thank you for the great introduction
it’s a real pleasure and privilege to be
here today I’m here today to talk about
the transformative power of Arts my
journey with dance and mental health
so I’ve already blanked already there we
go so I’m going to start off talking
about in my career I’ve had the great
privilege and pleasure to witness many
many times the power of art whether
that’s working with young vulnerable
adults in Manchester or whether that’s
going to Cape Town South Africa and
working with young offenders there
whether that’s working with young adults
with mental health issues I see it on a
daily basis and what is it do I see what
is it that I see I see them transform
and full of my eyes I see their
confidence develop I see them developing
their physical skills I see them
developing their strength their
flexibility their coordination their
balance their sense of achievement and
more of a kind of an emotional and a
psychological perspective I also see
them develop in a way and a mechanism to
express their own internal world which i
think is incredibly important incredibly
cathartic alongside that they really get
some wonderful social skills as well
they able to develop communication
creativity and collaboration which I
think you all agree is incredibly key
now I could go into and talk about those
examples in great depth and in great
length but I’m just gonna focus it a
little bit about me today because I did
say that in my title of my talk is about
my journey with dance and mental health
so I’m gonna focus about focus back on
to me
so my journey where did I start from I
come from very humble origins I was
brought up on a council estate in
Manchester by my mum there was no artist
in my family whatsoever we never went to
galleries or theatres we probably
couldn’t have afforded to go in real
honesty um but I always understood
movement and dance some people
understand math some people understand
music for me it was movement it’s just
something that was intrinsic to me I
mean even before I knew what the word
he was I was choreographing fighting
fighting martial art scenes with my
younger brother it’s a great detail and
great accuracy and it was just something
that was just intrinsic to me excuse me
I then was very fortunate to be picked
up by somebody in my high school in my
primary school sorry and they taught me
long to a local youth dance group and
from there that’s when this whole world
of possibilities opened I found a way a
vessel to be able to explore this
internal world all these feelings and
anxieties and emotions I had on inside
of me it was a great way for me to be
able to put that into something positive
and constructive I moved on from that
and went on to professional training I
got my first class degree ba I’m very
very proud of that and from there I went
on to work with some of the foremost
national and international soaring dance
companies and choreographer LED
companies which was absolutely fantastic
I taught all over the world met
incredible people did some incredible
things and had some incredible
experiences but throughout all that time
from my late late teens onwards I was
hiding something
I was hiding something the biggest
secret of my life and that’s how I was
struggling with my mental health it
first manifested his depression I didn’t
even know what that word meant at that
time I didn’t have the vocabulary I
didn’t have the emotional literacy to be
able to explain that to someone I just
knew something was wrong as it carried
on through my twenties it increasingly
got worse and worse and worse if you
would have met me in that time he would
have gone Wow Kevin man you’re touring
the world you do in there she working
with that person you doing that
life seems so great and so successful
but I’d go home at night and I take off
my mask and I’d saw myself to sleep or
if I could even get to sleep if my mind
would let me so they’re ours in this
situation in this place and he reached a
crisis point in my early thirties and
unfortunately I was sectioned under the
Mental Health Act and I had to spend
some time in hospital and that’s where I
got my diagnosis of bipolar if anyone
doesn’t know what bipolar is it pretty
much says where it is on the tin it’s
kind of to it
streams on Paulus and next one is
depression the over is mania during my
crisis I was so unbelievably unwell he
actually tipped into psychosis so I saw
things heard things had delusions
believe things that weren’t real all
kinds of craziness happened to me and I
saw a whole lot of thing in the hospital
that sabonis with you I think most
people if you weren’t of a sound mind
even if you were of a sound mind sorry
we probably find quite disturb it and
they showed me the lack of provision
that we have for mental health but
that’s a whole of a debate as I came out
of hospital and I started to pick the
pieces of my life back together again I
was like okay how can I help somebody in
my position who was like that a bloke
like me yeah how could I help them and
