We head outside in single file for the second half of class to be in the sun. One student flattens herself on the asphalt, chest down, hands folded under her head. Another slips socked feet out of laceless shoes, warming her toes on the hot court floor. A third moves against the concrete wall and into the shade, her back against the coolness with knees pulled up, and a group of us five stand and then sit as we draft the lyrics to our emerging song.
“Destiny is a calling that makes a beautiful journey.”[1]
It’s the line from the text we’ve been discussing all afternoon; a passage from adrienne maree brown’s Emergent Strategy on the art of flocking and the migratory patterns of birds, which then opens up to other profundities like the underground reaching of oak trees, who
“grow such that their roots are intertwined and create a system of strength that is as resilient on a sunny day that it is in a hurricane.”[2] And dandelions who “don’t know whether they are a weed or a brilliance”.[3] And cells, who “grow until they split and complexify” and in doing so, “interact and intersect and discover their purpose… and they serve it”.[4] What emerges from these cycles are complex organisms, systems, movements, and societies, brown teaches, and like birds, they respond to destiny together. The destiny line stands out. It perks heads off desks and up out of sweatshirts, it invites the wise words of the female detention officer, until then silent behind her mask, who describes a kind of predestined force bigger than what we know.
Once in the sunny courtyard, we set the destiny line to a melody that etches into a groove the more we repeat it together, a kind of iterative development that tries on different pitches until it finds its tonal agreement. Snaps, head bobs, and shoulder sways keep time, and other lines layer in, inspired by the text. “Nothing is wasted, never a failure.” Then: “From worm to butterfly”. And last: “There’s a purpose to it always, always, always”, each “always” creeping up to the highest notes the group of us can hit. This gets a laugh each time and the song sort of explodes by the end in loud sounds and smiles. There’s something contagious about making fun of the seriousness while reaching underneath to make sure the meaning counts.
We perform the song for Coach Hall, detention center lead educator, and the rest of the group who have been our seated witnesses in the chairs away from our small circle. Applause and a sense of accomplishment has us search for a name for the song. “Beautiful Journey” gets a few likes, but it’s K whose idea gets the vote. “Nah” she says, “I like Beautiful Future” she waits a beat as others turn toward her, “Beautiful Future is better because the journey can get super bumpy….like these rocks in my shoes after sitting out here.”
K is the most vocal in group discussion that day. It’s her input that guides the move toward songwriting, since she liked to sing but hadn’t done it in a while. Her memory of chorus resonated with the “cohesive,” “shared direction” of emergence brown described, the recollection of which spurred others to bring in comparisons to basketball and dance team.
Inviting in movement, we try to flock together, a dance improvisation us co-facilitators introduce which raises eyebrows and seems to cement some deeper into desks. Eyes move around the circle of chairs like, is this for real. Some egg on others, come on, get up. We find this together and in different ways. I ground in and take flight: “Some of us can be the birds, some the bird watchers…” This lets out air and a small handful of us move into position, like brown writes, “staying separate not to crowd each other”,[5] following the one in front, modulating our speed to keep the group together. A couple rounds in, through the false starts and giggles, we stop to ask the bird watchers what they notice. “Teamwork” one says, “Sync” another says and heads nod. We take it back to the text. “Birds don’t make a plan to migrate, raising resources to fund their way, packing for scarce times, mapping out their pit stops.” We read and discuss each line. “They feel a call in their bodies that they must go, and they follow it, responding to each other, each bringing their adaptations”.[6]
This inspires the next thought. I, Hannah, call back the goofy backbend I did in the first minutes of circling up, teasing-bragging-confessing I am turning 43 yrs old and still like to play. “Like more than ever before! The way I do it is my own thing, my own adaptation!” Eyes on me, I continue, “What do I know now at 43 yrs old? That I’d willingly negotiate a lot in my life, my contract, my schedule, my work-life balance, but not my uniqueness.” Yes, I add, this place insists on a certain kind of cohesion; same clothes, same food, same schedule, same everything, seemingly, and there is a logic to that too, a concept of consequences, a concept of structure., But this flocking art reminds that even and maybe especially here, we can find something in our sync that — far from punishment — is a kind of emergence, a kind of system that asks each of us to find our own way through. “Emergence is beyond what the sum of its parts could even imagine,” brown writes and we then discuss. After all, as she goes on, “A group of caterpillars or nymphs might not see flight in their future, but it’s inevitable. It’s destiny.”[7]
The session was the third in this month’s return to the youth detention center in our North Florida town. The earlier two sessions were with the boy’s group, about half of whom were present both days. With them, we spend the time exploring brown’s core principles in the study and practice of emergent strategy, copied here to ignite something in the reader, too:
Small is good, small is all. (The large is a reflection of the small.)
