About Dances for Solidarity

Dances for Solidarity began as a letter writing campaign between artists and activists in New York and incarcerated people in Texas and Louisiana. Each letter initiated with the same 10-step Dance for Solidarity as a means to initiate a conversation around movement. The project has been in correspondence with more than 200 people incarcerated in solitary confinement through its chapters in New York and Denver.

About Sarah Dahnke

Sarah Dahnke is the artistic director of Dances for Solidarity. She is a Brooklyn-based choreographer, multimedia artist, and arts educator. She creates performance experiences that often feature non-performers, highlighting and celebrating the nuances of natural, untrained human movement. She works with public school students to facilitate the creation of their own choreography and video projects, makes giant group dances to teach to the general public, and films instructional videos to disseminate dance sequences widely. 

Through Dances for Solidarity, Dahnke has been a guest lecturer/teacher at Tulane University, Princeton University, UCLA and New York University, a presenter at conferences such as Create Justice, Prison Outside, and NCA - Policing, Prisons & New Public Voices. She was an awardee of a residency/commission from A Studio in the Woods in New Orleans, a grant from the MAP Fund, and a fellowship with Gibney’s Moving Toward Justice for her work with DFS.