Mental health dance workshops

Our mental health dance workshops focus on wellness through dance.

Young people are often troubled with very complex needs. These may be from a young age, or through the pressures of growing up. Our dance workshops aim to show them how they can effect their mental health through exercise and dance.

Dance is a great way to stay fit and healthy, and that also includes our mental health. It releases endorphins, gets your adrenalin pumping,  and helps you to focus on your creativity. It’s also a lot of fun, which in turn makes you feel good.

Chalkhill Education Centre

We had an interesting time recently when we taught at Chalkhill Education Centre. Chalkhill is a Centre for young people, a mixed-gender psychiatric unit which offers education and clinical intervention to young people aged 11-18years.

Half of the students live on site, and the others live at home and come each day. A lot of the girls suffer from Anorexia and mental health issues.

They wanted to have a Bollywood Dance experience for their students and we taught two workshops to classes of around 8 students in each. First we got everyone dressed up in Belly scarfs and Bindis. Then we taught them some Bollywood routines to the latest tracks.

It was tricky for us as the staff didn’t want the girls who were really ill to do doing too much dance. Some of the anorexia sufferers were pretty week physically, and they didn’t even want to drink water when it was extremely hot in the studio.

It was hard to watch what the girls were going through, and seeing their internal battles. But all the girls wanted to dance and really enjoyed it, so it was hard to tell them to do less!

Here’s another blog we’ve written about the positive benefits of dance.