for me I’m an artist so I I understand
about movement I understand about
creation so I decided to make a piece
about it which called witness and the
reason why I called it witness and was
it’s but it’s all about what the
audience would witness what I witnessed
and what my family witnessed what did
the piece not just to be about what
happened to me but also the impact that
it had on my family as well which is
really really important as part of the
research I interviewed my family I asked
them questions my family my loved ones
my friends asked them questions about
what is it like what did i do how did
you feel what did you experience any
kind of stories any kind of anecdotes
thing and to be completely honest with
you I was so literally off the
reservation all I had was little
snippets of thoughts or images or
feelings there was no sense of timeline
everything was thrown up in the air it
also gave me an opportunity when I
interviewed my family and friends to
apologize and take responsibility for
some of my outrageous behavior and it
was outrageous but I was I was very well
at all so there I took all these pieces
of pet pics of stories anecdotes
feelings and I start to coalesce ideas
together and create scenes and I built
and created the piece so I’d like to
show you guys these are all extracts of
that piece because the picture is a
thousand
[Music]
[Applause]
[Music]
sorry guys after move on so well there
was I made this piece great we witnessed
athere’s performed into a few thousand
different people up and down the country
fantastic got some great reviews got
some great feedback but our still wasn’t
really satisfied because only a certain
type of person really goes to the
theater and the type of person that I am
where my community comes from they
really don’t go to the fair
so part of what I do the kind of work I
make is I like to take choreography out
onto the street into public spaces on
conventional spaces and I was like okay
so luckily I managed to get a commission
together and I decided to make an
outdoor version of this piece called
witness this which was half the length
that their piece was in that full hour
the outdoor show was half an hour and
what was great about that is it gave the
opportunity for people who would not go
to the theater to experience this story
unfold in front of them so I’m going to
show you a little clip of that and
what’s really cool what’s really special
about this is that literally all types
of people got to watch it which I
witness it which I think was really
sorry guys so we took outside we took
outside that was fantastic absolutely
loved it now I just want to share a
couple of anecdotes with view of some
people who never seen danced before like
ever really and one old elderly
gentleman and his son came up to me
after one of the performance of witness
this when we did the show outside the
performance outside and the gentleman
came what two minions like you know last
year I lost my wife and he started
talking to me about all those difficult
experiences that had gone through and
how he fell and what he went through no
he was telling me about all this stuff
and his songs about my age have stood
next to him like this or is my mouth
wide open and after the gentleman had
spoken and passed on his feedback his
son sewing around to his father and said
dad you’ve never said any of that at all
before and I thought like really really
moved me because I think it really
allowed people the permission to be able
to start talk about these things and
talking about this thing is always the
best thing because that’s the way the
only way that you ever going to get
better about sitting over anecdote we
were performing in Salisbury and a young
lady came up to me after the show and
she had me a note and she said thank you
so much for the performance this has
really made me think twice about killing
myself I was like wow I didn’t realize
that it was now that much an effect on
person on somebody so luckily I was able
to get some aftercare crisis care took
her to an event the place was actually
needed to go to and she was able to get
some advice and seek some advice people
are dying out there yeah and
unfortunately for me you know I suffered
for ten years because of fear fear fear
am i insane nobody’s gonna give me a job
it’s gonna ruin my reputation in my
career fear that I’m weak fear of guilt
and shame fear fear fear fear fear and
it all just needs to be pushed away to
one side the future is now remember and
the Sibylla meant of how health needs to
stay in the past legacy one last thing
to finish with what was really important
yeah the state showed great wonderful
wonderful reviews fantastic did the
outdoor show contacting people that
didn’t we’ve never seen there are dance
theater in that way
for the last thing that we did is I’ve
made a lecture demonstration about to
take into schools and we’ve done that
now with six seven seven schools we’ve
done it with what we go in as a lecture
demonstration we show the show but do
workshops around the ideas and the
