Richland dance routine brought awareness to domestic abuse. Then the school canceled it

An award-winning Hanford High dance team was barred from performing a routine in front of students after complaints by a school board member and some parents about a song’s lyrics.

Emails posted this week by Richland community members show how Richland School Board Vice President Audra Byrd pressured administrators to shut down the dance routine in January.

In the end, the routine, which had been pre-approved and practiced for more than four months, was not allowed to be performed at schools, only in competition settings.

The emails received under the Washington Public Records Act showing the chronology of events sparked some strong comments at this week’s school board meeting.

The song in question — Tracy Chapman’s 1988 a capella “Behind the Wall” — tells the story of a neighbor bearing witness to domestic violence next door, and how the police declined to intervene on the “domestic affairs between a man and his wife.”

The song describes how the fighting next door one day turned silent, and she saw an ambulance in the road.

“Behind the Wall” is a critique of the apathetic response society took for years to domestic violence. Tri-Cities critics took it as an unfair slam of law enforcement officers.

Scott Butner, a former Richland School Board member who is from a law enforcement family, took offense to that criticism and accused Byrd of overstepping her authority.

“It’s really simple: You can’t really respect the people who are tasked with enforcing the law if you can’t respect the law itself,” Butner told the board during the public comments.

Byrd responded that she didn’t have any decision-making power when it came to the performance. She said she was within her right as a board member to weigh-in on the topic via email.

“There was multiple complaints that came from parents on the dance team, and some of them came to me. So I gave those complaints to the superintendent. I don’t handle discipline and I don’t even get to make recommendations like you mentioned, Mr. Butner,” she said.

The Herald has requested copies of the emails from the district but has yet to receive them.

January complaints

In August, the 19-time WA state champion Hanford High dance program was planning its routines for the coming year and had the “Behind the Wall” program OK’d by district administrators and the Washington Interscholastic Activities Association, according to the emails posted.

The Falcon Fever Dance Team performed the “Behind the Wall” routine at its first dance and drill competition at Pasco High on Jan. 21, when the team placed third in dance and qualified for district competition.

A frenzy of emails sent Jan. 26 and 27 between Byrd, parents and teammates show how the freshman school board member attempted to get Superintendent Shelley Redinger and the Hanford High administration to remove the song.

“HHS dance is scheduled for another competition this Saturday and nobody still has talked to that coach about the inappropriate song choice,” Byrd wrote on Jan. 26. “The mother is upset and spoke with the coach about her concerns and told her she is doing the song anyway.”

The team also planned to perform the routine at an upcoming competition in Selah.

Byrd asked if the administration was going to let the team “broadcast this negativity again” and said she hoped it could be stopped. She is one of three on the school board currently facing a recall attempt for her vote to defy Washington state’s COVID mask mandate and other allegations.

Emails suggest the administration stepped in with a compromise the next day, prohibiting the dance team from performing routines with the Chapman song in schools, but said it was OK during competitions.

“They also incorporated signage demonstrating support for our police,” Redinger wrote in a Jan. 30 email. She could not be reached this week about the emails and her decision.

But even some of the performers felt the last-minute changes were unfair and could compromise their efforts to compete.

“We were made aware that some viewers interpreted the song as critiquing the police. We as a team have worked tirelessly to get where we are and to give it all up now would mean confiscating our spot at districts and potentially state,” wrote one team member to the board in a Jan. 27 email.

Another wrote the school board saying the song highlights the scary reality of domestic violence, and that the decision “to prohibit their use of it based solely on a parent complaint is one-sided, unfair and literally jeopardizing their chances to attend state competition.”

“Please consider the impact this decision will have on these kids, as well as what message you are relaying to the very students you are here to serve,” they wrote.

The team went on to state, earning 7th place in dance and 8th in the kick category.