In April 2020, Over the phone, Gales told me how he and his classmates, who have been confined to solitary confinement for most of the day in prison-like segregation, have continued to practice dances that fit the confined space. “I really wish we could have TikTok,” he said. “We will conquer the world.”
In June of that year, Webb told me that he and Gales got to dance together in the garden from time to time. He was also allowed visits to the art room, and throughout the year some of his paintings were exhibited in galleries and museums in Los Angeles. online. His mother Gina responded to his art with surprise. “This is his pain that I have never seen,” she said.
Plans to resume dance classes continued to be canceled through 2020 and most of 2021. Most members of the group were transferred one by one to other prisons. Webb’s record of good deeds has led him to be transferred to a less secure facility in Chino. Gales was released on parole in April 2022 after his sentence was commuted by the governor of California in recognition of his efforts to transform himself.
In Chino, Webb asked Roy and Chambras to resume dance classes. In the fall of 2021 they did so, now teaching the course together. The focus shifted to more trauma and how it lives in the body. Chambras recalled that when she practiced confidence with her freshman, she was supposed to close her eyes while supporting the weight.
“His body was extremely agitated,” Chambras said. “And then he said his body wanted to hit me.” The training released repressed memories of his childhood abuse.
During a class I visited in September 2022, several men spoke of being abused and uncomfortable with physical contact. “I couldn’t stand being touched by anyone,” said Thomas Bolin. Convicted of murder in 1981, he has been an active member of the Aryan Brotherhood for more than 40 years and has violently reinforced racism in San Quentin and other prisons.