themes of mental health
give them some given there’s a whole
scheme of work and the syllabus that
they work with and what’s what’s
fantastic about that is that they really
got an opportunity to discuss these
things and you know what I was so
surprised by how amateur and smart the
young people were and they already knew
they already knew about these things but
it was great to be able to develop that
awareness generate that conversation
generate that discussion so my last
thing I’m just going to show you a
little bit was a program on television
about a dancer who’d set up a project
and was trying to give something back to
a younger dancer and Frank my old
primary school head teacher he saw that
program and was like oh my goodness like
there’s Kevin and he’s still dancing
because he actually gave me my first
dance experience in school you know it’s
interesting to get a feel for his
journey his life story and around mental
health issues it was something that I
was very keen to sort of try and give
the chance to the students around here
you know our academies in North
Manchester the project is a partnership
between company chameleon and the
co-operative academies across
and it is a network of three of their
schools
we came into one of the schools and we
did a performance of witness this which
is a piece exploring mental health and
then we had a day of workshops and
activity and then from the experiences
they had of the performance and of the
workshop they made their own piece in
response to everything they experienced
[Music]
we’ve been doing the dance about bipolar
and it’s the way it like it’s worth from
dates you feel high they feel that well
and upset and angry I think dancing
about mental health can help lots of
people cause it’s like a creative way of
showing people so you could dance it
differently than when you’re saying
so we’ve been learning different Caraga
free by the dances all of them working
as a group trying to get like Pulitzer
and with the working in pairs trying to
get it all synchronize with learn new
techniques learn how to show your
emotion through dancing facial
expressions
I didn’t really know much about the
message in the story of work that like
it’s a common thing going after this
gesture so I have to leave it right
there because I’m running out of time
but I hope I’ve demonstrated the
transformative power of the arts and if
I’m going to leave with one thing I’ll
repeat it one more time future is now
let’s leave the taboo mental health in the past thank you very much
it’s a real pleasure and privilege to be
here today I’m here today to talk about
the transformative power of Arts my
journey with dance and mental health
so I’ve already blanked already there we
go so I’m going to start off talking
about in my career I’ve had the great
privilege and pleasure to witness many
many times the power of art whether
that’s working with young vulnerable
adults in Manchester or whether that’s
going to Cape Town South Africa and
working with young offenders there
whether that’s working with young adults
with mental health issues I see it on a
daily basis and what is it do I see what
is it that I see I see them transform
and full of my eyes I see their
confidence develop I see them developing
their physical skills I see them
developing their strength their
flexibility their coordination their
balance their sense of achievement and
more of a kind of an emotional and a
psychological perspective I also see
them develop in a way and a mechanism to
express their own internal world which i
think is incredibly important incredibly
cathartic alongside that they really get
some wonderful social skills as well
they able to develop communication
creativity and collaboration which I
think you all agree is incredibly key
now I could go into and talk about those
examples in great depth and in great
length but I’m just gonna focus it a
little bit about me today because I did
say that in my title of my talk is about
my journey with dance and mental health
so I’m gonna focus about focus back on
to me
so my journey where did I start from I
come from very humble origins I was
brought up on a council estate in
Manchester by my mum there was no artist
in my family whatsoever we never went to
galleries or theatres we probably
couldn’t have afforded to go in real
honesty um but I always understood
movement and dance some people
understand math some people understand
music for me it was movement it’s just
something that was intrinsic to me I
mean even before I knew what the word
he was I was choreographing fighting
fighting martial art scenes with my
younger brother it’s a great detail and
great accuracy and it was just something
that was just intrinsic to me excuse me
I then was very fortunate to be picked
up by somebody in my high school in my
primary school sorry and they taught me
long to a local youth dance group and
from there that’s when this whole world
of possibilities opened I found a way a
vessel to be able to explore this
internal world all these feelings and
