05/06/2026
Dance is often overlooked in conversations about what is understood in Western culture as "mental health" and "wellbeing."
When people think about supporting their mental health, they usually think of therapy, medication, mindfulness, exercise, or lifestyle changes. Dance rarely makes the list. It's often seen as something extra - ...a hobby, a luxury, a "nice-to-do," or something purely recreational.
Yet movement, and dance specifically, is one of the most powerful ways I have personally witnessed people experience profound shifts in their lives and in their experience of themselves.
My interest in this was deepened more than a decade ago when I was introduced to a research article on dance and Parkinson's disease. I was fascinated by the impact dance was having - not only physically, but cognitively and emotionally as well. It sparked a curiosity that led me do the Dance for Parkinson's teacher's course and to begin exploring a variety of body-based, somatic movement and dance practices in my own life. Working intentionally with the body has been deeply life-renewing for me, and it strengthened something I had sensed for a long time: that the body holds incredible potential for healing, growth, and transformation.
As a dance teacher and integrative movement practitioner, I have witnessed this countless times over the years.
One story in particular stands out.
A woman who had joined one of my adult ballet classes came to speak with me after class one day. She had been attending for about three months, taking just one class a week. She told me she felt like a "different" person since she had started ballet - more herself, lighter, and more alive. She even said that she felt she no longer really needed to continue seeing her therapist.
Naturally, I encouraged her to continue with her professional support, but what struck me was not the statement itself it was the transformation she was describing.
Nothing dramatic had happened.
She had simply been coming to a normal adult ballet class each week.
And yet, through the music, the movement, the discipline, the creativity, the social connection, and the experience of being present in her body, something had shifted. Something had been released, integrated, or processed. Whatever needed to happen seemed to happen through her body.
That experience reminded me how much of what we carry cannot always be reached through words and logic alone. Often, what needs to be processed, released, integrated, expressed, or understood finds its way through the body, through movement.
Maybe that's part of what makes dance so special. It gives us an opportunity to experience ourselves differently, to reconnect with ourselves, and to feel more present, more embodied, and more alive. It allows us to express and move through things that we cannot always understand or explain in words.
And in that process, people often experience deeply therapeutic changes - a sense of freedom where there was once tension and isolation, and joy where there had been heaviness. Sometimes they reconnect with parts of themselves they thought they had lost.
Over and over again, I have witnessed people not only learn to dance, but also experience meaningful shifts in how they feel, how they relate to themselves and others, and how they move through the world.
Dance is so much more than learning steps.
Sometimes it becomes a way back to ourselves.
And sometimes, in finding our way back to ourselves, we discover healing too.
๐ ๐ ๐ ๐ ๐ ๐
If this post has stirred something in you, and you've been thinking about taking up ballet - whether as an adult, for your teenage daughter, or as a young adult wanting to explore this beautiful art form - please feel free to reach out to me for more information: 083 261 9634.
https://www.facebook.com/share/v/1Dxo7VdtvT/