Change is constant. (Be like water).
There is always enough time for the right work.
There is a conversation in the room that only these people at this moment can have. Find it.
Never a failure, always a lesson.
Trust the People. (If you trust the people, they become trustworthy).
Move at the speed of trust. Focus on critical connections more than critical mass—build the resilience by building the relationships.
Less prep, more presence.
What you pay attention to grows.[8]
The rap-poem that emerged from group discussion then found its rhythmic accompaniment in the drumming call and response pounded on desks. The hollow middle of the bathroom door rattled a deep base type heart beat, while short pencils on metal table legs added a bell. Some used the meaty part of the hand to build the musical changes while others joined in with palm slaps for accents. Across the circle danced fast fingertips for a high-toned tap. Finding rhythm together seemed to make more room for active participation than discussion, and the cohesion of the group sound (a collective groove of polyrhythms that found even fleeting pockets of head nodding relatability) noticeably helped shift the reception of us female guests in the room about whom the multiple authorities present made several reminders to respect and obey. For the majority of boys in the session who have to take heavy psychotropics daily at the center, the drumming appeared to create a kind of contagious mood that made it more possible to be present and at the least, stay awake.
We leaned actively on the words of brown as we faced an unknown experience, seeking primarily to connect and support the groups of beautiful teens in front of us, whom we were warned “came from deeply troubled homes” and that were “very difficult.” brown’s “Less prep, more presence” guided us to “move at the speed of trust” as we explained that we came to talk about a book that we found personally helpful and wanted to share, and that we found personal joy and freedom through dance and music, so that was how we wanted to connect and play with them. We introduced ourselves, the text, and each activity amidst a near constant stream of jokes, between the teens, and also, distractingly, from the officers in the room.
On day 1, an officer joined our circle to support the music making and conversation, and the result was something gorgeously connective, but on day 2, several new officers lingered in the back and walked through the circle as they focused on their tasks (and teasing jokes). One joke eventually escalated as a teen took the bait an officer laid for him, grabbing a forbidden pen, inviting physical retribution that cascaded into a full fight as other officers and teens jumped in. Concern was high in the room because we were present throughout the provocation, and the teens were visibly and verbally upset about the fairness of this experience. Leaving room for breath, we moved slowly as staff instructed us to continue the lesson. Guided by brown to be present, and that “change is constant, be like water”, we shifted back to the text, which offered us a framework for what was unfolding in the room. “Trust the people and they become trustworthy.” This concept had played out painfully clear just moments before: a taunt became a fight that ended after the facility’s Captain came in to reassure the group that he understood what happened and was dealing with the offending officer. He brought the fighter back in and thanked him for his calmness after such an experience. The contrast between his respect shown to the Captain or the officers with rapport, prompted our group reflection on trust. brown helped us flip the traditional script around “earning” trust with giving trust, and that seemed useful for us to explore and to establish some understanding. Most people in the room resonated with this idea, even though it went in the face of what some might have previously thought or said. Not only did we talk through how this could be true, we had witnessed it.
