We are starting off our Philanthropy month with Lucy Wallace, The Founder of Dance to Be Free. As a life-long dancer and student of psychology, Lucy got the idea to start teaching dance to the women’s prison population in Denver in the Spring of 2015 and was teaching inside by July 2015. We talked about the genesis of her idea and how, when she began, we was the only non-faith based volunteer group in the women’s prison system and how her experiences led her to expand her program after only 6 months to not only teach, but to teach inmates to become teachers themselves under the guise of offender-led programming. We talked about remembering the humanity in the women behind bars and her mission to help women heal from trauma through body-based healing. We also got into some personal and poignant examples of some of the women she has helped heal from both personal and ancestral trauma, finding their worthiness and innate leadership skills and empowering them to pay it forward in the prison community and beyond. As Lucy puts so well, “ It’s about catharsis and regaining control, not calories.”
We also talk about the challenges of starting and running a 501(c) 3 non-profit organization, the collective encouragement she has received both inside and outside the prison system, and how her self care is “coming back to the magic” of working with the women inside.
Lastly we touch upon how she is attempting to expand her focus into jails such as the infamous Rikers Island facility in New York City.
Additional Resources:
“Dance, when you're broken open. Dance, if you've torn the bandage off. Dance in the middle of the fighting. Dance in your blood. Dance when you're perfectly free.”- RUMI
Sia - Never Give Up (from the Lion Soundtrack) [Lyric Video]
Waking the Tiger: Healing Trauma by Peter A. Levine, Ph.D.: 9781556432330
Dance To Be Free was on CNN!
Lord of The Dance by The Dubliners https://youtu.be/OjPGSFDy8wo
Time: The Kalief Browder Story on Netflix https://g.co/kgs/jCTtdB
“6 in 10 women are in federal prison for nonviolent drug crimes. For every woman who has committed murder, there are 99 drug offenders.” – Amos Irwin Chief of Staff at the Criminal Justice Policy Foundation
Guest Bio:
Since Lucy was 8 years old, she has been dancing. In 2010 she bought a Boulder based dance studio after receiving her master’s degree in Psychology. Her psychology background led to the birth of Dance To Be Free due to the therapeutic and cathartic quality of her teaching style.
As one student shared: “Wallace is a gifted and compassionate teacher whose style is vocal and impassioned, raunchy and raw, while simultaneously elegant and fluid. To be in one of her classes (I have attended classes at the studio) is to be both vulnerable and strong, to have fun and push oneself physically, to feel what one feels, and to move about it. Imagine how powerful that could be for incarcerated women.” Jane Perle
Lucy has been invited to speak at several speaking engagements including Emerging Women and the first ever live streamed Tedx Talk at the Nebraska Correctional Center for Women. Her work is spreading and catching on throughout the prison industrial complex.
Charity Highlight: Dance to Be Free
Dance To Be Free: Home
Our mission is to radically improve the lives of incarcerated women through the healing power of dance. We use “Cathartic Choreography” to train our students to teach each other – allowing them to sustain the program themselves. We have seen this technique help our students deal with physical and mental illness, including PTSD and complex trauma. Our “Offender led ” programming gives our students confidence. That sense of accomplishment flourishes as our students learn to not only express themselves through dance, but to free others to do the same.
Throughout this transformative experience, we teach the nuts and bolts of choreography, timing and flow, and just as importantly we facilitate journaling and sharing exercises that nurture introspection and self-awareness that inmates often need.
