Dance Saved Me. Let’s Stop Treating the Arts as Optional – Marcus Rivers

I was drowning. My mind raced, thoughts tangled so fast I couldn’t catch them. School felt like a battlefield, and every day, I lost. Teachers gave up, calling me lazy, distracted, too much to handle.

Eventually, I saw a psychiatrist who prescribed medication. I stayed on it for almost two years, adjusting dosages and switching prescriptions in hopes that something would click. Some days, I felt numb. Other days, I felt anxious in a whole new way. While the meds quieted the noise, they also dulled everything else. I wasn’t healing. I was disappearing.

Then came dance.

My mother signed me up for a local class after school, hoping it would help me release some of the energy bottled up inside. I almost didn’t go. But the moment I stepped into the studio, something shifted. Dance didn’t ask me to sit still. It let me exist exactly as I was. The constant movement matched the rhythm of my thoughts and let me breathe without fear of falling behind. For the first time, my body and mind worked together instead of fighting each other. I felt alive.

We are in a youth mental health crisis. Yet creativity is still treated like a luxury. That needs to change.

Not everyone fits into the mold of therapy and medication. I didn’t. Dance gave me what prescriptions couldn’t. It gave me a way to feel whole again.

We need to stop treating the arts as optional. Schools must restore creative programs. Community centers should offer movement and music when words are not enough. And we, as citizens, must advocate for mental health care that includes the arts.

Creativity saved me. It can save others too.

Marcus Rivers, Providence, RI

Marcus Rivers is a professional dancer and teacher in Rhode Island with credits in cruise line productions and major motion picture films. He advocates for creative expression as a vital form of mental health care and teaches at local competitive studios.