arts & justice initiatives
Arts & Justice Initiatives
Keshet’s Arts and Justice Initiatives work with a broad range of community partners at the intersection of arts and juvenile justice, who envision a future where youth are empowered and where the systems that serve them are transformed, centering the arts as a way to build the well-being of young people and their communities. Keshet’s work in this area includes dance programming for incarcerated and paroling youth; post-release transition and detention alternatives support, through internships and peer-led support; field research supporting policy and advocacy efforts towards meaningful systems change; and community conversations and learning opportunities centering youth voices with an eye towards resource connectivity across social sector and government agencies.
Keshet’s work in this field began in 1997, and while originally focused specifically on dance education programming with incarcerated youth/young adults, Keshet’s work quickly evolved to use dance as a vehicle to propel juvenile justice legislative policy platforms and broader systems-change. Over the past 25 years of deep investment in this work, Keshet has built partnerships and collaborations with multiple community and government organizations, working towards meaningful and sustainable systems-change, including the closing of juvenile carceral settings in New Mexico, and increasing community-based and arts-based resources and resource-connectivity.
Currently, Keshet’s Arts and Justice Initiatives include:
- Daily programming within New Mexico’s juvenile prison system (since 1997), via Keshet’s M3 Program (Movement + Mentorship = Metamorphosis)
- Post-release programming, supporting previously incarcerated young artists/students throughout the parole and reintegration process.
- Curriculum codification, sharing, and teacher trainings – locally and nationally.
- Arts and Justice research initiatives, with a specific focus on research that supports progressive policy agenda platforms, in partnership with New Mexico Voices for Children www.nmvoices.org
- Community convenings with a focus on resource connectivity, activating opportunities for shared resources, moving youth out of carceral settings and into community.
- Participation as a founding member of the ABQ Justice for Youth Community Collaborative, in partnership with La Plazita Institute, the Annie E. Casey Foundation, and 22 community organizations working on direct systems-change in juvenile justice.
- National peer learning programming in partnership with the Arts for Healing and Justice Network www.ahjnetwork.org, connecting field research and program learnings from organizations doing similar work at the intersection of arts and juvenile justice across the country.
- Local voting positions on Bernalillo County’s Juvenile Detention Alternatives Initiatives Boards and Committees.
- Development and operation of Arts and Justice Youth Leader Internship Program which supports young adults transitioning out of incarceration in a 3-12 month, paid position of an arts-based community internship.
- Keshet’s Arts and Justice Youth Leadership Council, a youth driven council providing peer learning, policy/advocacy activism, and community support.
Through Keshet’s Arts and Justice Initiatives, our work has included many other activities over the past 25 years, including (but certainly not limited to):
- Participation in the Create Justice national cohort for peer learning https://www.createjustice.org/ with subcommittee work specifically in arts and justice policy https://www.createjustice.org/policy-action-group
- Successful amendment to the NM Juvenile Parole Restrictions, amending the restriction for paroling youth to cut ties with mentors from “inside,” allowing for continued relationship support with the Keshet community on the “outside.”
- Recognition at the White House for Keshet’s M3 programming https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TN1WWoE-gg8&t=43s (at timestamp 2:05)
- Codification of Keshet’s M3 Curriculum, and national teacher trainings in five communities across the United States (Boulder, CO; Minneapolis, MN; Helena, MT; Monticello, NY; Washington, DC)
- Interdepartmental residency (Law School, Theater/Dance Department) at the University of Colorado Boulder.
M3 Program
M3 Program
(Movement + Mentorship = Metamorphosis)
Keshet’s teaching faculty of professional dancers and teaching artists facilitate daily dance classes as part of the credited high school curriculum on-site at YDDC and the Camino Nuevo Youth Center, New Mexico’s state juvenile detention facility, to provide a holistic environment for students to learn literacy, math, science, and conflict resolution through dance and choreography. Students completing these courses can then continue their work with their Keshet mentors through the pre-release and post-release programs while they transition out of the facility, providing a structured mentorship program through the parole and reintegration process.
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For more information on the M3 curriculum, click here.
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For a three minute overview of the M3 program, click here.
Keshet is so much more than dance; Keshet is rehabilitation and restoration. Keshet teaches our kids about math, English and conflict resolution, but more importantly, Keshet teaches our kids to dare to dance. To dare to dance, is to dare to really live. If Martha Graham was right and “dance is the language of the soul,” then Keshet teaches our kids to find their voices. Incoherent mumbles are transformed into ecstatic shouts of “I can laugh!” “I can love!” “I can dance!”
