by Jess Spinner | Sep 19, 2024 | Career, Company Life, Health & Body, Pointe+, Wellness
Entering a new dance environment can bring about mixed emotions—excitement, anxiety, homesickness, or even fear. Whether it’s your first step towards going pro in a traineeship, second company, or full company position, you want to feel confident and put your best...
by Jess Spinner | Jun 12, 2024 | Health & Body, Pointe+, Wellness
As a professional dancer, summer layoff is a very different experience from summers as a student, when you spent several weeks training at programs and intensives. Suddenly, you have much more time to fill on your own. Knowing what exactly to do with that time can...
by Zoe Phillips | May 30, 2024 | Career, Pointe+, Profiles
When American Contemporary Ballet principal Elise Kruger found herself stuck at home amid pandemic lockdowns, she signed up for an online psychology class. It’s a subject that’s always interested her. “There are so many basic psychology tips and tools you can...
by Rachael Parini as told to Linnea Swarting | Oct 11, 2023 | Career, Profiles
In the summer of 2022, BalletMet dancer Rachael Parini began to experience symptoms of bipolar disorder, a mental health condition characterized by episodes of mania or hypomania and depression. Parini was diagnosed with bipolar 1, which is determined following a...
by Meghan Keeney | Nov 30, 2022 | Health & Body, Wellness
I first sought out therapy in my sophomore year of college as a double major in dance and digital journalism. At the time, I was deep in disordered-eating thoughts, which added to my existing anxiety, and it was affecting my performance in dance classes. I knew I...
by Cory Stieg For Dance Magazine | Oct 8, 2021 | The Latest, Wellness
Survivors of sexual assault and harassment are pulling back the curtain on a pernicious problem in the dance world. In the wake of the #MeToo movement, several have come forward in the past few years to share their stories. Now, there are two major cases in the...
by Kathleen Mcguire For Dance Magazine | Feb 11, 2021 | Health & Body, Profiles
It was the kind of nightmare that haunts a dancer in their sleep. Joshua Shutkind, then a first-year corps member with Ballet West, stepped onto the stage in the coveted role of the Prince in The Nutcracker and completely forgot the steps. But Shutkind was not...
by Madeline Schrock | Nov 4, 2020 | Health & Body, Wellness
As we continue to deal with a dance industry in flux due to the coronavirus, dancers seem to be encountering even more stressful situations. But there is one thing that’s in your control: According to research published in the journal Complementary Therapies in...