Research Symposium

BIO

Kristin Javate is a current second year student studying Biology along with minors in Chemistry and Spanish at Florida State University. St. Petersburg, Florida is where she calls home. She is currently following a pre-med track, but also has a love and passion for the arts. She is a ballet dancer, currently dancing as a member with the Tallahassee Ballet. Her interests in the arts has led her to become interested in following the mental health stressors circulating the dance community. Joining Casey Copeland's research team and project has allowed her to delve deeper into this topic of mental health in the dance community and to learn more about the research process as a whole.

The Slow Regard of Silent Things: Building Mental and Emotional Resilience for Dancers

Abstract

To many, the purpose of dance science is to alleviate physical health stressors for dancers. However, more recently, mental health stressors have come to light. With the rise of COVID-19 bringing anxiety and depression, new levels of awareness of and emphasis on mental health have been circulating among the dance community. Authors such as Kathleen McGuire Gains with “Minding the Gap,” currently in pilot testing at Point Park University, and Lynda Mainwaring’s program, “The Delivery of a Short-Term Psychological Skills Training Program to College Dance Students,” conducted in 2019, help bring dancers’ stories forward in quantitative research and qualitative anecdotes. This study will use the RAND Mental Health Inventory to survey university level dance majors' students at Florida State University School of Dance using a convenience sampling method. This allows data collection from a sample reflective of the broader population of undergraduate dance majors in BFA programs. The Help4Dancers app, developed by British psychotherapist, Terry Hyde: MA MBACP, will be implemented with a focus group of 6-12 dancers. The intervention will be assessed using three methods, a knowledge base quiz, the RAND Survey, and behavioral observation to determine artistic and academic performance. From this, a baseline can be established confirming the existence of mental health stressors within the School of Dance. Ultimately, the purpose of this study is to document the prevalence of mental health stressors within the Florida State University School of Dance and assess an intervention targeted at building mental and emotional resilience through increasing awareness.

Keywords: Mental Health, Dance, Awareness