The choice to work with brown’s text was an organic one between us co-facilitators as a kind of extension of other themes and source materials we have worked with in the past. Sessions together here during past visits engaged Robin G. Kelly’s Freedom Dreams, and Black feminist abolitionist anthems of “We keep us safe”. These were guiding texts for our own life and movement explorations, and they supported us in the invitation to “lead a dance workshop” at the youth detention center. The juxtaposition of themes around freedom, safety, and radical imagination seemed big and ambitious, but we and the youth found them to be a logical place to begin. What else could be more relevant in such a place?
We like that brown calls us readers to create focus groups of all kinds, building/mapping/creating in all the ways we can imagine, and especially encourages us to underline the text and pass it to younger generations.[9] For teens sitting in jail as for the two of us, this capacity to continue imagining, continue “re-rooting” in the earth, in creativity, and in community… having visions that are longterm” as brown does seems especially important.[10] We could not “plan” for these workshops any more than we can plan for life in this world. We can only face it with the skills we have, like birds preparing to migrate. brown reminds us that birds do this incredible feat without packing or maps, with simply a lifetime of learning and a legacy of experience built into our bodies. We remind ourselves and the youth of this [our] capacity as we spend a few hours with them, leading a “dance class.”
We learn that these youth spend an average of twenty-one days at the center. There they take classes in Math, Language Arts, and Life Skills while waiting to meet with a judge to assess their case. Some are formally adjudicated, receiving probation, a mandatory diversion program, or a move to a residential program for evidence-based treatments. Others receive designation as “adjudication withheld”, the judge absolving the charge from their record. In severe cases, youth are moved to the adult jail to be tried as adults. We know that in Florida, incarceration rates are higher than most countries, and that youth detention has been part of that story since the beginning.[11] Some of these youth will be assigned to adult jails where they will be tried as adults. Currently, six fourteen-year olds sit in our adult detention center.
Lead educator Eugene Hall teaches three 100-minute classes a day, divided into two genders. Volunteers are welcome to offer programming in a range of disciplines, and he is especially glad to have us volunteers present to get the kids moving. For the hundred minutes we are together, laughter, music, movement, sweat, brings life back into a room young people enter and exit with hands bound in invisible cuffs behind their backs; our circle which includes staff educators, guards, team leaders and youth offers an altogether reshaping of the single file lines whose visual legacy embodies chain gang choreographies still haunting the country, and especially the American South.[12] It is clear enough that dancing, laughing, being loud, playful and creative together powers up a something like the “hope discipline” abolitionist Mariame Kaba describes.[13] As prison dance activist Suchi Branfman reminds,“To witness and be with people who are dancing while living in a cage is a direct antithesis to confinement.”[14]
Ironically, the pleasure of speaking freely with kids at the center defies much of the current moment when it comes to teaching and learning in Florida schools. At the time of writing, Florida statutes in K-12 have eradicated the very possibilities of circles like this one, with cancellations of “WOKE” locally leading the charge for the Department of Education and the dismantling of DEI nationally.[15] For us researchers and educators within higher ed, the scene is equally bleak. Email to faculty this semester has set the conditions for classroom teaching under new censorship laws. Course instructors are required to confer that all course materials have been read and vetted in alignment with state policy, with subtext stunningly aligning with the governor’s newly instituted import of a statewide DOGE, promising to audit Florida universities and cut the stated waste of state spending.
As we face this experience, the words of brown re-emerge as powerful and helpful guidance. She writes that “emergent strategy is about shifting the way we see and feel the world and each other. If we begin to understand ourselves as practice ground for transformation, we can transform the world”.[16] She asks us to consider what practices can unlock the emergent potential we hold. I, Ivanna, have personally migrated from a place of paralyzing fear around dancing and singing, to find myself leading a call and response song while dancing with this group of high school boys. I want to take a moment to reflect on the journey. It happened over many years and also in an instant, as Hannah, my friend and co-facilitator, shifted from singing, to holding down the beat for us. I didn’t have time for conscious thought before I found myself in a surreal moment of leading others in something that previously felt impossible for me.
