Brigham City dance instructor creates 'Dance For Life' to help with suicide prevention

BRIGHAM CITY — Troubled by the suicide of a Box Elder High School student last summer and an overall high suicide rate, Kristen Barlow wanted to do something to help.

Barlow, the owner of Starstruck Dance & Performing Arts in Brigham City, put together an annual dance showcase to build awareness about suicide, but most recently decided to grow that effort into something more.

“Besides just making awareness, we thought, 'Well, what can we do to actually help people, so they don’t get to that point?'” Barlow explained. “We know what dance can do for young ladies and young men. It brings self-esteem, confidence — they discover hidden talents.”

So she decided to offer dance classes to children for free.

“We wanted dance to be for everybody, not just for people that can afford it,” Barlow said.

Barlow, along with her teenage daughter Janessa Barlow and Janessa's longtime friend Leah Larsen, volunteered as instructors for three classes.

“There’s a lot of suicides in this area, and a lot of people don’t feel included,” Janessa Barlow, who is a student at Box Elder High, said. “I think being a part of something big like this, something they can look forward to. It will really help them and help boost their self-esteem.”

“Once you get to our age, people kind of start like breaking off into cliques and stuff,” Larsen said. “Its just nice to have something to get away from the world for a second, and just move however you want to.”

Larsen and Barlow will be playing Odette and Odile, respectively, in an upcoming production of Swan Lake. Students from their three classes will accompany them.

“Some of them had never danced before, they didn’t have any clue what to do, but they have been so excited,” Kristen Barlow said. “We’ve discovered hidden talents in some of these kids.”

Kristen Barlow said that with her dance classes it’s hard to know whether they’re having a direct impact on preventing suicide, but seeing the joy the kids receive from learning dance makes it worthwhile. It’s something she said she’s seen many times in her 25 years of teaching dance.

“I’ve seen them transform into amazing, confident individuals,” she said. “And so I’ve seen what dance and activities like this — extracurricular activities — can do.”

Barlow said she will eventually look for additional volunteer instructors to expand the program. But more than 90 kids are enrolled in the free classes so far.

There will be two performances of Swan Lake at Ogden High School Saturday at 2 p.m. and 7 p.m. Tickets can be purchased on the Starstruck Dance & Performing Arts website.

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