Unlocking the Palette of Healing: A Journey Through Art's Restorative Power

Each day is a new beginning. This act of starting again and again is one of many popular tropes related to the boundless opportunities that await us when we wake - and beyond that, the idea that at any point in time, we can make a choice to restart, refresh, regenerate, and restore. 

How does this process of renewing manifest in our lives and, more specifically, how can we apply that lens to our capacity to heal? This is a topic that emerges frequently at Meow Wolf and inspires the worlds we create through our storytelling and art. This theme has also been a cornerstone of the programming we seek to support through the recently launched Meow Wolf Foundation. 

More than ever before, researchers are able to quantify what many art enthusiasts, practitioners, and cultural bearers have known and felt for so long - that art literally has the ability to alter our physical and emotional states - including reconstructing our neural pathways. 

One of the more recent publications on the positive impacts of arts can be found in “Your Brain on Art", a book by Ivy Ross and Susan Magsamen. Ross and Magsamen document many instances of art’s transformative power, including art's impact on overall longevity - people who engage in the arts every few months, such as theater or museum, have a 31% lower risk of dying early when compared with those who don't. Even 1-2x a year, you lower mortality risk by 14%. The arts literally help you live longer. The arts help with focus, problem solving, and decision making skills. So when presented with health choices, people who have experienced art, make better ones. Additionally, programs that incorporated drawings as an early health intervention reduced PTSD by 80%.

In this blog series, we will hear from Meow Wolf community leaders and artists who have spent their careers exploring art as a catalyst for change. This first edition will highlight the work of Keshet Dance Company and Center for the Arts, one of the Meow Wolf Foundation nonprofit grantees: how they are using art and community to heal the unique populations they work with. Later this year, we will feature a handful of collaborating artists from our newly announced exhibit site, L.A., and the series will culminate with our very own Meow Wolf artists who work out of the fabrication space of our headquarters in Santa Fe, NM.

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Part 1: Metamorphosis in Motion: a conversation with Shira Greenberg, Founder and Artistic Director at Keshet Dance and Center for the Arts

For nearly three decades, Shira Greenberg has been dedicated to healing through movement. Keshet Dance Company and Center for the Arts transforms lives by harnessing the therapeutic power of dance, with programs that provide a safe, expressive outlet for participants to process emotions, reduce stress, and build resilience. Through rhythm and grace, individuals find joy, connection, and a renewed sense of purpose– ultimately fostering holistic well-being and community cohesion.

Keshet is nationally recognized for their arts & justice initiatives and Greenberg is the first artist in New Mexico history to be a part of the New Mexico Children's Code Task Force - charged with re-writing the New Mexico Children’s Code, the primary legal statute overseeing juvenile justice and foster care for the State. 

The work of the M3 (Movement + Mentorship = Metamorphosis) Program incorporates arts engagement, higher education, job training, employment opportunities, and an ongoing community of peer support and mentorship for young people within the juvenile justice system. A critical component of the program is authentic youth engagement, a way of being in relationship that honors a young person's humanity, and encourages active participation in shaping their communities and directing their own lives. All these efforts combined have produced incredible results - students in Keshet’s programming within the juvenile prison system track an average of a 28% increase in academic test scores via pre- and post- testing within a semester when participating in Keshet programming while incarcerated.

We spoke to Greenberg about how she is working to create a healthier, more equitable future for all by harnessing the power of art.

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Tell us about your community. What would you like us to know? 

Keshet is a contemporary dance organization based in Albuquerque, New Mexico (founded in 1996). Our community of movers is intentionally broad, including a professional contemporary dance company; educational programming for students of all ages and abilities; entrepreneurship resources; makerspace; and a presenting season for performers locally and globally. There is an intersection of arts education, performance, and policy/advocacy in the realm of juvenile justice reform, supporting arts-based healing for system-impacted individuals. While we are deeply connected to our local Albuquerque community, we love that over the past 28 years our community has expanded to individuals and organizations across nearly all regions of the US and world!

Share your organization’s mission and how you use art or the artistic practice to bring healing to your clients and community. 