During the darkest years of my life, I took dance and singing lessons. It’s hard to say why I would choose to add something so challenging to my life when everything else felt overwhelming, but maybe that is the reason. I needed to find my way somehow, and despite the fear, I did enjoy dance and music. I wanted to no longer be afraid. My journey started with a West African dance class, and then when I found contact improvisation, I knew I was where I needed to be for several years: experimenting with self expression and vulnerability in community. I felt deeply uncomfortable, but I understood most others in the room with me felt similarly. I was in classes with trained dancers but finding our own unique ways to dance together, to navigate each moment together, was new to us all. Through movement exploration AND discussion, we built trust over time. It was a sensitive space where we were asked to be very mindful of each other’s responses, to notice and listen carefully, to hold our own boundaries, to think about how we would do this. We discussed race and gender, noticing differences and points of connection. Contact improv asked us to connect, listen, and communicate deeply. By the time singing lessons emerged for me a few years later, I was ready for its lessons: to try making sounds until I found the notes I was looking for. It felt so terrifying and then, so rewarding. Such helpful life lessons.
I didn’t decide to become a facilitator of dance and music with detained youth, but I followed others in a direction that felt life-giving and found myself happily here. As a science educator and scholar, this pathway into art practices aligns with my goals of supporting creative and generative thinking, as scientists are faced with countless challenges and puzzles to solve. Academics from seemingly opposite ends of the spectrum, Hannah and I enjoy a long history of working together and thinking expansively about “science” and “art” ed as not mutually exclusive. We find brown’s text(s) to be a incredible example of this. The lessons brown illustrates from the natural world around us in Emergent Strategy offers us support that we find ourselves sharing. Currently, we work alongside many others who feel scared and hopeless in the face of our political climate and with the massive threats of climate change. A colleague who teaches in the college of medicine shared that she does not know how to do her job with the current restrictions. How can she instruct ethically and effectively if she cannot talk about medical conditions and needs unique to various communities? Our colleagues in dance, theater, music, visual art, as in so many disciplines, wonder what in fact is meant by the so-called Western Canon now enforced as curricular emphasis as if devoid of racism or sexism, let alone the myriad questions of identity and experience that make and remake our fields everyday. In Florida as increasingly across the US, all working for the kinds of teaching and learning that invites instead of restrains find ourselves in need of strategies for how to move forward in a time like this. Like birds migrating, we don’t have a map, but we have practices to personally return to and to share with others. Presence and freedom dreaming can lead us into an era of improvisation that requires deep listening, compassionate communication, and radical imagination as we create new pathways for ourselves and our communities. Dancing, singing, and syncing together is a helpful step for us, and we wonder how this sounds to you?
Hannah Schwadron (MFA, PhD) is Associate Professor of Dance at Florida State University where she teaches dance history, improvisation, and the cultural politics of performance. Her writing and performance explore themes of Jewishness, dance, humor, migration, and decarceration, is published in Choreographic Practices, Shofar, PARtake, Liminalities, International Journal of Screendance, the Oxford Handbook on Dance and Politics, the Oxford Handbooks Online in Music, the Oxford Handbook on Jewishness and Dance, American Perspectives in Dance II, and Dancer Citizen among other places. She is cofounder of the Tallahassee Bail Fund which pays bail for people who cannot afford it and helps access needed services upon release.
Ivanna Pengelley earned her Doctoral degree in Science Education at Florida State University, her Master’s Degree in Agricultural Education at the University of Florida, and her Bachelor’s degree in Educational Studies at Washington University in St. Louis. Ivanna’s career has centered around supporting the education of marginalized youth, with a focus on those who have experienced the foster care system. Through this work, she studied and practiced the skill of empathetic communication, as a tool to facilitate understanding and connection. Ivanna is also actively engaged in developing intentional community centered around empathetic communication and sustainable designs.