anxieties and emotions I had on inside
of me it was a great way for me to be
able to put that into something positive
and constructive I moved on from that
and went on to professional training I
got my first class degree ba I’m very
very proud of that and from there I went
on to work with some of the foremost
national and international soaring dance
companies and choreographer LED
companies which was absolutely fantastic
I taught all over the world met
incredible people did some incredible
things and had some incredible
experiences but throughout all that time
from my late late teens onwards I was
hiding something
I was hiding something the biggest
secret of my life and that’s how I was
struggling with my mental health it
first manifested his depression I didn’t
even know what that word meant at that
time I didn’t have the vocabulary I
didn’t have the emotional literacy to be
able to explain that to someone I just
knew something was wrong as it carried
on through my twenties it increasingly
got worse and worse and worse if you
would have met me in that time he would
have gone Wow Kevin man you’re touring
the world you do in there she working
with that person you doing that
life seems so great and so successful
but I’d go home at night and I take off
my mask and I’d saw myself to sleep or
if I could even get to sleep if my mind
would let me so they’re ours in this
situation in this place and he reached a
crisis point in my early thirties and
unfortunately I was sectioned under the
Mental Health Act and I had to spend
some time in hospital and that’s where I
got my diagnosis of bipolar if anyone
doesn’t know what bipolar is it pretty
much says where it is on the tin it’s
kind of to it
streams on Paulus and next one is
depression the over is mania during my
crisis I was so unbelievably unwell he
actually tipped into psychosis so I saw
things heard things had delusions
believe things that weren’t real all
kinds of craziness happened to me and I
saw a whole lot of thing in the hospital
that sabonis with you I think most
people if you weren’t of a sound mind
even if you were of a sound mind sorry
we probably find quite disturb it and
they showed me the lack of provision
that we have for mental health but
that’s a whole of a debate as I came out
of hospital and I started to pick the
pieces of my life back together again I
was like okay how can I help somebody in
my position who was like that a bloke
like me yeah how could I help them and
for me I’m an artist so I I understand
about movement I understand about
creation so I decided to make a piece
about it which called witness and the
reason why I called it witness and was
it’s but it’s all about what the
audience would witness what I witnessed
and what my family witnessed what did
the piece not just to be about what
happened to me but also the impact that
it had on my family as well which is
really really important as part of the
research I interviewed my family I asked
them questions my family my loved ones
my friends asked them questions about
what is it like what did i do how did
you feel what did you experience any
kind of stories any kind of anecdotes
thing and to be completely honest with
you I was so literally off the
reservation all I had was little
snippets of thoughts or images or
feelings there was no sense of timeline
everything was thrown up in the air it
also gave me an opportunity when I
interviewed my family and friends to
apologize and take responsibility for
some of my outrageous behavior and it
was outrageous but I was I was very well
at all so there I took all these pieces
of pet pics of stories anecdotes
feelings and I start to coalesce ideas
together and create scenes and I built
and created the piece so I’d like to
show you guys these are all extracts of
that piece because the picture is a
thousand
[Music]
[Applause]
[Music]
sorry guys after move on so well there
was I made this piece great we witnessed
athere’s performed into a few thousand
different people up and down the country
fantastic got some great reviews got
some great feedback but our still wasn’t
really satisfied because only a certain
type of person really goes to the
theater and the type of person that I am
where my community comes from they
really don’t go to the fair
so part of what I do the kind of work I
make is I like to take choreography out
onto the street into public spaces on
conventional spaces and I was like okay
so luckily I managed to get a commission
together and I decided to make an
outdoor version of this piece called
witness this which was half the length
that their piece was in that full hour
the outdoor show was half an hour and
what was great about that is it gave the
opportunity for people who would not go
to the theater to experience this story
unfold in front of them so I’m going to
show you a little clip of that and
what’s really cool what’s really special
about this is that literally all types
of people got to watch it which I
witness it which I think was really
sorry guys so we took outside we took
