I am part of a revolution of word and color. I began to write and paint after years of silent healing from sexual violence. During that time I needed my silence, but when I began to paint and write I discovered that I needed this gentle yet powerful voice more. I found safety. It was still a quiet safety, but it was vivid, dynamic, and colorful. This was how I began to untangle and process my feelings.

Eventually I began to share my work, stumbling into a dynamic way of addressing sexual violence. Now I use personal storytelling, spoken word, and visual art to facilitate dialogue and healing for survivors of sexual violence and our communities. It is an inclusive conversation, one with few rules and no script. The basic premise of my approach is that survivors cannot be left to cope with our experiences of violence alone. We need our community's support, and we need each other.

In working with diverse communities, art has the ability to communicate across boundaries. It is a wide stage that gives us space to emphasize hope, highlight community resources, encourage self-care, and support survivors.

While I personally employ poetry, painting and stories to address sexual violence, I see the healing potential in other forms of art as well. This essay employs storytelling to illustrate how dance can empower survivors and our communities.

I learned to dance salsa and merengue in my grandmother's house in the Canal Zone town of Pedro Miguel, Panama. My cousin Marlene taught me when I was about nine or ten, to music gently escaping a small radio. I hold tightly to the lovely thoughts of Marlene, Lorraine, and I, spinning each other around the tiled floor. Marlene showed us the basics, and we would practice there with each other. We knew all the songs, especially those by Juan Luis Guerra and 440. We sung words we didn't understand about love, and making love, and being in love, while the cool breeze came in off the lake and blew through the slanted glass window panes.

My next informal salsa training was years later, during graduate school in Charlottesville, VA, of all places. I would go to Salsa Sundays almost every week. There were people from all over Latin America and the Caribbean. Each dance partner had his own style and rhythm. There was one guy in particular who would argue with me: "I'm the man! I lead!" he would thunder into my ear when I failed to spin the way he wanted.

A feminist down to my dancing toes, I struggled to stop resisting, until I learned to trust the process. I discovered that there was power in flowing, lifting my feet without needing to know where they would land. Gradually, dancing became a safe space where I felt empowered. I learned to discern between dance partners who were interested in dominating, and those who strived to work with me.

With dance partners who are respectful of my space, and careful to non-verbally communicate their intentions, I am able to reach a place of confident and enjoyable acceptance that everything is out of my control.

After ten years of living in the States, I returned home to Panama, and dancing remained an essential part of my self-care routine. It was on a trip to the Colon Province of Portobelo, located just under two hours from Panama City, when I discovered watching dance could be empowering and healing too. It was there that I witnessed the enchanting Congo dance for the first time.

During the dance a group of women sing while a group of men play the drums. Their enchanting call and response songs set the tone in the dancing circle. At any point there is only one couple in the center. This is a circle for one man and one woman, and as a new woman (or girl) or man (or boy) steps in the other steps out.

In the center, the women and girls twirl and rock around. The men tend to dance back and forth. It is a "game" in which the women protect their space with elbows and arms, and the men try to push past their boundaries with lunges and kisses. While the men weave and maneuver, the women block, dodge and push them away. Strikingly, as they dance, the girls and women keep one foot on the ground at all times.

This aspect of the dance seems a reminder to stay grounded despite challenges and confrontations. Impressively, even the youngest girls know how to hold their own space.

When a girl fails to defend herself and is kissed, the drummers toss their drums down, ending the dance and sending the pair out of the circle. If two men enter the circle to dance at the same time, the drums are tossed in, the music stops, and the elders demand order.

I am struck by this dance, and its sensuality. Even the youngest girls can flowingly move their bodies. With age the dance gathers rhythm, flavor, movement, but even the tiniest of girls still knows how to push the boys away. They know how to protect their own space.

While I wonder what the boys learn from this game that encourages them to be sneaky with their kisses, I love that these girls are taught, at such a young age, that their bodies are their own. They are taught to set boundaries and defend them. They are permitted to be sensual and beautiful, and to move to the rhythm of the drums. They are not taught to infer that sensuality, beauty, or free movement through this world are provocations to violence.

The dance subtly communicates messages that would provide a great foundation for outreach and education on sexual violence. These cultural messages include: 1) No one has a right to overstep your boundaries; 2) Dancing is not an invitation for aggression; 3) This circle (community) does not tolerate aggression or a group of men approaching one young girl; 4) The community has the responsibility to be outraged when boundaries are broken.

I love the rule that assures that the party, music and all, must stop when a young girl's or woman's boundaries are broken. It transmits quiet recognition that sexual violence has consequences not just for individual survivors, but also for the community as a whole.

Back in the heart of Panama City, I visit Bohio Florencia, a dance studio that teaches salsa dancing, from basic steps to detailed twists and turns.

The instructor stands on a small stage, his head brushing against the foam-tiled ceiling, as he hollers instructions, corrections, and calls out numbers to mark the steps: "ONE-two-three-four... ONE-two-three-four..." He deftly corrects veteran dancers learned mistakes: "Do you tap in between each step when you walk? Like this... No? So don't do it when you dance." He guides new dancers through the motions: "Your other left turquesa, your other left."

During a break, I ask the instructor to dance, and he gives me helpful tips as we move. I listen, follow, and then he says nothing else except, "Tu te dejas guiar muy bien." (You allow yourself to be led really well.) I like that this statement recognizes that I am not powerless, that I am making a choice to follow. This element of choice, and the considerate communication that is necessary between two dancers for things to flow correctly, is why, as a survivor of sexual violence, dancing is one of the few spaces/activities where I feel empowered, fully present, and safe in my body.

There is an intimacy to dancing that allows me to connect with strangers, practicing my ability to assert boundaries, while strengthening my intuition. Once I married, I found that it was a level of intimacy I preferred to reserve for my partner, Cleveland. He doesn't mind my dancing with strangers, but for some reason I do.

I suspect, in a way, dancing helped me find Cleveland, by giving me practice in discernment. I learned to easily differentiate between the potential partners who wanted to lead without tuning into my cues, and my husband: the one who is very in tune with my needs, and willingly takes turns in the lead.

Throughout our marriage, dancing has helped us deepen our connection. In Panama City, we lived in a condo steps away from the National Park. Some nights we would turn off all the lights, and with the moon streaming in our window, we would dance to reggae or soca, whatever we could find on the radio. We would have dance offs (Cleveland would always win) in which we would imitate dances that went out of style decades ago. By the end we would dissolve into laughter and feel much closer to one another.

Recently, Cleveland came to me while our newborn baby was sleeping. He handed me a small note card that said, "Will you dance with me?" I giggled silently. I walked into our living room, stepped onto his yoga mat, and lifted my hands to the air. Together, we danced to the silent sounds of love, security, balance, and happiness. I feel safe. I feel alive. I feel present. And I am grateful for the dance.