I know it’s several months late, but I didn’t see a lot of sites spreading this around. Back in 2007, after the prison in Cebu, Philippines started using dance as a way to rehabilitate its prisoners by having them participate in a group creative endeavor and letting them perform for visitors, a video of the inmates grooving in the prison yard to Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” became a runaway sensation on YouTube — as of this writing, there are a mind-boggling 34,505,236 views and counting.
They’ve danced since then to rock, classical, R&B and Filipino music. The prison’s security consultant, Byron F. Garcia, the man who came up with the idea, even has a byronfgarcia YouTube channel where he shares the prisoners’ awesome performances.
But the coolest and most moving of them might be the above 10-minute tribute to Michael Jackson, which was choreographed and rehearsed in a 10-hour-straight session after the prisoners heard about his death, and performed performed on June 27 (Jackson died June 25 in the U.S., but it was June 26 in the Philippines by then).
It’s a testament to Garcia’s progressive thinking on rehabilitating criminals, that these men (and some women, who are in a separate wing) can pull together and create what are essentially great performance art. Back in 2007, on the video of the Pointers Sisters’ “Jump,” Garcia notes, “This is a tribute to all Prison facilities in the Philippines (8 and counting) who are now adopting this non-violent approach to rehabilitation! Thank you, inmates deserve a second chance! If we make prisons a living hell for them, then we might just be sending out devils once they are released. Cruel methods to achieve discipline are a thing of the past! So, keep on dancing!”
Here are the original “Thriller” video, and a performance of “Dangerous” (you can click to see all the videos of the inmates, and subscribe to them on Garcia’s YouTube Channel page):
It’s hard to imagine but I wonder if some prison administrators have tried this in the U.S., or thought about it, since more Filipino prisons have started it.
There’s so much interest in dancing on TV — “Dancing with te Stars,” “America’s Best Dance Crew,” “So You Think You can Dance” — why shouldn’t prisons turn to dancing as a group for of rehab? Interesting concept…
