Our award-winning
Sosúa: Dare to Dance Together program continues to provide inspiration to and a broad range of emotional responses from teen performers, audiences at renowned venues in New York City and beyond, and the community at large. Seeded by a UJA-Federation grant in 2009,
Sosúa: Dare to Dance Together was originally conceived by the Y to foster intergroup relations between the Jewish and Dominican populations in the community we serve. This original musical, composed and created by Liz Swados (
HTTP://LIZSWADOS.COM/), sparked passion and excitement as it brought together New York City teens from diverse backgrounds to share the story of
Sosúa, the designated city for Jewish refugees after the Dominican Republic granted visas to over 800 German Jews seeking to escape the Nazi regime prior to World War II.
The YM & YWHA of Washington Heights and Inwood envisioned
Sosúa as a project that would unite the Dominican and Jewish communities in Washington Heights. In many ways, the musical provided a shared experience for people in those two communities to start a dialogue and to build deeper community relations and understanding. But Sosua’s impact grew wider as it became a blueprint for engaging people from diverse ethnic and socio-economic constituencies to build bridges of cultural understanding and tolerance. This year’s multi-ethnic cast - Jewish, Dominican, Puerto Rican, Japanese, Russian, Israeli, and Haitian – was comprised of 16 teens from NYC public and private middle and high schools, and not only reflects
Sosúa’s wider message but also gives the project new meaning. On a personal note, cast members identified with the stigma, fear, and anxiety that being a persecuted minority can bring. For many in the cast,
Sosúa was about creating a world where differences in race, gender, or religion are celebrated and where human nature values the uniqueness of every person.
http://www.ywashhts.org/youth/teens/sosúa-dare-dance-together
Sosúa encouraged audience members to join the cast in "reaching out and giving a little something" to the world around them, ignoring barriers that often stop us from getting to know a strange.
Sosúa is the beginning of the story; the audience is asked to finish it.
The United Nations (U.N.) saw the potential
Sosúa had to inspire and invited our third year cast to perform at the General Assembly on January 26, 2012 as part of a special program for Holocaust Remembrance Day.
Sosúa’s U.N. performance visibly attracted the attention of the international community, as two cultural groups provided teachable moments about genocide and racial prejudices through a musical production, making the history more personal and relatable to larger audiences. Many speeches were made at the U.N. by dignitaries that day about the need for racial harmony and to remind the current and next generations about the horrors of genocide, yet
Sosúa was the most vivid example of what can happen when a vision becomes reality.
WATCH A SHORT VIDEO of the
Sosúa performance at the National Museum of American Jewish History in Philadelphia.
Experience the transformative power of
Sosúa and carry the message of peace and unity to the world community. Begin now by contacting Victoria Neznansky (
VNEZNANSKY@YWASHHTS.ORG) at 212-569-6200 x204.
