Dance festival to break stigma around mental health

By Jade Myers
Contributing Writer

Dancing Grounds, a New Orleans-based dance company, will showcase young artists at its third annual “Dance for Social Change Youth Arts and Leadership Festival.” The festival will take place from March 24-25 at four locations including the Contemporary Arts Center. All activities, and events at the festival are free and open to the public.

“Dance for Social Change,” or DSC, is a collaboration between New Orleans Center for Creative Arts (NOCCA) faculty, Junebug Productions, youth leaders, and other local organizations from across the city of New Orleans.

“Our mission is around how can we use the arts, particularly dance and movement as a vehicle for social change,” said Laura Stein, the executive director of Dancing Grounds.

“[We are] also thinking collectively of how dance can communicate about issues that we care about [and] influence people’s perspective and bring people together,” Stein said.

The theme for this year’s festival is “Breaking Through the Stigma of Mental Health.” The festival will consist of two components: a participatory day of action in support of mental health awareness, and a youth-created dance performance presented at the Contemporary Arts Center.

Some events at the Dance for Social Change festival will focus on the theme of raising awareness about mental health and breaking the stigma that is often attached to it. Performances at the festival will creatively incorporate this message through their choreography that can be seen in their performances.

“It’s about giving teenagers different tools and strategies for creating their own choreography that speaks on social justice issues,” Stein said.

Across the year, Dancing Grounds works to provide high-quality, accessible dance education and performance to New Orleans residents of all ages, by supporting a diverse community of dance students, teachers, artists and audiences.

Stein co-founded the non-profit in March 2012 with Jessi Donley. The two women shared a vision for bringing the local dance community together and providing more high-quality, accessible dance programming for the city of New Orleans.

The importance of having performances like this is to bring communities together, Stein said. The event is driven by the young artists that are participating in the programs, she said. At the festival, the artists facilitate workshops collaboratively with professional artists where they cover issues that are related to the theme of the festival. Stein said that she wanted this festival to not just be about watching performances, but she also wants the attendees to be a part of this festival as well. She believes that the biggest goal of this event is to use dance as a way to spark new conversations and build a wider community and network of people who are willing to improve the city.

The two-day event starts March 24, with activities and performances beginning at 10 a.m. that include workshops, food trucks, a block party and more. The March 25 showings will be held to be at the Contemporary Arts Center from 2-4 p.m. For more information about the festival, the public can visit www.dancingrounds.org/dance-for-social-change.

This article originally published in the March 19, 2018 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.