Sub-Unit 1.3 Judit Thetis

Mentoring and Mental Health (Who Holds You? Mentoring, Mental Health, and Finding Your Ground as a Woman in the Performing Arts, Spain)

Imagine this. You are at the start of your career in the arts and you see someone who looks like you leading in a room full of people. What does this position make possible for you?
This unit explores mentoring and mental health through the lens of women working in the performing arts. You will hear from Judith, a kizomba teacher, event organiser, and cultural advocate based in Spain, with roots in the French Caribbean. Over more than a decade working across Europe, she has navigated a sector that often asks women to give everything… to students, to communities, to events, while offering very little in return in the way of guidance, recognition or rest.
Her experience raises questions that go beyond the dance studio. They are questions about who gets supported in a creative career, what it costs to sustain yourself without a safety net, and how the care we offer others can become a model for the care we offer ourselves.
This unit invites you to examine the conditions that produce burnout, stress and frustration and to imagine a different kind of professional culture for women in the performing arts sector.