The Choreography of Hope

Kim G. takes a deep breath as she leads her class.

“This is the mountain pose. It represents power, focus and energy,” she explains--three necessities that are in short supply among her teenage students, who by the age of 15 may have robberies, murders and babies behind them and life sentences ahead of them.

The students grudgingly try to follow, wisecracking under their breath at the ridiculousness of this.

Every week the Los Angeles choreographer shows up at the Los Angeles County Probation Department Central Juvenile Hall and volunteers her time to teach girl inmates “Movement Works,” a medley of hip-hop, ballet, yoga, journal keeping and “trust building” exercises.

Most of them don’t know what to make of Kim G. (originally Gildart), more hippie than hype, a skinny, blond chick who talks about unconditional love and peace in a world where guns are packed next to lipstick.

But somehow the chemistry works.

“Over the weeks you can see the progress she’s made. You can see that they’re going in a positive direction,” says Larry Stonebrook, a senior detention service officer who has been at the downtown Los Angeles facility for 14 years.

“Some of these ladies could just eat up somebody who doesn’t have the ability to be open. Kim is able to get them past that hard coat of armor they wear and sets them free for a short period of time. And although she’ll never reach everyone, she does reach quite a few.”

It was more than two years ago that Kim G. was asked by another jail volunteer to choreograph a small piece for a recital at Juvenile Hall, which houses about 450 inmates (about 40 are girls).

“Immediately I heard a little voice,” recalls the 34-year-old dancer who teaches at the UCLA Department of Recreation and has her own dance performing company called Project Corps d’Phunque.

“I said, ‘I’ll choreograph your steps, but can I just come down and teach the kids to dance?’ It was totally inappropriate. I had no money. But I found the words just flying out of my mouth.”

The first session was hardly inspiring.

“I’ll be candid,” she says. “The challenges were enormous.”

But sheer persistence has paid off--to the point where she’s just brought in UCLA colleague and volunteer Elisa Terry to teach sports and is seeking funding to expand the whole program to five days a week.

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Rather than stressing dance steps or toning exercises, the Movement Works class focuses on self-expression. Just getting the girls to move is a breakthrough considering the inertia that comes from living in a place where all activity is regulated under the watch of detention officers. They can’t just walk somewhere, for example. They have to do it in a group, single file, hands clasped behind the back.

A general stiffness seems to take over the body like weeds take over a garden.

Furthermore, many of these girls are ruled by the straitjacket posing and posturing of the gang life they’ve grown up in.

“If my homeboys were seeing me, I would never do this,” admits Nicole, an 18th Street gang member and 18-year-old mother of two, who’s been in and out of Juvenile Hall (grand theft auto, evading arrest, two hit and runs, property damage, reckless driving and driving under the influence) and is headed for some serious time with the California Youth Authority.

Nicole, who came to Los Angeles from Michigan with a “no-good” boyfriend at 14 and hopes to become a chemical engineer eventually, says the class has helped her tune in to her body.

“Before, I would just get out of bed. Now I make sure I can feel my feet,” she says.

The classes have helped her in other ways. She mentions doing a class assignment that involved picking a habit and changing it for a day. Hers was reading aloud in church.

“I was always too embarrassed, but this time I said, ‘I’d do it,’ ” she recalls. “It was fine. It’s neat to see there are other options.”

Other girls, too, have been deeply touched.

“When I first got here I didn’t like the class,” says Erika, a soft-spoken 15-year-old--and a “187,” the code for murder. “But Kim helps us a lot. We have a little freedom because we’re expressing ourselves. We’re dancing our feelings. She takes us into a place where we don’t even know we’re here.”

Program services coordinator Alice Vasquez is in full support.

“It’s been very helpful mentally and emotionally and spiritually,” she says of Movement Works. “It gives the girls something to take back with them--techniques for relaxation, stress management and basic coping.”

Craig Levy, a spokesman for the Probation Department, says the class is right in line with the probation philosophy.

“When you feel good about yourself physically, it translates into feeling good about yourself mentally,” he says. “When you have the mental fitness, you’re less likely to be involved in negative activity.”

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Today, the only space available to hold class is in the boys’ Alpha unit with naked bunks and exposed urinals for inspiration. To get there, outsiders must traverse the barren maze of locked gates and rundown buildings that make up this sprawled-out, used-up facility where the damage of the Northridge earthquake still lies untended.

Nothing compared with how far the girls have come.

“I don’t want to come back!” the tattooed girl with shaved head says as she swaggers off to the side.

For a brief moment, ballet music tinkles from the boombox unheeded.

Kim G. sucks in her breath.

“It’s not that I don’t love you,” she tells the girl. “But when you are in class, you must be present in mind, body and soul. If you are not, I will ask you to step out.”

Today, Kim G. has started with stretches to Miles Davis. Members of the class are hesitant until she switches to hip-hop music. The funk mainlines right to their turf and, as postures ease out of lockup, many get down with their own steps. But because there’s no room here to mess around with the fine line between self-expression and chaos, Kim G. corrals them back repeatedly to the routine she’s teaching, at times asking private dancers to step out.

“I promise you’ll be welcome back next week,” she always adds.

The hip-hop segment is followed by a few ballet port de bras and yoga positions. Nothing too detailed. Attention spans are sometimes short.

“Today I am too frustrated,” says Janice, a 17-year-old consumed with rage because she has not been allowed to see the son she gave birth to three months ago while incarcerated.

“I just can’t get into the class,” she says.

Most students do eventually, however.

After tackling the mountain pose, everyone sits on the floor in silence for a “mirroring” session. Students mimic teacher as she taps out rhythms with different parts of her body and improvises a series of animal-like movements. This is an exercise particularly challenging for these girls with their trust issues and heightened sense of self-consciousness but, by now, they are genuinely drawn in.

“Turn to the person next to you, put your hands together, and say, ‘namaste. I see the light in you,’ ” croons Kim G. “And mean it from your heart.”

Soon, the hour is up.

The mood whiplashes back into prison mode as a jail staffer orders the girls to line up.

Nicole shuffles into line: “Today I thought, dang, I want to be somewhere else. But Kim makes me forget everything. That mirror part at the end was way cool.”