• About
  • Editorial Board
  • Advertise
  • Join Us
  • Archives
The Wellesley News -
  • News and Features
    • Four Cases of COVID-19 Reported During Winter Break
      Four Cases of COVID-19 Reported During Winter Break
    • Students With Medically Restricted Diets Struggle to Eat On Campus
      Students With Medically Restricted Diets Struggle to Eat On Campus
    • Students find new ways to celebrate Diwali
      Students find new ways to celebrate Diwali
    • News
      • News in Brief
      • Nation & World
      • President’s Corner
      • Senate Report
    • Features
      • Alumnae Spotlight
      • Eye on Science
      • Faculty Focus
      • LGBTQIA+ Column
  • Opinions
    • Wellesley, why can’t you meet our dietary needs?
      Wellesley, why can’t you meet our dietary needs?
    • The block system is a joke
      The block system is a joke
    • Spineless nonpartisanship: how the Girl Scouts convinced me they no longer care about girls
      Spineless nonpartisanship: how the Girl Scouts convinced me they no longer care about girls
    • Staff Editorial
    • Letters to the Editor
    • The Elephant in the Room
  • Arts
    • Music Performance Courses Adapt to an Altered Semester
      Music Performance Courses Adapt to an Altered Semester
    • Ben Wheatley’s adaptation of “Rebecca” fails to deliver compared to its classic counterpart
      Ben Wheatley’s adaptation of “Rebecca” fails to deliver compared to its classic counterpart
    • “Dash & Lily” Find Love, Stranded
      “Dash & Lily” Find Love, Stranded
    • Arts In The News
    • Reviews
    • Music Peek
  • Health and Wellness
    • No image
      Athletic impacts of Covid-19
    • No image
      A new kind of PE
    • No image
      Maintaining wellness as the cold sets in
    • Athlete of the Week
    • Boston Sports Update
    • The Vegan Digest
    • The SHE Corner
  • Miscellanea
    • No image
      Remote students experience existential crises; change class years in email signatures
    • President’s Column: The Butterfly Effect
      President’s Column: The Butterfly Effect
    • Your next on-campus romance isn’t going to work out
      Your next on-campus romance isn’t going to work out
    • The Artichoke
    • The Dose
    • The Olive Branch
    • Multimedia
      • Galleries
      • Infographics
      • Videos
By Tabitha Gruendyke Arts, Arts In The News, ReviewsDecember 6, 2017

“Moving Stories” presents autobiographical narratives of addiction, incarceration and healing through dance

The “Moving Stories” cast with Moving Steps founder Dr. Adrianne Tabet (middle row, second left) and executive director Jenny Herzog (bottom row, right)

I come out stronger in the end when I can walk through fear.

-Moving Stories performer

This past weekend, the Moving Steps Foundation showcased its first performance, “Moving Stories,” at the Dance Complex in Central Square, Cambridge. The Moving Steps Foundation is a nonprofit founded in 2010 with the mission of using dance to help formerly-incarcerated women with challenges of reentry, such as preventing recidivism and addressing addiction, with the larger goal of combating injustice within the system of mass incarceration. The Moving Steps Foundation was begun by Dr. Adrianne Tabet, who has a PhD in medical and psychological anthropology, specializing in gender construction and transformation. She first began her volunteerism by offering dance classes for women incarcerated in the South Middlesex Correctional Center as part of a program called Dance Leela. Dance Leela participants now have the opportunity to join the outside performances with Moving Steps once released from prison.

As the prison industrial complex and opioid crisis are among the most pressing and controversial challenges currently facing American society, “Moving Stories” is incredibly significant  as a performance that shares the stories of previously incarcerated women and former addicts in a two-hour performance that traces their journeys from the beginning of their addictions to their recovery. The Moving Steps Foundation and its latest endeavour presents a unique and necessary platform for telling the story of incarceration through a female lens, made all the more important by the huge rise in the number of incarcerated women that has taken place over the past several decades—an increase of more than 700 percent between 1980 and 2014, according to The Sentencing Project.

“Moving Stories” takes the form of an intimate cabaret that blends spoken word, jazz singing and dance into a cohesive narrative of the performers’ own lives and the  obstacles that they have faced, including difficult childhoods, prison experiences and drug usage. Moving Steps founder Dr. Tabet, executive director Jenny Herzog, choreographer Chavi Bansal and story coach Meghann Perry also took the stage with the recovering dancers. Bansal, who specializes in Kalaripayatt (Indian martial arts), yoga, meditation and Indian and modern dance, and Herzog, who specializes in jazz and tap dance, choreographed many of the dance numbers alongside the women members to mix professional dance technique with the real stories and emotions of the performers.

“Moving Stories” consisted of a two-act performance followed by a question-and-answer session with the performers, directors and choreographers. The first act had two parts, Experience and Strength, and covered the women’s struggles and eventual success in finding the strength to combat addiction. Earlier stages of this transition were translated to dance through routines that were choreographed to songs such as the Weeknd’s “Dark Times,” later making way for more triumphant numbers like Beyonce’s “Formation.” The second act, titled Hope, focused on recovery, with routines choreographed to songs including Sia’s “The Greatest” and Alessia Cara’s “Scars to Your Beautiful.”

During the question-and-answer session, the performers discussed the energy that having an audience gave them, as well as the connections and healing that telling their stories enhanced. In response to an audience question asking the women what they would like to see changed in prison institutions, one member responded that systems of incarceration need “more types of treatment and a greater variety of options” that aren’t just some “sporadic 12-step fellowship.” The main problem, the women highlighted, was that “prison is not geared toward recovery.” As the women described, the Moving Steps “community of support” and the “Moving Stories” performance allow each of them to “define meaning to their stories to become a stronger person.” More information about the Moving Steps Foundation can be found online at http://www.movingstepsfoundation.org/.

Share on

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Pinterest
  • Google +
  • LinkedIn
  • Email
Previous articleHallmark-style Christmas movies continue to attract audiences
Next articleScreening of “Get Out” and talkback take on racial microaggressions and pervasive whiteness

You may also like

Music Performance Courses Adapt to an Altered Semester

Ben Wheatley’s adaptation of “Rebecca” fails to deliver compared to its classic counterpart

“Dash & Lily” Find Love, Stranded

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Email Newsletter

Sign up to receive our weekly digest in your inbox

* indicates required

Top Articles

  • Four Cases of COVID-19 Reported During Winter Break

Recent Tweets

Tweets by @Wellesley_News

The independent student newspaper of Wellesley College since 1901.

Sign up to receive our weekly digest in your inbox

* indicates required

  • About
  • Editorial Board
  • Advertise
  • Join Us
  • Archives
COPYRIGHT © 2021 THE WELLESLEY NEWS
Back to top