In a studio in Chester, dancers are finessing the choreography for their forthcoming sold-out performance at the Royal Opera House in London.<\/p>\n
While they have all bonded over a shared love of dancing, they have also overcome similar struggles to get here.<\/p>\n
“We’ve all been through trauma and our own journey,” explained Michelle Hughes.<\/p>\n
“We’re a supportive community.”<\/p>\n
Fallen Angels Dance Theatre was set up to help provide an outlet both for people in recovery from addiction and those who have struggled with their mental health.<\/p>\n
Through dancing, it wants to help participants transform their lives and share their recovery journeys.<\/p>\n
Michelle, who has been a member since 2021, was aware of the group as part of her work as an alcohol misuse engagement worker at the Countess of Chester Hospital.<\/p>\n
But she said she started coming to the sessions for her “own needs” after fracturing her skull in a fall and suffering two family bereavements in close succession.<\/p>\n
“It has really helped,” she said. “I’m a recovering alcoholic, nearly 16 years now.<\/p>\n
“I didn’t want to turn to drink, which why I came to the group for myself. <\/p>\n
“The group is fantastic. As I’m severely visually impaired, people are really supportive and help me.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In a studio in Chester, dancers are finessing the choreography for their forthcoming sold-out performance at the Royal…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":611703,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[103,61,60,410,411],"class_list":["post-611702","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mental-health","tag-health","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-mental-health","tag-mentalhealth"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/611702","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=611702"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/611702\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/611703"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=611702"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=611702"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=611702"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}