Maintaining our Sense of Self

Host: John Graham

Guests: Zoe Aston - @yourmentalhealthworkout

In this final episode on our first conversation regarding mental health and dance, Zoe Aston (@yourmentalhealthworkout) and I talk about trying to maintain a sense of self in the dance industry and how sometimes we can feel lost. We speak about the difficult position performers are in where we have to be adaptable and versatile in what we do but why that can also mean sometimes that we lose an idea of who we are in the process. We will train and work with lots of different people over the course of our careers so learning to fit in is important but also holding on to our own sense of self is vital too. Zoe talks about the importance of keeping a solid core of friends or family around you to keep you grounded and connected. On the flip side we also talk about how meeting so many people through dance allows us a chance to explore different sides to ourselves and allow other aspects of our personalities to come through. Zoe poses an excellent question in this regard that gives us a chance to look at our own behaviour in relation to different people and what sides of ourselves we show them. She also breaks down the concept of other people being mirrors for us and that the same way we use mirrors in a studio to check our form and technique, we can see what is reflected back at us from other people and use that as an opportunity for self growth. The dance community is populated by such a wide variety of personalities and people that there is every chance for us to explore multiple sides and aspects to ourselves as humans and artists. To finish up we recap some of the points we have spoken about throughout the different chapters this week as we opened our first conversation into mental health and dance.

@basedancestudios