transcenDANCE: Young San Diegans harness personal resilience through performance art and holistic support

On a recent evening in City Heights, young people filled the stage at the Hoover High School Performing Arts Center. A packed audience, full of families, friends, and volunteers shouted out the names of dancers and cheered energetically for each performance. Each dancer had a chance to shine, with performances thoughtfully crafted to showcase the strengths of individual dancers.

The children performed originally choreographed dances, songs, and spoken word pieces, all connected to the themes of the night, Rooted and Dreaming. With featured performances titled Withstanding the Storm, Infinite Possibilities, and Bridging Hearts: The Journey of Coming Together, the students told their own stories of community connection, overcoming challenges, and their unlimited potential through joyful creative expression.

The evening was the culminating event for transcenDANCE’s flagship program, the CREATE Performance Group. This intensive nine-month contemporary dance program includes youth, junior, and teen cohorts and serves children of all skill levels aged nine to 19 years. As a nonprofit after-school program with sites in City Heights and Lemon Grove, transcenDANCE is often the first and only opportunity for dance and creative expression which children in these diverse, lower-income San Diego neighborhoods encounter. It also gives them a unique opportunity to explore how their future might be shaped by performance art as they attend career pathway workshops and receive mentorship from professional teaching artists.

But what makes CREATE and transcenDANCE as an orgnization so unique is that they offer much more than dance training. Children from some of San Diego’s most marginalized communities enter the program carrying with them challenging, sometimes traumatic, experiences. With a mission to “support youth as they transcend barriers, recognize their own potential and power, and create positive change for themselves, their families, and their communities,” transcenDANCE provides wraparound services and holistic emotional development support for young participants from the moment they join.

Eleadah Vidales has seen firsthand how the program has impacted her children and how they approach challenging circumstances. Vidales’ daughter Zoeheila, now 14 years old, began classes with transcenDANCE when she was just 11, and younger daughter Mikylah soon followed in her footsteps. “I’ve watched their confidence grow over the years,” shared Vidales. “They are given exposure to different perspectives and have opportunities to communicate and understand the behaviors of others. They’ve learned how to have grace and space, and they take that into their daily lives.”

For program participant Aedyn, age 11, the experience has provided a core of support and self-confidence to navigate social pressures or expectations:

“Through this experience, I’ve learned that I can’t please everyone, and it’s okay to focus on being true to myself rather than trying to fit in for others. I can do it at transcenDANCE because I feel it as a safe space, unlike at school, where sometimes I feel that I have to be somebody that I am not…but here I can just be myself.”

This focus on personal development, compassion, and resilience made transcenDANCE a great fit for California’s Stop the Hate initiative, a grant program designed to counter the conditions that foster hate and hate crimes in local communities. As young people move through the transcenDANCE program, dancers are supported with regular wellness workshops, mental health services, supportive peer and adult relationship building, and access to licensed clinical therapists. Program staff and teaching artists are also trauma informed and trained in healing-centered engagement.

Some workshops are specifically designed to help young people work through challenging experiences in their lives and give them a safe place to enter into hard moments. The program also includes support for the families of participants. If, for example, a student comes in struggling with a particular issue, the transcenDANCE team is equipped with conflict resolution tools to support the entire family.

While counseling, workshops, and other support services are a crucial component in participants’ emotional development journey, the real healing power of the program lies in the physical experience of dance and young people generating their own creative work. This is the centerpiece of the aptly named CREATE Performance Group: ensuring youth contribute to and cocreate their own performances and creative content. Bringing out their voice and authentic selves can come with significant emotional labor. As they work through challenging life experiences and heal from trauma, they acquire the language and tools to express themselves.

Shared Anisa, age 12, “Before transcenDANCE I was not as confident with myself, I had trouble managing my time…it made me have big emotions towards life. I also didn’t really like to express my feelings to others positively. Now that I have been here for two years, I have learned that dance is a great way to show and connect with my emotions I am going through.”

Anisa’s emotional development journey echoes that of many young people who have dedicated time to the program. “Being at transcenDANCE really helped me express myself positively and understand myself a little more. transcenDANCE also allowed me to understand and acknowledge that others’ feelings matter as well.”

Eleadah Vidales credits the “intertwining physical and mental work” of the CREATE Performance Group with helping her daughters foster grit, compassion, and confidence:

“For youth it’s so important to have them involved in something that gives them motivation and inspiration, that creative, supportive environment that so many young people lack. It creates a whole, grounded human.”

Young people like Zoeheila, Mikylah, Aedyn, and Anisa enter transcenDANCE to learn how to dance, but they come away equipped with an array of social and emotional resilience tools and a capacity for authentic self-expression. These are life skills participants will carry with them into their communities and into adulthood. Twenty years in operation has illustrated that program alumni stay in school, pursue college, seek leadership positions, and pursue careers. For many, these accomplishments would not have come to fruition without their emotional development journey through transcenDANCE.

Back on the stage at Hoover High School, the results of each student’s journey to hone the power of creative expression and develop deep roots of resilience are evident. They have opened themselves up to new experiences. Heard the encouraging voices of their peers, teachers, and counselors. Shared, collaborated, and created something wholly original. And when they are on stage sharing their creativity with an audience full of family and friends, these young people radiate with genuine pride, confident in who they are and ready for a future of limitless possibilities.