Creating a safe dance environment that honors mental and physical health through Ruth Zaporah's "Action Theater" and improvisationpractices

The dance community struggles to address dancers' mental and physical wellbeing, causing negative effects that could lead to anxiety, depression, body image and self-esteem issues. Dancers' mental and physical health take a toll when they are taught to place their physical bodies above their mental and emotional health. Dance educators focus on bettering dancers' physical movement yet are not so attentive when it comes to supporting the rigor and intensity that comes with. How can we erase the stigma around dance and mental health by creating a nonjudgmental environment that honors dancers' emotional and physical wellbeing? To complete this research, I used many peer reviewed articles to analyze the positive benefits dance improvisation and Ruth Zaporah's, "Action Theater" has on dancers. Throughout my research I found that improvisation as well as the skills learned in "Action Theater" help dancers increase mindfulness, self-agency, self-awareness and emotional expression, all aspects that improve one's mental and physical health. I found that dance artists such as Ruth Zaporah effectively accomplish this with improvisation, Buddhist practices, and setting mental and physical limits. I argue that the dance community can address and better support mental health through improvisation and mind-body centering techniques. In my presentation, I will examine Ruth Zaporah's Physical Theater method called "Action Theater," and improvisational exercises used to support dancers' mental health as consideration for dance curricular at the collegiate level.