How a dance program helps Los Angeles students overcome anxiety and isolation

For Emilia Marie Cabrales, a junior at Pasadena High School, her message to her classmates is in the groove. 

As her classmate turns around, Emilia strikes a dance move — right heel lifted in the air and left arm outstretched toward the sky — and a line of students across the room try to pass along the move in a game of “Telegroove,” a spin on the childhood game “Telephone.” 

Emilia is part of an eight-week summer program at the Pasadena Boys and Girls Club called “Dance and Dialogue,” a course that uses movement, storytelling and social connection to help students build confidence, empathy and stronger relationships with one another. Before playing “Telegroove,” Emilia and her classmates gathered in a circle on the floor and talked about their plans for the future.

“We talked about things that we wish we would have changed in our life, and I shared something a little more personal to me that I don’t really tell people,” Emilia said during her last week in the program. “I think it was the last step to really opening up to them.” 

As schools look for new ways to respond to rising anxiety and stress among teenagers, programs such as Dance and Dialogue, among others, teach students social-emotional skills through comedy or visual arts, harness play, laughter and artistic expression to help students build confidence and stronger relationships.

The program — which has worked with more than 65,000 kids in via K-12 school residencies, leadership programs and community workshops — recruits dance instructors and youth wellness experts to create workshops that foster creative expression and social-emotional learning. 

Eli Kelsch, an assistant instructor at Dance and Dialogue, has taught dance and music programs to students across Los Angeles, including at juvenile detention centers, to show youth that “there are good ways to grow up and exist with each other.” He said many students come out of their shells and form deep friendships by the end of the eight-week summer program.

“They seem happier, more open, less shy. The hoods come off, the hats come off, sunglasses come off, and the personality comes out,” Kelsch said. “They’re not afraid to share who they really are in a space that will allow it.”

At most high schools, arts education can become high-pressure and competitive. A student in the dance program must try to master techniques in ballet, jazz or hip-hop, audition for advanced dance teams, take exams for pre-AP or IB, International Baccalaureate, Dance courses and travel to perform in local and regional competitions. While the performing arts build confidence and community, research shows that intensive training environments, particularly in dance, can also create new sources of stress, anxiety and fear of failure. 

“When (students) have anxiety, they need to know that they can find a light way to address what’s going on with themselves,” said Ricka Kelsch, executive director of Dance and Dialogue and Eli’s mother. “And so they engage much more quickly.”

Emilia said that her conversations with her peers and instructors mattered just as much to her as the dance.

“I like the idea of including both sides — a deep conversation, but then a really rewarding, fun experience — so that you don’t feel like the deep conversation is that deep,” Emilia said. “It’s normalized.”

Emilia, who said she has never thought to reach out to an adult at school, reflects a broader challenge facing schools in California. The state has invested $4.9 billion in part to hire more school mental health support staff, but many students still feel more comfortable opening up in informal, social environments than walking into a counselor’s office.

The student mental health crisis reached a boiling point after the pandemic. Reduced social interaction, coupled with significant screen time, worsened students’ social cognition skills. Rates of anxiety and depression shot up 70% among California children between 2017 and 2022 to become the top health-related drivers of absenteeism. 

Destinee Veal, a sophomore at Pasadena High School, struggled with “just connecting with people, because you were isolated while still growing up (and) finding ourselves,” she said. 

“This program really taught me that I’m actually a talkative person,” she said.

Programs such as Dance and Dialogue, among others teaching social-emotional skills through comedy or visual arts, represent an approach that aims to harness play, laughter and artistic expression to help students build resilience. Kelsch said that schools can use resources, such as the state’s annual $1 billion in Prop. 28 funds to expand arts education, to invest in programs that address deficits in both arts access and mental health support.

During a typical eight-week residency, instructors facilitate activities and conversations to align with a theme or skill that anchors each class. For the “listening” class, for example, students practice conversational skills to become more attentive listeners to their friends and family, and as they progress, so does their movement. They may begin with desk drumming, then finger-tutting (a microstyle of street dance), then body percussion, move to stepping, stomping and eventually into hip hop, said Ricka Kelsch. 

“Sometimes they can’t find the words to express what they’re having to say,” she said. “It’s an evolution, as they feel safe, that helps them to have creative outlets so they can fully express themselves in a holistic way.”

Like finding the right words for a story, students work together to find the right dance moves to convey narratives through film, audio or music, Ricka Kelsch said. For example, as part of a recent school residency, Kelsch said students choreographed pieces to a film soundtrack about the abolitionist movement along with a documentary film about the lives of foster youth.

“I always tell them, ‘So who gets the job? Who gets into the college of their dreams for a dance scholarship? It’s those who tell the story the best,’ ” Kelsch said. “We wind up with a beautiful product, but the journey to get there looks very different.”

Emilia said her favorite moment in the class was when she participated in a team-building exercise she thought would be “kinda cringey.” In one activity, she and her classmates entered the room to a floor decorated with photos, each picking up three and talking about why the photos spoke to them. In another, she juggled five balls with her classmates while trying to remember who threw each ball at her. 

She said the program gave her a unique chance to make new friends and learn more about herself. 

“It’s really important to have this,” Emilia said. “I think it’s good to let kids unwind, and we have such a big problem with not knowing everyone and being really scared to get to know people. And this was the perfect opportunity.”

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This story was originally published by EdSource.