Lufkin students experience Ballet After Dark dance therapy

LUFKIN, Texas (KTRE) - A Baltimore-based ballet company visited local schools today to have an interactive dance class, teaching that there is a bigger meaning behind the moves.

Ballet After Dark was brought to the area and sponsored by the Angelina Arts Alliance. Ballet After Dark’s goal is to teach people how to heal their own traumas through dance and movement. Dunbar Primary’s Principal Denetra Slaughter says the students learned that movement can be powerful and can help them heal.

“We know that students are engaged in emotional events each day, and so any type of positivity that we can bring to their lives is crucial,” Slaughter said.

Students engaged in different sequences and steps while also learning about mindful self-awareness, arts and imagination, and how movement can be interpreted in different ways.

Aysa Shaw, a dance therapist for Ballet After Dark, says they use trauma-informed dance therapy content and curriculum to teach their classes.

“We really want to just drive home the initiative, knowledge, compassion, happiness, joy, healing and love that is being with your body, and the best way we know how to do that as artists is through dance,” Shaw said.

Shaw says dance therapy is for everyone, but can be especially important to children.

“Children go through things in their own life just as we do, in their own little worlds, so sometimes dance for that developmental level is just a space to be free,” Shaw said.

Slaughter says her students had a ton of fun and learned a lot in today’s class.

“Our students absolutely had a blast; they picked up the dance steps so quickly, and the smiles on their faces said it all,” Slaughter said.

Ballet After Dark will be preforming in the Jones Park in Lufkin tomorrow, October 1, at 1 p.m.

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