Ballet After Dark Holistic Advocacy Program

Ballet After Dark is the only program that provides trauma-informed, holistic dance therapy to survivors of sexual and intimate partner violence. We’re building a global community of support for survivors and creating spaces for women (and those who identify as women) to safely explore freedom of assembly and association following sexual devastation. Ballet After Dark works as a support system to existing victim service agencies to provide trauma-informed ballet classes to survivors allowing autonomy to be restored following trauma. This holistic approach allows survivors to reprocess, rebuild and reclaim their bodies following sexual and intimate partner violence. 

If awarded, funding will be used to hire staff allowing us to expand the holistic, diagnosed advocacy services offered throughout all regions of the United States. Through our established  partnership in Mexico City, we’ll be launching Ballet After Dark- LATAM-- this component of our program will expand our advocacy resources and dance therapy curriculum throughout various countries within Latin America. Our goal is to engage and service more marginalized women of the trans, indigenous and Afro-Latina communities in Mexico, Puerto Rico, Honduras and Guatemala. Currently, Ballet After Dark’s virtual curriculum has engaged over 130 survivors between the United States and Mexico.

My name is Tyde-Courtney Edwards and in 2012 I crawled out of the woods after surviving a rape. I conceptualized Ballet After Dark as a result of searching for and recognizing the lack of holistic, trauma-informed prevention and recovery programs available to survivors of sexual and intimate partner violence-- particularly black and brown survivors. During my healing process, I desperately wanted to connect with other women working to heal from similar experiences. To my surprise, it was extremely difficult to find a network that supported more inclusive spaces for black and brown survivors  to access resources for overcoming sexual assault. Surviving rape is humiliating-- not knowing where to go to begin healing is even more devastating. 

The demand for spaces where women can comfortably reconnect with sensuality and openly speak about sexuality following sexual trauma has grown. We began as a series of community based workshops before being developed into a curriculum. Between 2014-2016, a total of 30 Ballet After Dark workshops were hosted. These community workshops began as 45-60 minute open dance classes featuring fitness fundamentals and beginner’s ballet. These classes were specifically aimed at exposing black and brown trauma survivors to the classical discipline as a healing modality.

At least 1 in 3 women and 47% of trans or gender non-conforming people have been sexually abused or assaulted in their lifetime; 1 in 3 women and 1 in 2 trans or gender non conforming people have experienced some form of violence by an intimate partner. In Mexico, one in 4 women and 1 in 4 trans people will be sexually abused during their lifetime. Stigma and victim blaming is a leading reason why sexual violence is one of the most under reported crimes. For every Black woman who reports her rape, at least 15 Black women do not report. 60% of people in women’s prison nationwide, and as many as 94% of some women’s prison populations, have a history of physical or sexual abuse before being incarcerated.

We’re helping survivors heal from trauma retained within the body using self care strategies focusing on various aspects of care. This is a graceful and gentle solution to helping survivors reconnect with their bodies while providing resources that encourage a better quality of life. Our vision for our trauma-informed program  is to offer holistic advocacy to survivors inclusive of mental health resources, financial literacy courses, dance therapy and other somatic programming.

Not only will Ballet After Dark offer diagnosed advocacy services, it offers a trauma-informed dance therapy curriculum exposing survivors to classical ballet. Using ballet as a healing modality is particularly empowering considering the discipline was created as entertainment for the upper echelons of European society. Through this program, we’re repurposing the strict discipline of ballet into a joyful tool and we’re exposing the craft to benefit more underserved populations. It is our somatic philosophy that the delicate execution of ballet helps survivors reconnect, reprocess and rebuild relationships with their bodies and intimate spaces following trauma.
Our dance therapy curriculum allows survivors to engage in ballet technique and athletic fundamentals culminating in an optional showcase performance. Providing survivors with the optional performance element inspires an even greater desire to heal. Our program came from the lack of attention and reparation of the physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual state of survivors. Ballet After Dark’s program is unique because it uses a holistic approach that other programs do not implement- we include a deeper understanding of the impact of trauma: sexual and intimate partner violence does not only destroy mental health but it also severely impacts the relationship between victims and their bodies.

With Ballet After Dark, we are changing public policies and building a new paradigm of how society and governments respond to sexual and intimate partner violence. We are creating a space for survivors to have a voice and making sexual violence and intimate partner violence visible in public and private spaces. We use artistic strategies for resilience and social transformation. We address a social and health problem that has been forgotten by public policies and silenced by society. 

Through the creation of safe spaces, women can speak about their experiences and realize the political character of the issues that they perceived as individual problems before sharing them with other women. The possibility of meeting and associating with other women (and those who identify as women)  is essential for the advancement of human rights. Recreational, artistic and educational safe spaces like Ballet After Dark can provide knowledge and healing possibilities from an intersectional perspective and also turn women's groups into powerful communities that restore the wounds of violence. A macro level of success for Ballet After Dark looks like providing participants with empowering tools to embrace their existing brilliance and direct support to become creators, agents of change and survivor advocates.