4dancers – Page 13

Coping With Mental Stress As A Dancer

October 14, 2016 by 4dancers

unknown — *Ashley Werhun and Alexander Hille. Photo by Jeremy Coachman.*

by Ashley Werhun

Mental stress and strain can lead to burnout and depression, and it can be a major roadblock in not only a dance career, but in leading a healthy life. Here are a few thoughts on how we, as dancers, can take steps to support our mental health…and that of our fellow dancers.

Resist Negative Thinking

It is part of the human condition for our brain to make up stories. Our psyche connects the dots with the information we have to draw a conclusion for a scenario. How many times have you not been cast, and your brain thinks, “I am not good enough for that role” or, “I shouldn’t be in this company, I don’t fit in?”

Rarely would it say, “There must be something better coming” or, “I think the role I am in will challenge me in the exact way I need to grow.” Simply recognizing that our brains may tend to slant towards the negative is empowering and helps us evaluate whether or not this “story” our brains made up is actually true.

Often times I encountered this exact scenario. One time I even naively went to my director, concerned that I wasn’t integrated enough on stage and he said, “Patience Ashley–I didn’t put you in this rep that much because you will be the lead in the next creation”. I walked out and reminded myself to trust. Trust yourself, and trust that the director/choreographer is doing what is best for the company and for the production. This situation was a blunt reminder to get out of my thoughts and back into the work.

Resources:

The Power of Positive Talking – WebMD

The Power of Positive Self-Talk – Psychology Today

Utilize Meditation

[Read more…]

Dancers: Cross-Training With Yoga

October 11, 2016 by 4dancers

*Cara Marie Gary performs with the Joffrey in Romeo & Juliet. Photo by Cheryl Mann.*

by Cara Marie Gary

As a dancer with The Joffrey Ballet I spend countless hours in the studio rehearsing and preparing for upcoming productions. Often times I will be required to rehearse multiple ballets at the same time. Our company returned from summer break in late July and in the past three months we’ve already worked on seven different ballets! We’ve performed at the Chicago Dancing Festival and Dance for Life performances with Alexander Ekman’s Episode 31, Lar Lubovitch’s Othello pas de deux, Christopher Wheeldon’s After The Rain pas de deux, and Gerald Arpino’s Round of Angels. We’ve learned Myles Thatcher’s Body of Your Dreams, which is a ballet that we won’t perform until the spring. We began “cracking nuts” early in August as Christopher Wheeldon started choreographing his world premiere of The Nutcracker. However, in the past two weeks we’ve taken a pause from rehearsing multiple ballets to focus on our fall production of Krzysztof Pastor’s Romeo & Juliet. [Read more…]

Should Dancers Run?

October 6, 2016 by 4dancers

Dancer Running

Aloha! Today we have another excellent post from Matt Wyon, PhD, President of IADMS / Professor of Dance Science at Wolverhampton University (UK) — this one is on running!

I was always told never to run, as a dancer –
Unless you can run in good leg alignment! So many dancers end up running in turn-out (because of the muscle imbalance in the leg and hip), and that isn’t so good for you. But Matt has some excellent current thoughts on the subject…

Enjoy, and Pass It On !!
Jan Dunn, MS, Dance Wellness Editor
[Read more…]

The USC Glorya Kaufman International Dance Center Opens

October 6, 2016 by 4dancers

chandelier-from-below-by-justina-gaddy — *Inside the USC Glorya Kaufman International Dance Center. Chandelier, from below. Photo by Justina Gaddy.*

by Catherine L. Tully

This project has been no small undertaking. Over 200K Roman bricks. 39 different types of light fixtures. High definition video projectors. Retractable seating for 140. State-of-the-art floors and subfloors. There’s nothing quite like a space that is built specifically for dance…

Glorya Kaufman Dance Center — *USC Glorya Kaufman International Dance Center, exterior. Photo by Justina Gaddy.*

Standing 70 feet tall and offering over 54,000 square feet of space, the USC Glorya Kaufman International Dance Center is a brand new building on campus, and the first new school to be built at the University of Southern California in nearly 40 years. Founded in 2012 by a gift from dance philanthropist Glorya Kaufman, this building took more than 1,000 workers approximately 238,650 hours to construct. It features a Performance Studio along with five other dance studios, a collaborative space, and a training and fitness zone for students. There are also dressing rooms, classrooms and offices for faculty and administrators in the building.