For Keshet, the definition of contemporary dance is both the artistic technique and our responsibility as artists to use the powerful vehicle of dance to address contemporary issues. Our work is primarily based in pursuing systemic change in the juvenile justice ecosystem, and using dance to bring connectivity, care, and healing to individuals enmeshed in inhumane systems. The powerful impact of our M3 Program (Movement + Mentorship = Metamorphosis), which facilitates dance and choreographic processes inside of juvenile prison and jail systems, is an important example of this work. Keshet’s mission statement is “Rooted in dance, mentorship, and a welcoming space for the arts, Keshet activates community and fosters unlimited possibilities through education, engagement, innovation, and the pursuit of justice.”

What have been the most important insights from the work of your organization? 

Having started Keshet at the age of 23, and now nearing 30 years as an organization, I feel strongly anchored in the knowledge that art truly can (and must) change the world.  Person by person,system by system, the embodied art of dance has a unique power to heal. The work takes patience, a commitment to ongoing learning, accountability, nimbleness, authentic relationships, and more, but the primary insight is that artists need to be at every table, connecting with lawmakers, educational systems, etc. The creative lens of artists and the embedded humanity in the work we do is critical to all aspects of decision-making in our world.

Please provide us a story about one person's life who was healed through your work. 

Here is a story shared in a participant’s own words:

“I was sent to YDDC* when I was 13 years old. When I first got there, there wasn’t much of anything to do, except think too much and get into trouble. Then one day Keshet became an elective class in the school at YDDC and then a stretch and strength class on Saturdays in the cottage**. This made a big difference to a lot of us in YDDC. For me it was a way to just get away from everything going on around me (which was usually negative stuff). I know I wasn’t there for singing in church, but when I was around Keshet people, they never looked at me and judged me, or made a diagnosis about, or said that’s a bad kid. They always treated me like a person no matter what they heard about me. Keshet stuck with me all the way until I got out of YDDC. Now I’m 18 and Keshet is still very involved in my life. When I was in YDDC Keshet became a support system for me. Keshet isn’t just a Dance Company, they’re more than that. Keshet is like a family that a lot of kids in YDDC never had. They accept you and love you however you are.”

*Youth Diagnostic and Development Center, one of New Mexico’s post-adjudication youth prisons.

**Cottage is the terminology for the youth cell blocks.

Follow up to this testimonial above – this was written a number of years ago, and this former student went on to work at Keshet post release, studying dance technique, assisting with many dance classes for younger students, and dancing in Keshet productions. Later, she successfully completed nursing school, and is now working actively in the medical field helping to heal others.

Is art essential, and why?

Yes – absolutely.  Art is essential.  Creative expression is a necessity for connection, communication, well-being, grounding of self, and so much more. It is an acknowledgement of our humanity. When we bring art into a space that is intentionally structured to limit agency, diffuse core elements of community, cloud opportunities for self-discovery, and often deny fundamentals of humanity, art is critical for survival. Dance is our language to connect beyond and despite circumstances which generate judgements, hierarchy, and dehumanization.  For Keshet, art connects us to each other, and is a connecting tether to collaborating artists who value each other’s creative voices from inside to outside of the prison walls. This tethering is a critical resource in an often bleak situation that often lasts many years of a young person’s life, during important formative years for that young person. Through art, and consistent artistic presence, we send the message that we believe in the young person, we value their creative voice, and we value what they have to offer the world.

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As an artist and a caregiver, where and how do you seek solace? 

It’s important for me to return to the studio for rehearsals and classes– to be back in my body and back in community. Feeling the power of community moving and creating together is grounding, inspiring, and rejuvenating. Also importantly, time with family, with friends, with laughter, with nature, with a good book, with a good movie, with a good nap. All of these things are nourishing for me!

 In the spirit of our shared humanity and our collective healing as a global community, share a quote or a mantra that grounds or inspires you. 

“Do not be daunted by the enormity of the world's grief. Do justly now, love mercy now, walk humbly now. You are not obligated to complete the work, but neither are you free to abandon it.” – Talmud

Website for more information: https://keshetarts.org/