New Moon Coaching for Expat Women

The Colorado Ballet recently staged a production of Jekyll & Hyde that was far from a traditional fairy tale. Through a realistic set immersed in London fog and a haunting score, the performance tackled heavy themes: drug use, the duality of human nature, and mental health.

What struck me most was the portrayal of Jekyll’s struggle as a choreography of personality. As a coach for women living abroad, I couldn’t help but see the visceral parallel to the expat experience.

The Divided Self

Moving to a new country often forces a rigid, painful separation between our self rooted in our home culture, language, and history—and the self we construct to survive and fit into a new environment.

In the ballet, Jekyll’s transformation isn’t just a physical change; it is a rupture. For the immigrant, this rupture often manifests as a mental health tightrope. We feel the pressure to integrate by suppressing part of our original self, yet the more we silence that first version of ourselves, the more “Hyde-like” our internal world becomes—restless, alienated, and volatile.

Bridging the Duality

The production featured a row of hospital beds where dancers contorted in mental anguish. Their movements conveyed a desperation that many expats know well: the exhaustion of living two lives at once.

Jekyll and Hyde serve as a visceral warning: when we stop the dialogue between who we were and who we are becoming, we lose our center.

Mental health for the global soul isn’t about choosing one side; it’s about the integration of the two. We must find the “connective tissue” between our past and our present.

One of the most revolutionary choices in this ballet was portraying Hyde not as a monster, but as handsome and charismatic—the “fascination of evil”. Similarly, the new version of ourselves we create abroad can be seductive and successful, but if it isn’t connected to our roots, it remains a hollow mask.

In the end, it is through the lens of art that we find the courage to look at these difficult truths. Art saves us, always.

Art has a way of revealing our hidden truths. What was the last performance or book that made you say, ‘That is exactly how my expat life feels’? Share it in the comments!