Dance should not have to hurt psychologically. Psychological injuries in dance can be prevented. Voirelia strongly believes in the importance of mental health for dance artists and we believe that everyone can play a positive role in supporting mental health in dance practices.

To address this, we started the Dancing with a Healthy Mindset, a new initiative by Voirelia that began in 2019. Our goal is to raise awareness about mental health in dance, raise awareness about unique psychological injuries that dance artists can be vulnerable to, and start conversations about how psychological tools, informed by scientific evidence, can be used by leaders, dancers, and organizations in the dance sector to help build supportive, psychologically safe dance practices and spaces that foster creativity, artistic liberty, and support artists as persons.

Some other goals of Dancing with a Healthy Mindset are:

• Exploring key ingredients for psychologically and emotionally safe dance practices
• Increasing community conversations about how psychological safety can be supported in dance
• Learning what helps to strength authentic and mutually supportive relationships within different dance communities
• Building connections between dancers and psychologists

The steps we are taking to achieve these goals:

1. Starting conversations with dancers and dance professionals on the topics of dance and mental health to understand their perspective.
2. Building a free online public archive that will include insights from these conversations and, eventually, information about psychological research and psychological tools that can help support dancers – see below for some of the first entries!
3. Developing and delivering workshops that integrate positive psychology tools and dance. You can read about and check out videos and pictures of our first workshop in this series, “Joy in Movement,” in the Past Projects and Events section.

Join us in this work! We are interested in collaborating with other community organizations on this initiative. Write to us if you would like to get involved or support this initiative!

Check this page often! Content coming soon, including blogs and vlogs with local and international dance artists, articles, research, and more!

Interview articles and videos coming soon with: Emily Molnar, Artistic Director, Ballet BC; Luc Jacobs, Senior Rehearsal Director, Batsheva Dance Company; Yaniv Abraham, Independent Dance Artist; Guy Shoromi, Independent Dance Artist; Beverley Bagg, Ballet Mistress, Ballet BC, & Ballet Educator; Hillel Kogan, Rehearsal Director, Batsheva Young Ensemble and Independent Dance Artist, and more local and international artists and dance professionals!