'Witness' for the prosecuted offers Raw Healing

"WITNESS:  dance across boundaries," created by Sondra Loring as a collaboration with those serving inside the Greene Correctional Facility in Coxsackie, expressed their joy in a uniting in creativity.

Often, what passes as extraordinary in today's dance world is technical pyrotechnics -- dance and dancers who dazzle with physical feats.

I'm not immune. But every once in a while a performance comes along where the dancers' physical abilities take a backseat and a performance emerges that is equally powerful, mainly for its honesty.

That's what audiences experienced on Tuesday night with "WITNESS: dance across boundaries" at Union College. This was a most unusual creation -- one that was inspired by creator Sondra Loring's time teaching at Greene Correction Facility in Coxsackie. There, through the power of movement and words, she unlocked a collective creativity. And in "WITNESS" she retells that life-changing journey she and the inmates made through dance, music and poetry.

The group of eight looked ragtag. Aside from a ribbon of red that adorned each outfit, they were dressed in street clothes, looking like anyone else you may meet walking down the street. Yet this octet was united in this stripped down depiction of their story.

It begins with the audience entering the college's dance studio. We see the eight at a table, writing. Every minute or so, they would switch seats, rotating in a chorus of musical chairs. 

After they stepped off stage, they returned, one by one, to stand behind a table and stare at the audience. They held their fists down into the table as if holding back an urge to flinch. And then two broke into a chorus asking "Will you harbor me?" with an answer of "Will I harbor you?"

Then Loring stepped up to talk about her experience entering the prison on her first day, the doors that slammed and locked behind her and finding a group of quiet and nervous students awaiting her in the gym. She told the audience she started with walking. The cast demonstrated, circling and calibrating as they went: fast and slow, backwards and forwards.

The cast, accompanied by soothing background sounds from Aidan Samp on the drums, read letters and poems. And they danced -- in solos and together, stopping to teach each other their fancy moves. There is laughing, support when another falls and questioning each other and the audience about fears, written down in composition notebooks.

The thing about "WITNESS" was it felt raw and real. And at a time when the world is so divided between us and them, the outside world versus the inside world, they merged with unrestrained respect. It was beautiful and moving. 
​
It also sent an important message about the healing power of art. Why are we not supporting it more?