Oppression, according to Brazilian theater director and political activist Augusto Boal, happens when one person is dominated by the monologue of another and has no opportunities to reply, dialogue, or interfere in the change of an event.

Mary Saludares, a gifted young member of Washington D.C.'s dance community, died on February 20th, 2009. She was 20 years old. She passed after being struck by a car while on tour in Baltimore as a member of the Washington Ballet Studio Company.

The founder of dance at Glen Echo discusses the dance scene in Washington in the 1970s and 1980s, and how she worked with the Park Service to create one of the first major local public dance institutions.

Maida Withers, founder of the DC Improvisation Festival writes about the festival's past, and present, and shares a video with excerpts from the recent performances.

"Michael Bjerknes, a former Washington Ballet dancer and ballet master and co-founder of the American Dance Institute in Rockville, died April 14 of colon cancer at the Washington Home and Community Hospice. He was 51. After Mr. Bjerknes stopped dancing, he became a teacher and ballet master at the Washington Ballet and the Universal Ballet in Seoul. He was an influential creative force in the Washington area for the past two decades.

Local dance history interviews with Sue Green, Alvin Mayes, Barbara Drazin, and Michelle Ava

Rima Faber writes about Pola Nirenska, one of the founders of the dance community in Washington, D.C.

Video interviews of local dance history: recollections from Judith Judson and Marcia Freeman