– Greg Nelson, Director of Community Initiatives, State of New Mexico’s Children Youth and Families Department
Artist to Artist Dynamic
A critical element of the M3 program’s success stems from the relationship between artists. The M3 staff artists approach each student as a fellow artist, not as an inmate or juvenile delinquent. This mindset, while often unspoken (and sometimes spoken), is a powerful shift for the student. It is commonly the first “label” they have been given that embodies something positive, creative, and full of potential.
The fact that the M3 faculty are professional artists outside of the prison/M3 context is a critical component to the relationship. It says to the student that a professional artist finds value in his or her voice as a young artist and validates what they discover with that voice; it removes any confusion that the teacher is part of a punitive-based or court-ordered system (social service, parole monitor, etc); and it underscores the artist/M3 faculty presence in the classroom (jail) is by choice with the intent to create art together.
For the M3 teaching faculty, their art is not a hobby, it is a passion, a career, and a life path. For a young person, developing a relationship with an adult mentor who has chosen to make a living doing what they love is an important role model to access and often a new experience for these incarcerated children. This becomes a critical component as they explore their own process of self-inquiry to discover what it is that they wish to do with their lives post-incarceration. The difference in labeling a child a “case file number” versus a “dancer” or a “choreographer” has tremendous power to change the trajectory of that child’s life.
Centering Youth Voices
Keshet’s IDEAs Internship!
(IDEA = Inquiry and Discovery through Education and the Arts)
This part-time paid internship is available for youth and young adults ages 17-24
Click here for more info
For more info or questions, contact Keshet’s Arts and Justice Initiatives Director, Elysia Pope, Elysia@KeshetArts.org
Movement for Mercy
Movement for Mercy
- Mercy /noun/ compassion or forgiveness shown toward someone whom it is within one’s power to punish or harm
- Movement /noun/ an act of changing physical location or position or of having this changed; a group of people working together to advance their shared political, social, or artistic ideas
- Movement for Mercy: co-created performance installations with system-impacted youth; including residencies and partnerships throughout the U.S.
Movement for Mercy is a collaborative performance created by a team of artists, both Incarcerated and non-incarcerated, with the work shared through the bodies of those on the outside for this unique performance experience.
This project takes many iterations, and is co-created by Keshet Dance Company, members of Keshet’s Arts & Justice Youth Leadership Council, and currently incarcerated students within Keshet’s M3 Program (Movement + Mentorship = Metamorphosis).
Movement for Mercy 2025 Preview!
Join Keshet for a special preview of the newest iteration of Movement for Mercy March 14 and 15, 2025. Click here for more information!
Movement for Mercy will formally premiere in Los Angeles spring of 2025, in partnership with Project Knucklehead and the Arts for Healing and Justice Network!
Movement for Mercy 2025 is made possible by the New England Foundation for the Arts’ National Dance Project, with lead funding from the Doris Duke Foundation and the Mellon Foundation. This project is supported in part by New Mexico Arts, a division of the Department of Cultural Affairs, the National Endowment for the Arts, and a grant from the Hancock Family Foundation.
Movement for Mercy 2021
2021 Creative Team:
- Collaborating Artists: Sonia Bologa, Emani Brooks, Juliana Gorena, B.H., Julian Jimenez, A.L., Ana Lopes Arechiga, Alyssa Lopez, Elysia Pope, Lara Segura, and A.U.
- Rehearsal Directors: Ana Lopes Aréchiga and Elysia Pope
- Stage Manager & Lighting Design: Edward Carrion
- Camera/Editor: Aaron Hendren
- Costumer: Diana MacNeil
- MfM 2021 Photographer: Pat Berrett
- Artistic Director: Shira Greenberg
Movement for Mercy 2020
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- Movement for Mercy 2020 photos by Pat Berrett
Click here for 2020 Performance Link
2020 Creative Team:
- Ana Lopes Arechiga* – choreographer, performer
- Sonia Bologa* – choreographer, performer
- Emani Brooks^ – choreographer, performer
- Joe Brown – voice
- Mason Campbell^ – poet, choreographer, voice
- Kristen Carrara – choreographer, performer
- Eddie Carrion – stage manager, lighting design
- Jaden Faulk^ – choreographer, performer
- Juliana Gorena~ – choreographer, performer
- Shira Greenberg – choreographer, director
- J.J.– poet, choreographer
- Rufino Lopez^ – choreographer
- Diana MacNeil – choreographer, costumer
- Sophia Phillips – choreographer, poet
- Lara Segura* – choreographer, performer, poet, voice, sound editor
*Keshet Company Member
^Keshet Youth Leadership Staff
~Keshet Pre-Professional (KP3) student
For more information on Movement for Mercy or to inquire about your community getting involved, contact Shira Greenberg, Shira@KeshetArts.org