outside that was fantastic absolutely
loved it now I just want to share a
couple of anecdotes with view of some
people who never seen danced before like
ever really and one old elderly
gentleman and his son came up to me
after one of the performance of witness
this when we did the show outside the
performance outside and the gentleman
came what two minions like you know last
year I lost my wife and he started
talking to me about all those difficult
experiences that had gone through and
how he fell and what he went through no
he was telling me about all this stuff
and his songs about my age have stood
next to him like this or is my mouth
wide open and after the gentleman had
spoken and passed on his feedback his
son sewing around to his father and said
dad you’ve never said any of that at all
before and I thought like really really
moved me because I think it really
allowed people the permission to be able
to start talk about these things and
talking about this thing is always the
best thing because that’s the way the
only way that you ever going to get
better about sitting over anecdote we
were performing in Salisbury and a young
lady came up to me after the show and
she had me a note and she said thank you
so much for the performance this has
really made me think twice about killing
myself I was like wow I didn’t realize
that it was now that much an effect on
person on somebody so luckily I was able
to get some aftercare crisis care took
her to an event the place was actually
needed to go to and she was able to get
some advice and seek some advice people
are dying out there yeah and
unfortunately for me you know I suffered
for ten years because of fear fear fear
am i insane nobody’s gonna give me a job
it’s gonna ruin my reputation in my
career fear that I’m weak fear of guilt
and shame fear fear fear fear fear and
it all just needs to be pushed away to
one side the future is now remember and
the Sibylla meant of how health needs to
stay in the past legacy one last thing
to finish with what was really important
yeah the state showed great wonderful
wonderful reviews fantastic did the
outdoor show contacting people that
didn’t we’ve never seen there are dance
theater in that way
for the last thing that we did is I’ve
made a lecture demonstration about to
take into schools and we’ve done that
now with six seven seven schools we’ve
done it with what we go in as a lecture
demonstration we show the show but do
workshops around the ideas and the
themes of mental health
give them some given there’s a whole
scheme of work and the syllabus that
they work with and what’s what’s
fantastic about that is that they really
got an opportunity to discuss these
things and you know what I was so
surprised by how amateur and smart the
young people were and they already knew
they already knew about these things but
it was great to be able to develop that
awareness generate that conversation
generate that discussion so my last
thing I’m just going to show you a
little bit was a program on television
about a dancer who’d set up a project
and was trying to give something back to
a younger dancer and Frank my old
primary school head teacher he saw that
program and was like oh my goodness like
there’s Kevin and he’s still dancing
because he actually gave me my first
dance experience in school you know it’s
interesting to get a feel for his
journey his life story and around mental
health issues it was something that I
was very keen to sort of try and give
the chance to the students around here
you know our academies in North
Manchester the project is a partnership
between company chameleon and the
co-operative academies across
and it is a network of three of their
schools
we came into one of the schools and we
did a performance of witness this which
is a piece exploring mental health and
then we had a day of workshops and
activity and then from the experiences
they had of the performance and of the
workshop they made their own piece in
response to everything they experienced
[Music]
we’ve been doing the dance about bipolar
and it’s the way it like it’s worth from
dates you feel high they feel that well
and upset and angry I think dancing
about mental health can help lots of
people cause it’s like a creative way of
showing people so you could dance it
differently than when you’re saying
so we’ve been learning different Caraga
free by the dances all of them working
as a group trying to get like Pulitzer
and with the working in pairs trying to
get it all synchronize with learn new
techniques learn how to show your
emotion through dancing facial
expressions
I didn’t really know much about the
message in the story of work that like
it’s a common thing going after this
gesture so I have to leave it right
there because I’m running out of time
but I hope I’ve demonstrated the
transformative power of the arts and if
I’m going to leave with one thing I’ll
repeat it one more time future is now
let’s leave the taboo mental health in the past thank you very much
Please follow and like us: