Ballet After Dark

 Ballet After Dark is the only program that provides trauma-informed, holistic dance therapy to survivors of various levels of trauma and violence. 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. We honor art and expression as invaluable communication tools that make a better world–and value survivors’ stories in all their vast diversity as holding the answers. We’re building a global community of support for survivors and creating spaces for youth, women (and those who identify as women) and nonbinary friends to safely explore freedom of assembly and association following sexual devastation. This holistic approach allows survivors to reprocess, rebuild and reclaim their bodies following sexual and intimate partner violence. Our organization’s mission is to amplify the voices of black and brown survivors while bridging the gap between trauma experienced and spaces that allow for healing to safely be explored.

Meeting and associating with other youth and women is essential for the advancement of human rights. 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. 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. Safe spaces for assembly and reunion can also work as  support networks that eventually protect the integrity of youth and women who are being victims of violence. Implementing the Ballet After Dark dance therapy program can work as a safe space for youth, women, especially those of color, devastated by sexual and domestic assault in which they can talk about their experiences and use their freedom of assembly and association.

Additionally, we're expanding to include more styles of dance therapy! Survivors will be able to choose from ballet therapy, modern/jazz therapy, heels therapy and burlesque therapy! With included self-defense workshops, survivors will be able to choose how they want to feel.