Susan Slotnick, a SUNY New Paltz alumna, has transformed her Hudson Valley home into a gallery of her artwork. Portraits of her daughters, done in vibrant colors, hang along the walls leading to the studio where she spends her time painting and dancing. Slotnick has been a columnist, choreographer and painter throughout her life, with strong ties to social justice. Through her creative outlets she has gained a plethora of stories and experiences with children, incarcerated men and underprivileged people.

What motivated you to teach dance to incarcerated men?

I’ll go back to a specific experience. I was 18 and I got into a car with a bad boy. I was unhappy with my family of origin and was not doing well in school. I had a reputation of being fast when I was in high school but I wasn’t. I was actually a virgin until that night. I was date raped and I lost my virginity that way. When I got home I spent the whole night dancing. I danced to a song called “Some Kind of Wonderful,” then all of the Drifters’ old music. By the morning I felt fine. It was like the thing had never happened, I felt so good. What I did not know then is that dancing actually changes your brain chemistry, so it is an antidepressant. From that sexual assault experience, I said, “Gee that gave me such a sense of freedom from my own pain. Where do people need to feel free that aren’t free?” I immediately thought, “Prison, what more specific a metaphor than that?” That has easily been a high water mark of my career.

Where did your passion for social justice come from?

I grew up in Scarsdale, New York. When I went to junior high I noticed the difference in the way that the black kids were treated in school. Then I was flunking out of school myself, so we used to hang out in the projects together. However, the big thing was that I had this black teacher, Alfred E. Hampton. He was the most loved teacher in the school and it was a status symbol if he came to your house to have dinner --I mean he was famous. One time I went swimming at the YMCA in White Plains and I saw him in the lobby. He was watching TV. That’s when I found out that he lived with all these disenfranchised men there. I realized that he couldn’t find a decent place to live because black people weren’t allowed in the good neighborhoods. Lastly, there was Ellen Daniels. She was the smartest girl in my grade and she was reading this big, thick book. I thought, “I might not be as smart as her, but I can read that book.” The book was “The Exodus” by Leon Uris. It is about the Holocaust, which is something I wasn’t aware had happened. I guess my parents thought at twelve years old I was still too young. While flunking out of school, I read everything in the White Plains library under the Holocaust. Well, that’s quite a social justice education -- between the black girls in the projects and the books in the library. That is how it started.

Out of all of the careers you’ve explored throughout your life, which has been your favorite?

I think choreography is my favorite because it is the one I developed the most and it involved working with other people. There are moments when a painting changes your life or when a book changes your life, but I did choreography with very intense social justice themes. It was terrific to be able to nonverbally work on things that were aimed towards healing the world and making the world a better place. We have to devote our lives to healing the world and if each person did that in their own way, whether it be by creating something beautiful for people to look at so they get a break from the ugliness that is around them, then we can make magic.

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If you can give your younger self advice now, what would it be?

There is more to you than you think.