Monday, October 11, 2021
5 Ways to Cope With Triggering News About Sexual Abuse in the Dance World
Dance Magazine: Survivors of sexual assault and harassment are pulling back the curtain on a pernicious problem in the dance world.
In the wake of the #MeToo movement, several have come forward in the past few years to share their stories. Now, there are two major cases in the mainstream news: In a federal lawsuit filed September 27, former Boston Ballet principal Dusty Button and her husband Mitchell Taylor Button are accused of raping and sexually abusing dancers, including minors, for years. Another lawsuit filed this week alleges that dance faculty at the University of North Carolina School of the Arts perpetrated sexual abuse and exploitation of minors in the 1970s and '80s.
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2 comments:
This is an extremely informative article. I thought that the formatting was very strategic because they stated facts about sexual assault in the dance industry worldwide. Then they talked about how to deal with the feelings or emotions that arise in an individual when stumbling onto this type of content and how to deal with it. These stories are just plain awful and I am glad that people are mustering the courage to come forward to call out and change the industry. I hope that if anyone comes to me as a stage manager, I can be prepared to deal with the situation in an appropriate manner. It is great that these coping tactics are published so that those in leadership positions can have quick and immediate tools to calm someone down. I thought that the quote at the end was very informative about dance culture because it makes sense that these performers would have difficulty expressing themselves vocally when they have trained for years to express themselves physically.
This idea of triggers has been discussed a lot recently in my community. There is no doubt that this content often does trigger many people, but this article definitely has some good strategies for managing that. One thing I might add to the article is that you can also reach out to the writers of this news or leave a comment asking them to put trigger warnings on the piece, so you readers know what they are getting themselves into. The last sentence of this article was very poignant to me about how dancers often don’t know how to express themselves through words because they are so used to using their body language. I think a lot of people in other industries also struggle with this because we aren’t taught how to use physical articulate language. I think, honing and building up these skills should be a part of curriculum in all college degrees, and training on job sites.
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