In partnership with the San Francisco Public Library and Friends of the Library,
Flyaway Productions Presents
FREEDOM COMES WHEN ONE WALKS THROUGH IT (part one)
Excavating freedom at the intersection of prisons and public libraries.
Photo by RJ Muna of Clarissa Rivera Dyas
October 3-17, 2026
DANCE PROGRAM, 1 p.m. and 3:15 p.m.
JUSTICE CIRCLE, 1:45 p.m.
An opportunity to consider how to cultivate freedom in your own life
Artistic Collaborators
Artistic Direction/Choreography by: Jo Kreiter
Choreography by: Jo Kreiter in collaboration with the dancers
Performance by: Ai Yin Adelski, Clarissa Rivera Dyas, Emily Hansel, Jhia Jackson, Megan Lowe, Quinn Dior, and Saharla Vetsch
Writing by: April Harris
Additional Collaborators from the CA Institution for Women: Ana Cedillo, Rosie Santoyo, Jennifer Anderson, and Amelia Carlson
Music by: Kalyn Harewood
Costume Design: Jamielynn Duggan
Coalition Partnership with: SF Public Library and Friends of the Public Library
Sound Engineering by: Arya Boostani and Matt Leonard
Justice Circle Facilitator by: De’Jon Joy
From the Artistic Director
This project began with a conversation with incarcerated writer Tomekia Johnson. She told me how she wants people on the outside to know what it takes to get free of prison. This project also began when I read about JAY Z animating the inside and outside of the Brooklyn Public Library with the artifacts of his career. This afternoon’s show is a response to the question, What would it be like to bring incarcerated voices to the inside and outside of our branch libraries here in the Bay?
Prisons banish people, both those who are forced to live behind walls and the people who love them from the outside. My family forever lives with the consequences of mass incarceration. FREEDOM COMES examines how prisons banish people and how people reclaim freedom. It brings these voices back into the communities from which they’ve been banished.
I’ve made politically driven dance for over 30 years. This is my fourth collaboration with incarcerated women. I build work that invokes justice and tries to shifts the world’s burdens, even slightly. I’ve learned that continuity matters—trust manifests only when I show up year after year for those whose lives have been corroded by prison systems.
April, Kalyn and I designed this project before Trump came to power. The conversation about freedom, carceral space and carceral control has new urgency now. I welcome you, as lovers of books and libraries, to join us in connecting a love of words with a love of justice for all.
– Jo Kreiter
From the Writer
What if FREEDOM isn’t about just leaving a prison- but remembering you were never built to be placed in one. Prison is manmade. Your soul is not. We dance because regardless of where we are, we don’t allow the invisible chains to hold more power than the visible ones.
– April Harris
The Performance Unfolds in Three Parts
- How Is a Library Like a Prison? (It’s Not)
- Never Go Forward; Never Go Back
- States of Free
About Flyaway Productions
Founded in 1996, Flyaway Productions democratizes public space. We make dances that are off the ground, site-specific and justice driven. Flyaway’s tools include coalition-building, an intersectional feminist lens and a body-based push against the constraints of gravity. Recent coalition partners include the Museum of the African Diaspora, Empowerment Avenue, Essie Justice Group, Bend the Arc Jewish Action, the Tenderloin Museum and the University of California College of the Law-San Francisco. Flyaway has received major support from NEFA’s National Dance Project, the National Endowment for the Arts, New Music USA, MAP, the Creative Work Fund, SF Grants for the Arts, the CA Arts Council and the Rainin Foundation. From 2017-2023, Flyaway created The Decarceration Trilogy: Dismantling the Prison Industrial Complex One Dance at a Time. The Trilogy was rooted in collaboration with community organizations and people directly impacted by incarceration including Flyaway Artistic Director Jo Kreiter.
Biographies
ARTISTIC DIRECTOR:
Jo Kreiter is a choreographer and site artist with a background in political science. She engages physical innovation and the political conflicts we live within. Kreiter has spent 30 years building coalitions with women and gender non-conforming folk marginalized by race, class, gender and workplace inequities. Noted partners include Essie Justice Group, San Francisco College of the Law, Tenderloin Museum, Empowerment Avenue and Tradeswomen, Inc. She founded Flyaway Productions in 1996, and the award-winning youth program GIRLFLY in 2006. Since 1987 Kreiter has taught youth residencies in Bay Area public schools, ongoing aerial workshops and contact improvisation classes. She currently teaches at San Jose State University. She has been supported by fellowships from the Rauschenberg and Guggenheim Foundations and the SF Arts Commission.
WRITER:
April Harris (she/her) is a writer, researcher, and activist currently incarcerated at the California Institution for Women, where she is serving a life sentence. She serves as Research Advocate and Co-Principal Investigator for the UC Sentencing Project, a collaboration between UC San Diego, UCLA, and the California Coalition for Women Prisoners, funded by the Mellon Foundation. April’s work has been featured in prominent publications including The Washington Post, The Guardian, LA Weekly, San Francisco Chronicle, and Solitary Watch. She specializes in advocating for incarcerated individuals’ rights and environmental improvements within correctional facilities, contributing firsthand insights and expertise to academic research projects focused on sentencing reform. Through her writing and advocacy, April challenges the systemic devaluation of intelligence that emerges from the lived experience of incarceration, creating platforms for incarcerated women’s voices to reach beyond prison walls.
COMPOSER:
Kalyn Harewood (she/her) is a Barbadian American artist residing in the Chicago area. Kalyn holds a BA degree in vocal performance, an MFA in music composition and an MM in vocal pedagogy. During her studies, she has been commissioned to write and perform music for various projects. It has been through the process of writing and performing these works that she found a passion for creating art that speaks upon issues of social justice. Kalyn has since composed and sound designed music spanning dance, podcast, film, as well as a self-released original album entitled Blooming and an original EP entitled Fable.
DANCERS:
艾音 “Ài Yīn” Adelski (she/her) is a biracial artist of Chinese and European descent. Born in Hong Kong, raised in Shanghai and Taipei, she moved to San Francisco for college where she majored in Dance and Social Justice and double minored in Chinese Studies and Philosophy. She is currently a freelance dancer and pilates instructor based in San Francisco. Despite having training in numerous dance forms, she identifies as a Contemporary dancer. Her non-dance related movement history includes getting her black belt in taekwondo at age 14 and ski instructors license at 19. She hopes to continue to learn and grow both as a human and as an artist.
Quinn Dior is proud to dance for Jo Kreiter/Flyaway Productions, Erin Yen, and Keith Hennessy. Additionally, she makes her own work, which has been featured at Counterpulse, Joe Goode Annex, and the KnJ Theater at Peridance. Her work aims to reach chronically ill communities, communities of color, audiences navigating disability, and trans people. She holds a B.A. in Theater and Dance from UC Davis.
Clarissa Rivera Dyas is a dancer, choreographer and arts producer on Ohlone land. They are Co-Director of ROT Festival, a Queering Dance Festival Steering Committee member, co-conspirator of RUPTURE, and perform with Embodiment Project, Zaccho Dance Theater, Sara Shelton Mann, GRAVITY, and Keith Hennessy. They have performed with Robert Moses’ Kin, Megan Lowe Dances, OYSTERKNIFE, Sarah Crowell and others. They have presented work in QDF’s FROLIC!, KH FRESH Festival , Dance Up Close East Bay, NAKA Dance Theater’s LAIR, SF Aerial Arts Festival, and the Black Choreographers’ Festival. Clarissa was awarded Dance Magazine’s “25 to Watch” (2024) and is a Zaccho Artist in Residence.
Emily Hansel (they/she) is a San Francisco-based dancer, choreographer, dance teacher, arts administrator, and artist advocate. Emily has danced with the San Francisco Opera, SFDanceworks, Post:ballet, Christy Funsch, Mark Foehringer Dance Project, Robert Moses’ KIN, and Garrett-Moulton Productions, among others. Emily has also performed in Alexandra Pirici’s Re-collection at SFMOMA and in Cunningham repertory in Signals from the West. Emily has received numerous awards for their performance and choreographic work, which is centered around dismantling systems of oppression in the dance field. Through their choreography, writing, speaking engagements, and Community Study Hall discussion series, Emily advocates for healthy and equitable working conditions for dancers.
Jhia Jackson (she/they) is a movement-based scholar-artist. They create visceral, embodied works that challenge disciplinary distinctions and spark critical interpersonal reflection through their creative practice, j.habitus. She enjoys exploring and celebrating the art of being, and can be found dancing on buildings, in parks, with her family, on an empty dance floor…just about everywhere. They are a current doctoral candidate in sociology at UCSF and have previously earned a MS in bioethics from Columbia University and BA in dance, sociology, and ethics from Loyola Marymount University. ~ www.JhiaJackson.com
Megan Lowe (she/they) is a Chinese and Irish American dance maker, performer, teacher, singer-songwriter, and Artistic Director of Megan Lowe Dances. She creates courageous multidisciplinary dance works, rooted in care, that transform spaces with dynamic place-making, playful partner-work, and daring aerial/vertical dance. She’s a two-time Izzie Award winner for Outstanding Achievement in Performance, with recent work presented at YBCA, Legion of Honor, ODC, Fort Mason, and de Young, as well as in SF Aerial Arts Festival, United States of Asian America Festival, SF Trolley Dances, CAAMFest, and on KQED Live. Megan has been performing and teaching with Flyaway since 2015. ~ Website: www.MeganLoweDances.com | Instagram: @MLoweDanceKitty
Saharla Vetsch (she/her) is a Somali American multidisciplinary artist. She holds a degree in Performing Arts and Social Justice with a concentration in dance from USF. Her focus is on storytelling through vertical dance, drag, and collaborative movement-based performance. She aims to create work that fosters community and connection, striving to be a beacon of self-expression, harnessing the liberating power of dance to ignite the same sense of freedom in others. She does this through queer nightlife, teaching youth & elders, and live dance performance. She has collaborated and performed with various companies including Megan Lowe Dances, Detour Dance, Oaklash, and Zaccho Dance Theatre. ~ Website: www.themajorsdance.com
Photo by RJ Muna of Megan Lowe and Saharla Vetsch
Freedom Comes When One Walks Through It is supported by The Wattis Foundation, Zellerbach Foundation, Svane Foundation, Fleishhaker Foundation, New Music USA’s Organization Fund, CA Arts Council, Friends of the SF Public Library, and the San Francisco Arts Commission Individual Artist Program.
Thanks to the Allison Wycoff, Xima Avalos, Tiffany Lac, Dave Freitag, Collin Creveling, SPACE 124, Benjy Young, Lizzy Spicuzza, and Empowerment Avenue
What April writes about a Rocking Chair
The time ticks forward to the rocking of the chair Tick – tock – tick The minutes waste away To the wooden curved arcs sway tock – tick – tock The thoughts wonder in the breeze That these half moons bring tick – tock – tick Lost in thought Like this chair I never advance, But like this chair at least I never go back Stuck in movement but I can only go so far If I stop swinging and give up I will realize that life and this chair is really hard Keep going, although I know I will never go anywhere But if I keep going, I know that this chair will force me to live in the moment. Is that what I fear? tock – tick – tock The time winds down, the chair loses its swing As the passing of the last minute arrives, I find my momentum as I stand and sing. tick – tock – tick
Flyaway Productions
Artistic Director: Jo Kreiter
Development Director: Mari Amend
Production Management: Matt Leonard
Digital Design: Megan Lowe
Public Relations: John Hill
Video: Rapt Productions
Photo: Brooke Anderson and Robbie Sweeney
ASL interpretation: Kevin Abrams (Oct 17 only)
Land Acknowledgement
Flyaway Productions acknowledges that we are creating art on the unceded ancestral homeland of the Ramaytush Ohlone, who are the original inhabitants of the San Francisco Peninsula. As the Indigenous stewards of this land and in accordance with their traditions, the Ramaytush Ohlone have never ceded, lost, nor forgotten their responsibilities as the caretakers of this place, despite genocide and forced removals. We recognize that we benefit from living and working on their traditional homeland. We respectfully acknowledge the ancestors, elders, and current artists of and adjacent to the Ramaytush Ohlone community and affirm their sovereign rights as First Peoples. Flyaway pays an annual land tax to the Ohlone People. We encourage our audience to support land rematriation where you live.
