Healing should be an option for everyone... not just a luxury for some.
Tyde-Courtney Edwards
Tyde-Courtney Edwards
Founding Director of Ballet After Dark
Born and raised in Baltimore City, Tyde-Courtney Edwards is a graduate of the Baltimore School for the Arts Dance Department, Dance Entrepreneur, Social Innovator, Founding Director of Ballet After Dark, Creative Director of BAD Ballet and Founder/Chief Dance Officer of BAD Studios. She's a classically trained ballet dancer with over two decades training and performance experience. Tyde-Courtney is also a survivor of sexual assault-- she's taking a leap into the future of dance therapy and making healing affordable and accessible for trauma survivors everywhere. Her work creating trauma-informed resources for survivors of trauma and sexual violence began in 2015 after surviving a sexual assault and recognizing the lack of trauma-informed prevention and recovery services with a somatic focus. We define somatic intervention as reconnecting and regaining control of our mind and body through movement, various trauma-informed practices, classes and resources focused on providing holistic healing resources with positive impacts and outcomes. Our goal is to create a community of survivors.
In 2018, her work with Ballet After Dark caught the attention of consumer goods corporation, Procter & Gamble, and multi-talented artist, Queen Latifah. Ballet After Dark became the first feature subject of their latest initiative, The Queen Collective. Subsequently, a short documentary about our work was produced. Affectionately titled Ballet After Dark, the short documentary premiered at the 2019 Tribeca film festival. The film has streamed on Hulu, Amazon, Showtime and BET and is currently streaming on Discovery+. Ballet After Dark had its first network screening in 2020 on the BET Network and once again in 2021 on the OWN Network hosted by Oprah Winfrey. The film continues to circulate throughout film festivals.
Tyde-Courtney is the grand prize winner of the 2021 United Way Changemaker Challenge, the grand prize winner of the 2021 Johns Hopkins Social Innovation Lab, DANCE/USA fellow and Halcyon Inspires fellow. She was recently acknowledged as one of The Baltimore Sun's 25 Women To Watch and was recently featured in Forbes.