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...
by Kathleen McGuire | Nov 1, 2020 | Career, Instagram, Training, Wellness
“I was told when I was a young teenager that I had the worst pirouette my teacher had ever seen,” remembers New York City Ballet principal Lauren Lovette. The statement was made lightheartedly, and Lovette laughed at the time. “The whole class...
by Lauren Warnecke | Oct 25, 2020 | Health & Body, Wellness
Since starting Counselling for Dancers in 2017, psychotherapist Terry Hyde has worked with dancers of all ages on performance anxiety, auditioning and career transitions. He is particularly focused on destigmatizing mental health issues among young dancers and has...
by Frances Solá-Santiago | Aug 6, 2020 | Training, Wellness
I was 4 years old when I took my first ballet lesson. My mom had dressed me in a pink leotard with matching tights, skirt and slippers. She drove me on a Saturday morning to a ballet academy in downtown Caguas, the town in Puerto Rico where I grew up. I don’t...