Dance Therapy Workshops

You have provided all the lectures, self-care powerpoints, and talks at your company on topics like mental health and wellness but it still feels like something is missing. . .

You keep seeing signs of burnout among your staff and students and all the education you have done for them does not seem to be helping. They are tired and unmotivated and you are not sure what else you can do to help change the work environment.

You are looking for a way to help them explore self-care and mental wellness that is more sustainable than just a one-time “treat yourself.” You want people you are working with to be able to recognize when they feel stressed or anxious in their bodies and know what they need to do to cope. You want to provide them with a way to feel calm and centered at work that will help them in both their career and life challenges. Most of all, you want a workshop to help your staff feel engaged and excited to work again. . .and for that focus and engagement to stay!

My name is Lisa Manca and I help schools and companies to empower their staff and students to implement meaningful mental health and wellness strategies through wellness workshops. Together, through movement and verbal processing, your staff will explore mental health themes such as self-care and resilience. With dance therapy workshops, participants can learn new ways to connect to their bodies and emotions, process stressful career and life events, and become more attuned to their mental health so they can show up as their best selves at work. By building a safe and secure connection to themselves via movement, clients will feel more resilient and better able to cope with life’s challenges and recover from or avoid burnout.

Why Dance Therapy Workshops?

1) Dance therapy workshops incorporate techniques that help with employee engagement. Dance has long been used to foster a sense of community. Moving together with other people provides a sense of connection and empathy on a kinesthetic level. Dance therapy workshops with a trained dance therapist offer the techniques of dance therapy that build group cohesion and trust.

2) Dance therapy can help with mental wellness which, in turn, helps with productivity and performance.

People experiencing mental health symptoms from burnout, depression and anxiety are unlikely to be able to perform well at work. With the pressures and stresses occurring in our world, both at home and personally, it is more important than ever to have ways to help employees manage their mental health. Dance in and of itself can be helpful for improving depression and this study (Noetel et al., 2024) noted that dance is the best form of of exercise for improving depression. Dancing may even prove more helpful than SSRIs (a standard antidepressant medication) per an article by the Independent reporter Olivia Hebert. A meta-analysis of dance therapy research also suggests it decreases anxiety and depression (Koch et al, 2019).

3) Dance therapy workshops provide ideal ways to incorporate stress reduction, help enhance creativity, and work on team building. Dance, as an art form, uses creativity and when moving together builds a sense of community. Dance therapy doesn’t focus on teaching a certain type of dance or dance technique but instead focuses on the inner experience of each individual and the group. Dance therapists focus on creating a welcoming environment where everyone can participate and focus on how they feel, rather than what movement looks like to an outsider. This internal focus can help foster a connection to one’s body and mental health, which is the crucial first step in stress reduction. Additionally dance therapy can help teach various stress reduction techniques that participants can remember and use daily.