Mental health disorders such as depression and anxiety affect nearly 34% of Black college students at predominantly White institutions (PWIs) in the United States (Chen et al., 2019). Students pursuing Bachelor of Fine Arts degrees report higher levels of stress induced mental health issues due to studio structure in contrast to their peers in non-arts major programs (Lee et al., 2024). For Black students in fine arts programs, these components in combination with race related stress, Eurocentrism embedded into collegiate dance curricula, lack of culturally congruent mentors, and Eurocentric approaches to critique perpetuates the mental health disparity amongst Black and White collegiate dancers. Using a purposive sample and a mixed method approach, this study investigated the mental health experiences of twelve Black B.F.A. Dance Performance & Choreography majors at Elon University. Five themes were found through qualitative and quantitative data analysis: (1) Race-related mental health strain (2) Pressure of Eurocentric aesthetics and standards on creativity limitations (3) Isolation and lack of cultural representation (4) Pressure of being a demographic representation, and (5) Coping through community. Preliminary findings suggest students graduating before 2016 had more negative mental health impacts during their undergraduate dance career, while students currently enrolled and graduating after 2016 have less negative mental health impacts during their undergraduate career due to increased culturally congruent faculty, increased diverse course curriculum, and intentional consciousness of Eurocentric ideology and biases. These results lend ideas for future research on how culturally relevant approaches can be adapted to improve mental health effects for Black B.F.A. Dance Performance & Choreography majors at Elon University.
