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Dance: The Game-Changer

28 March 2024
21:36 - 21:36
Kevin Edward Turner is co-Artistic Director of Company Chameleon, a Manchester-based dance theatre company funded by Arts Council England. Here, he shares his perspective on the importance of dance to the health and wellbeing of young people, and reflects on his own experiences as a dancer and a teacher.
18 April 2016

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Kevin stands with a young boy lying across his shoulders

Dance was crucial to my overall health and well-being as a young person, even if I didn’t realise it at the time. In my pre-teens, my parents divorced and a lengthy period of disruption and change followed. Luckily for me, I had dance, my own personal escape from reality. At dance class, I was able to put all my energy into something positive. Dance was my outlet for emotional expression. My vehicle to bring all the emotions I was feeling on the inside, out into the open.

Research shows that self-expression relieves stress and anxiety. By expressing yourself you release all the tension that’s in your body. Learning and developing self-expression as a teenager equipped me to cope better and be more comfortable with my feelings growing up. Looking back now, dance was my saviour in a somewhat tough situation. What is palpable is that as a young person, dance was hugely beneficial to my mental health.

Dance positively impacted upon my social well-being too. At dance class, I felt part of a community and felt supported by my peers; likeminded people who loved dance as much as I did. With overall direction from keen amateurs and professional artists, all the material created was made and refined by us: the young people. Through a creative process that relied on collaboration, I learnt how to contribute, express and communicate my own ideas. Such development, in an exploratory and safe space, enormously built my confidence and self-belief, undoubtedly making a positive difference to my social well-being.

One of the unique things about dance is that it’s both an artform and physical exercise. It allows you to be creative at the same time as keeping fit. As a young dancer, there were constant discoveries about what was possible with my body through physical expression. We worked hard; I’d train twice a week and much more in the school holidays. As a result I developed coordination, strength, balance and flexibility, reaping the psychological and physical rewards of feeling fit along with a better understanding of my body. 

At the end there was rapturous applause. It was apparent that everyone felt touched by what they had just seen

Dance can be a game-changer when you are young. Along with my own personal case study, my evidence base for the positive impact of dance on young people also draws from 15 years’ teaching experience across the world. One of the most powerful experiences took place in Bonneytown, South Africa, when Company Chameleon were invited to deliver a dance workshop in a high security youth offenders institute. 

The workshop took place in a big sports hall with 30 boys, aged between 11 and 18, who were scrupulously supervised by the prison guards. When they arrived, they shuffled into the hall without saying a word. The atmosphere in the room was deeply subdued, and it felt like each of them had the weight of the world on their shoulders. I remember thinking to myself that this could be really difficult.

As the warm-up got going, the nervous energy began to shift, and as the group started to try out some of the moves and material, they started to smile. Soon everyone was interacting, the mood lifted and the group dynamic in the room changed. Teaching a section from a piece called Rites, a work that explores male identity and masculine rites of passage, we talked to them about the ideas behind the work and they listened intently. Soon the groups were working hard and responding to the ideas in the piece through dance and movement. 

A group of South African school children in dance poses.
Company Chameleon leading youth workshops in South Africa. Photo © Anthony Missen

As South African house music boomed away, and handstands, cartwheels and lifts took over the space, it was clear the physicality of movement was making people feel good. When a routine was correctly completed, confidence soared and a real sense of achievement took hold.

In the final part of the session, the groups were given a creative task to make up their own short story through dance. The boys approached the task with enthusiasm, and starting sharing and talking fervently about ideas. When it came to sharing what they had created, some of the material was mind-blowing – so beautiful, powerful and poignant. It was obvious that the stories they were expressing were coming from a deep place.

At the end there was rapturous applause. It was apparent that everyone felt touched by what they had just seen. Something quite special had just happened, and whatever it was went beyond dance and movement. It tapped into something much deeper inside each person present.

I look forward to seeing [the young dancers] reap the rewards of dance as a creative force, and for them to be healthier and happier people for it

More than any other, this experience has cemented my belief in the transformative nature of dance, especially in relation to young people. And this was just one afternoon of activity. Can you imagine the potential impact over a longer period of time?

Company Chameleon will achieve the long-held aspiration of setting up our own youth dance company, Chameleon Youth, in 2016, which will be based at Manchester Central Library. Here, we’ll have the opportunity to develop young people as dance artists over a number of years. We don’t expect every workshop to be as powerful as the one in South Africa, but we have enough experience to know that mental, social and physical benefits will be evident from every single class and performance.

I look forward to seeing the young dancers in Chameleon Youth connect their own ideas with physical expression. I look forward to seeing them communicate, interact, collaborate, think laterally, think critically, develop strength, improve co-ordination, understand structure and musical phrasing, and of course, have fun. I look forward to seeing them reap the rewards of dance as a creative force, and for them to be healthier and happier people for it.  

Kevin Edward Turner lifts a young dancer in a workshop setting while other young participants watch
Kevin Edward Turner leads a youth dance workshop with Company Chameleon. Photo © Joel Chester Fildes

Find out more

See more of Company Chameleon’s work on their website

Learn more about Chameleon Youth and find out how to get involved or watch the video below!

Discover how we support Dance across England and learn more about our work with children and young people

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