Until recently I'd never considered dance as a potential answer to some of the problems of incarceration. By its very nature though dance is the antithesis of prison. The freedom of dance through a seed of choreographed movements given to us by Dances for Solidarity with its heavy emphasis of personally inspired additions to the original steps does just that.

While we prisoners are limited both in our person and nature by prison's political and social rules the DFS moves give us the foundation to break these bonds. Dance is in many eyes sex--the power and privilege of which we as prisoners are denied. Moreover, to do anything deemed sexual can be in--the homoerotic and homophobic setting of prison--a cause for unwanted and potentially harmful attention.

The old line cons and guards who set the tone here would call and bunch of men dancing together in our dayrooms or rec yards gay. This can be interpreted in prison speak as meaning weak. However, far away from any stereotypical criticisms dance is neither weak nor gay and certainly being LGBT isn't weak either.

Rather dance provides us with a personally radical means of opening ourselves to new horizons. Moreover it is a beautiful way to protest everything wrong with a system that displaces the very freedoms which it claims to hold in the highest regard for everyone. So dance, dance for yourself and in and for solidarity against everything and anyone who wishes