*USC Glorya Kaufman International Dance Center studio. Photo by by Celine Kiner.*

A great deal of thought was put into the use of this building as a dance space, besides the standard attention to items such as dance-specific flooring and quality sound systems. For example, the main hallway was actually designed as the outline of a dancer’s leg, and the courtyard that is adjacent to the main entrance will also double as an outdoor performance space. Over a year of research went into the planning and design of this building, which will now serve as a “palace for dance,” as Dean Cutietta refers to it.

In addition to its role in the USC curriculum, the Kaufman Dance Center will host master classes and visiting companies that will offer programming to both students and the area dance community. The Center will also serve as the home of a new initiative, the USC Choreographic Institute. With a focus on choroegraphic research, practice and mentorship, it will be advised by the well-known choreographer William Forsythe.

For additional information on the Glorya Kaufman International Dance center, please visit their website.

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Stretching After You Dance

September 30, 2016 by 4dancers

By Mikael Häggström (w:Gray's muscle pictures) [Public domain or Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons — By Mikael Häggström (w:Gray’s muscle pictures) [Public domain or Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

Aloha! We are pleased to bring you several short posts from one of our Dance Wellness Panel members, Matt Wyon, PhD, who is current President of IADMS (International Association for Dance Medicine and Science), Professor of Dance Science at University of Wolverhampton (UK), and Visiting Professor at Division of Surgery and Intervention – Institute of Orthopaedics and Musculoskeletal Science – University College London, and ArtEZ Institute of the Arts, The Netherlands.

Matt has been extensively involved in research in the dance medicine and science field for many years, so it’s always fun to see what new nuggets of information he has to pass on.

This first post is about stretching and how important it is to stretch properly AFTER you dance, and not do the kind of static stretching (such as sitting on the floor in 2nd and holding it) beforehand that has actually been shown to be detrimental for dancers.
Enjoy – happy stretching (after class / rehearsal!) and pass it on-
Aloha, Jan Dunn, MS, Dance Wellness Editor

by Matt Wyon, PhD

Stretching is a way of life for dancers but interestingly there has been very little research into the best ways to stretch. Holding static stretches (where you take the stretch and hold it) for a long time during a warm up has been shown to negatively affect a muscle’s explosive ability – whereas a study in sport showed that incorporating dynamic stretching (active movements of the muscle that brings forth a stretch, but are not held in the end position) into a warm up helped prevent injuries during the subsequent activity.

But what about afterwards?

What sort of stretches should you do after dance has finished? A recent study by one of my doctoral students at the University of Wolverhampton (Nikos Apostolopoulos) has shown that a gentle stretch is better than a high intensity stretch in helping the muscle recover and maintaining flexibility. In fact, not stretching at all (the control group) was better than a high intensity stretch.

So how do you figure out the intensity of a stretch?

If you stretch a muscle until it hurts and it starts to wobble (this is a protective reflex trying to protect the muscle) then that is a 10/10 intensity. A gentle stretch is around 4-6/10 and you should only feel a lengthening in the muscle being stretched.

But dancers may say “But a high intensity stretch feels like I am doing something.”

Yes it might – but it is also causing micro-damage to the muscle. If you have just had a hard days dancing then your muscle is already damaged and needs to recover; a high intensity stretch actually delays this healing process whilst a gentle or low intensity stretch actually promotes the muscle’s repair.

Dance Wellness Contributor Matt Wyon — Matt Wyon, PhD

Matthew Wyon, PhD, is a Professor in Dance Science at the University of Wolverhampton, UK and a Visiting Professor at the ArtEZ, Institute of the Arts, The Netherlands.

At Wolverhampton he is the course leader for the MSc in Dance Science and Director of Studies for a number of dance science and medicine doctoral candidates. He is a founding partner of the National Institute of Dance Medicine and Science, UK.

Prof. Wyon is President of the International Association for Dance Medicine & Science and a past chair of the Research Committee. He has worked with numerous dancers and companies within the UK and Europe as an applied physiologist and strength and conditioning coach.

He has published over 80 peer-reviewed articles in dance medicine and science.

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Resist Negative Thinking

Utilize Meditation

But what about afterwards?

So how do you figure out the intensity of a stretch?

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