Before every performance, Charlotte Ballet dancer Raven Barkley follows a preshow ritual to help manage her nerves: She stretches, reviews choreography, meditates and gets in the zone. However, preshow nerves aren’t always confined to waking hours. “I once had a dream that I was going to forget my choreography and lose where I was onstage,” […]

When former MOMIX dancer Rebecca Rasmussen was cast in “Dreamcatcher”—a duet involving a rolling, 250-pound metal sculpture—she was intimidated. Rehearsals caused nasty bruises, banged knees, smashed ribs and even a trip to the doctor when, while flipping around the bars, her hands slipped, dropping her sideways. “I knew I was a strong dancer, and that […]

Ballroom dancers face a unique set of challenges when pursuing their dreams. With a hyper-focus on professional competitions, and the added complexities of managing long-term dance partner relationships, it’s difficult to reach peak potential. Dance psychologist Dr. Peter Lovatt knows all about these complex circumstances, and is here to share his expert opinion with five […]

As dancers, we are experts on our bodies. We can identify the tiniest amount of tightness in a hip flexor or predict a head cold when our balance is off. But are we really in-tune with what our bodies are telling us when it comes to managing the mental challenges of performance? The growing field […]

A dancer once contacted me because he was devastated after walking in on his girlfriend with another man. While he was distressed about ending the relationship, he was most concerned about a major performance coming up. They had to dance a romantic pas de deux. When I met with them together, she was afraid he […]

When Dance Magazine surveyed our readers last summer, 81 percent said the field wasn’t doing enough to support mental health. We sat down with four mental health professionals, each with more than a decade of experience working with dancers, to find out their thoughts on how mental health is being addressed in the dance community […]

For demanding, vulnerable performances, the mental warm-up and wind-down is unique to each artist. Three dancers share how they get in the zone, and come back to normal life afterward: Erina Takahashi, English National Ballet Principal On performance days, Erina Takahashi (here in Akram Khan’s Giselle) doesn’t think about her character until she’s putting on […]

You’re standing in the wings, moments from entering the stage. You’ve done your planks to warm up your core, pliés to feel centered and dynamic stretches to loosen up. But your mind won’t stop racing through all the ways your performance could go wrong. Sport science strategies can get you in the right headspace. Photo […]