Prison: how can I describe it? It is a dark, cold, and dejected place for lawless criminals whom society calls outlaws and considers as outcasts. It is where they suffer incarceration; where they must swallow the penalty of their delinquency; where they must lose their liberty, honor, and future if only to imbibe the value of life and embrace correction and submit to rehabilitation and gain a new life. Sadly, society is not yet ready to accept them to full restoration.
Yet who would have thought that in such a gloomy place, a light of hope could shine for those outcasts? Michael Jackson’s long-time choreographer Travis Payne and dancers Daniel Celebre and Dres Reid visited the Filipino "Cebu Dancing Inmates" from Cebu Provincial Detention and Rehabilitation Center (CPDRC), a maximum security prison to do a special performance with them for the album “This Is It” particularly the song “They Don’t Care About Us”, which seems to echo how an inmate feels. The video of this performance is available for viewing in YouTube and it has over 4 million views as of this time. Certainly, one of the most viewed in the site. It is an amazingly beautiful dance performance! It truly deserves to be in the “This Is It” album.
YouTube Video of the Cebu Dancing Inmates with Travis Payne
Before, people would avoid association with people in prison but now they are cheering for them. Twelve of those dancing inmates has been released from CPDRC and are now going around prisons to introduce the value and benefit of dance therapy to the inmates. Amazingly, they will even appear on the noon-time variety show Eat Bulaga on Saturday, March 27 @ GMA-7 (TV Philippines). I guess, the warden who has started all these dancing activities deserve the warmest congratulations! Warden Byron Garcia, Kudos Sir!
Even in the middle of darkness, the light of hope will always find a way to reach those who are looking for it. Never ever lose hope…
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