10-23-2022 W2W - Flipbook - Page 13
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WOMEN
TO WATCH
Meet the Baltimore area’s most intriguing
movers and shakers of 2022
Tyde-Courtney Edwards
founding director, Ballet After Dark
This summer, the faces of eight dancers who are
members of Ballet After Dark were broadcast into approximately 6 million homes when they auditioned for the
wildly popular reality TV show “America’s Got Talent.”
The dancers, all survivors of trauma, provided an
eloquent testimony to the healing potential of the organization, founded by Tyde-Courtney Edwards in 2014 as she
sought to recover from her own sexual assault.
“I don’t think that anyone who has survived a traumatic
experience ever really heals,” Edwards said. “I will always
be ‘in healing.’”
Edwards has been dancing since she was 3. She founded
Ballet After Dark when she couldn’t find a local recovery program for Black women that focused on releasing
trauma stored inside the bodies of people who have been
attacked.
“Movement can be a way of soothing ourselves,”
Edwards said. “It’s a simple, fundamental form of expression that releases endorphins and signals to our brains:
‘I’m OK. I’m safe, and I’m happy.’”
Now, Ballet After Dark offers about 70 programs per
semester to participants as young as 5 who are survivors
of sexual or domestic abuse, gun violence, homelessness,
addiction or another type of trauma.
Workshops range from dance classes to self-defense to
a story ballet for toddlers. Most programs are held at the
Eubie Blake Cultural Center, though Ballet After Dark also
offers aqua ballet at a nearby pool. In addition, a youth-lead
ensemble performs on weekends in the fall and spring.
“It sounds cliché, but Tyde never stops working — ever,”
said Brittany Harris, chairwoman of Ballet After Dark’s
board of directors.
“She doesn’t know how. Her attitude is: ‘I may not be
able to conquer every problem in my path. But I will be
able to help more people if I continue to show up than if
I stop.’”
Though Ballet After Dark didn’t make it to the finale of
the NBC talent show, Edwards said the broadcast is helping her organization achieve its dreams.
“The show did exactly what I needed it to do,” she said.
“It put more eyes on the dancers as talented performers and more eyes on the organization as being a hub for
healing.”
— Mary Carole McCauley
WOMEN TO WATCH | 2022 | 13