The 6th annual Dancing Away Detention benefit show supporting the Hutto Visitation Program is next week on Thursday, June 2 from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. at El Sol y La Luna at 600 E 6th St. in Austin. Check out who else is going plus fun photos from last year’s event on Facebook. Here are six things to know about this year’s benefit show.
Buy your ticket today
(don’t wait, the price goes up the day of the show)
- It’s about community. One of my favorite things about this annual event is how much it feels like community. There are hundreds of people who are part of the immigrant rights movement in our city. Dancing Away Detention is an event where you’ll find many of them in one place.
- It supports the Hutto Visitation Program. The T. Don Hutto Detention Center in Taylor, Texas, is one of the hundreds of prisons for immigrants in the U.S. The facility now detains only women, most of whom are seeking asylum in the U.S., and it has a dark past as a place where immigrant families were once put behind bars. Shortly after winning the end of family detention at Hutto in 2009, Grassroots Leadership began coordinating visitors to Hutto who made sure that the women there knew they were not forgotten. Visitors have been going to the facility ever since. We raise funds every year to train new visitors. Our monthly trainings describe the history of Hutto and what it means to visit. Last year, we trained more than 100 volunteer visitors.
- You’re gonna want to get up and dance. We have two great acts lined up: DJ ENS and Son de Rey! A New York City native, Andres Santiago, aka Everyone Needs Sound, is a mix-tape aficionado, who mixes Disco, Salsa, R&B, Hip Hop, Reggae, Cumbia, Moombahton or EDM, and promises to take us through a journey with no boundaries. You probably heard of Son de Rey when they were named the 2014 Austin Music Awards #2 Best Performing Latin Band and #4 Best Performing World Music Band. Son de Rey is a Latin Alternative sound that blends traditional cumbia, and Latin beats with pop electronica.
- We will be honoring two women who inspire us. Every year, we honor members of our community for their contributions to the movement for immigrant rights. This year, it is our honor to recognize Barbara Hines and Insis Bernardez. Barbara is a well-known immigration attorney who has worked to affirm the dignity and rights of the immigrant community for many years. Insis is an organizer from Honduras who organized for — and won — her freedom from detention. As a leader of the #Hutto27 hunger strike, she faced intense retaliation inside but continued to courageously speak out about the injustice she and others were experiencing.
- You can support someone else coming. When you buy a ticket online, you have the option to purchase “solidarity tickets.” We want every member of our community to be able to join this night of celebration and we do not turn anyone away because of inability to pay. You can purchase solidarity tickets even if you are not able to come to the event. If you would like a solidarity ticket, please contact Rebecca Sanchez in our office at rsanchez@grassrootsleadership.
org or 512-499-8111. She’s super friendly and she’ll put you on the guest list. - The silent auction is ppprreeeetty cool. Every year, we curate some of the coolest things there are to see, do and appreciate in Austin for the Dancing Away Detention silent auction. This year, you could bid on things like a sweet XL hammock from Whole Earth Provision Co, an awesome 20 person party pack from Capitol City Comedy Club or even belly dancing classes for a month! Come be surprised by all the neat things you could win.
We can't wait to celebrate all of the great work The Hutto Visitation Program is doing!
If you can't make the event, you can still donate here to help support our programs.
If you can't make the event, you can still donate here to help support our programs.
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