hoping to get out, start over, and teach dancing back home. Her appeal was denied, and she was transferred to another prison in the middle of the night. We never got to say good-bye.

I thought prison was a place that did not change, and the people did not leave. "Hey, you finally found a captive audience," my friends tease me. In a way it's true. All my life people have left. Now I leave them. Perhaps I thought I had finally found a place that would stay the same.

Why do I go to prison once a week? I go because I feel safer there, with them, than I do outside. I go because now they expect me to come. I go because I believe in the change that we have all experienced with each other. I go because I miss them. I go because they heal me. I go because they are hungry to learn. I go because I really love them. I go because I am a woman, and in them I see parts of me.

Leaving is the hardest part. If something happens, I never know when I'll see them again. The walk back through the compound is always hesitant and I watch their walls go back up as they leave the safety of our time together.

"Good-bye! See ya next week! Take care! Drive safely! Wish I could be in traffic! Can you bring that shell next week? You know the one when you hold it to your ear, you can hear the ocean? O.K. Bye. Love ya. So long."

And then I'm outside, walking back to my car. They remain inside. I am leaving. The air is humid and warm. The mosquitoes are biting. The owls fly overhead. The sun is setting—beautiful turquoise, orange, red and yellow. The wind carries the haunting sounds of black crows mixed with mourning doves and splashes of fish in the lily ponds. Is this freedom? In the distance I hear a train and then the sound of my car alarm beeping me into solitude as I remotely hit the switch and climb into the silence of driving home.

This interview originally appeared in High Performance magazine, Spring 1996.

Original CAN/API publication: September 2002