Mental health is a topic that needs to be talked about especially between dancers because there are so many factors of dance and the experience of dance that could possibly be damaging to a dancer’s mental health, but it could also be the other way around. Dancers may find positive effects to their mental health from dancing. Yet, either way we should make mental health a topic dancers can feel comfortable speaking about. In recent years mental health has become a bigger conversation worldwide, yet some dancers find it somewhat difficult to balance dance and their mental health. The conversation of mental health within the dance community was almost always seen as this unspoken topic, but now as newer generations begin to grace the stage so do their opinions and views, because of that mental health has become a much more normalized topic to speak on in the dance world. Because the talk of mental health within the dance world has become more normalized, dancers may feel more inclined to reach out for help if they ever need it. And with that, how does mental health truly affect the minds of dancers, both good and bad?
To begin, mental health is different for everybody just like how the dance world is different for every dancer. They all experience dance and all the factors that play into the artform differently, whether this be in a positive or negative light. In many cases it has been said that dancing has improved people’s mental wellbeing. For some people dance has even saved their lives. There are many different examples of how dancing can increase one’s mental health positively.For example : Increased mood, stress relief, and increased memory function. Now according to the Mental Health Association In Delaware, “Dance releases endorphins, a naturally occurring “feel-good” chemical in our brain that increase feelings of pleasure and decrease pain. Endorphins help reduce depression, anxiety, and improve your self-esteem.” and “Raven Gibbs, a mental health professional and dancer, says, “As dance raises your heart rate and works your body, it also releases certain chemicals in the brain. It reduces cortisol, the natural stress hormone or what is more commonly known as the fight or flight hormone. Cortisol, in excess, can lead to high blood pressure, anxiety, depression, and other health problems.” ” So this shows that while you dance your body will release certain chemicals to make you happy, make you less stressed, and etc. Also according to Very Well Minds, they state that dance makes it “Easy to bond with others.” Dance is such an amazing way to make friends, and these friends are lifelong friends. They go through somewhat similar struggles and successes as you so it makes it easier to feel seen and understood. When I asked a dancer who’s also a student the question : “How do you feel dance affects your mental health?” Elodie Oberstein said she felt that “Ever since I began dancing it’s been such a positive outlet for me. I’m able to express my emotions, feel less stressed and just more happy in life. Whenever I’m stressed or upset and I go to ballet class, all of those bad feelings go away and I feel okay again. Dance gives me this sense of freedom and happiness that I could never find anywhere else. And I’ve also made lifelong friends that will always hold a special place in my heart.” As you can see, dance can be a positive thing for people’s minds. Dancing can be this form of freedom, you feel so free and creative.
On the contrary, while many people may have different experiences when it comes to dance, that means they’ll all have different feelings about their life with dance, specifically how dance makes them feel. For some people dance had really deeply affected their mental health in a negative way. It even sometimes makes people depressed or so unhappy that they even quit. According to Kathleen McGuire, a former dancer, from Dance Magazine explained, “I relied heavily on the praise of my teachers and casting to feel my self-worth. And over time, the micro-failures that dancers must overcome each day started to chip away at me. In my last year at SFBS, I would routinely cry in the studio. A missed pirouette or a class where I felt invisible to the teacher would completely dismantle me.” As you can see, dance is very much about praise and if you aren’t praised or even recognized you feel invisible and that makes you just feel awful. Also the Professional Counselor states, “Yet a strong commitment to the art form requires ballet dancers to work with their bodies for hours, sustain injuries, and work through chronic pain (Pickard, 2012), often leading to emotional distress (Moola & Krahn, 2018). Physical requirements also make dancers three times more vulnerable, compared to non-dancers, to suffer from eating disorders, particularly anorexia nervosa…” This is because as dancers get older and more advanced in their technique, their commitment to dancing also grows, sometimes you’ll be at the studio for hours and hours at a time. Also there is this pressure to always be skinny, especially when dancers become old enough to do partnering in which they need to be lifted. When I asked dancer, Amelia Grubb, who’s also a high school student the question : “How do you feel dance affects your mental health?” Amelia Grubb, states, “Dance has affected my mental health in many ways. Growing up in the studio I always thought of it as my second home, spending 1 and a half hours every few days there which soon grew to spending at least 20 hours there a week. As dancers we are told we need to fit certain standards and if we don’t then what’s the point. I always dreaded the day in the rehearsal process where we had to try on costumes. It always felt like a constant cycle of having to get a bigger size or have my costume being let out to accommodate my “bigger body” while my classmates always had to have theirs made smaller. I went through continuous cycles of dealing with how I felt in my body, comparing it to my classmates. At that same time, I would hear the constant chatter from my teachers commenting on my appearance. As every performance came and went, all I could think about was that it was one year closer to me graduating and leaving dance behind me. The mental strain dance has brought me doesn’t even match how much love my friends I have met from it have given me.” Now as you can see, ballet is not all pretty performances and TuTus. Dancers are made to fit these “standards” and when they’re not they feel like an outsider, especially when the teacher mentions your differences from everyone else. This shows how dance can be negative toward your mental state.
Now that we know all of this information it is crystal clear to see that dance may be a beautiful artform and can be really enjoyable for some, but that it may not be the case for every dancer, and that’s okay. We as a society in the dance world need to help make the talk about mental health a topic that dancers feel okay to speak about and how not being okay is okay. While also letting them know that they have people there for them if they need help. Dancers go through many pains and successes but they need to know that the world is here for them no matter what hardships they are going through. Let’s make it a conversation, talk about it, make your fellow dancers feel like they have somebody to talk to, somebody to confide in.
