Project Witness: Dancing Beyond Boundaries
Created by Sondra Loring, founder of MovingPotential, Witness began inside the walls of Greene Correctional Facility, where Sondra led yoga, writing, and dance improvisation workshops for incarcerated men. What started as quiet moments of breath and movement grew into a collective story—a shared language of resilience, imagination, and dignity.
In Witness, those stories move beyond the prison walls. Artists on the outside respond to the work of men inside through dance “scores,” gestures, and what Sondra calls telepathic dancing—a practice of connection that defies separation. The result is part ritual, part performance, and wholly human.
Supported by NYSCA, Arts in Corrections NYS, and Wave Farm, and with additional funding from the Office of the Governor, the New York State Legislature, and the Department of Corrections and Community Supervision, Witness stands as a model for how art can restore meaning in places often defined by loss.
Loring—recipient of the 2024 NYS DanceForce grant and the 2025 NYSCA Support for Artists grant—calls the work a “moving prayer,” one that honors the invisible threads connecting all people, inside and out.
The ensemble includes Sunder Ashni, Eric Cherry, Erick Montes, Peggy Gould, Dwayne Resnick, Hana van der Kolk, Suanny Upegi, and Noa Woodley. Inside Greene, collaborators include Andre, Arkeyse, Bipartisan, Brandon, Brian, Bruce, Cash, Christopher, Dennis, Donte, Jason, Joseph, Joshua, Josiah, Kevin, Lemar, Maurice, Mazraany, Mitchell, Otto, Player, Randy, Ricky, Robert, Royan, Terri, Thimas, Tim, Timothy, and Vashant. Original music by Aidan Samp. One longtime participant, now released, has joined the company full-time—a living embodiment of art’s power to transform.