Dance Wellness – Page 12

Conference: Healthy Approaches In The Training Of Performing Artists

July 8, 2013 by 4dancers

Aloha! It’s summer dance intensive time, and I hope everyone is having a rewarding (and safe!) summer experience, where ever you are:). Summer is also a time for conferences in the dance / arts world, and if you are reading this column, we know that you are interested in Dance Wellness topics. Whether you are a teacher / company director, or dancer, these conferences can provide invaluable information to take back home to your studio / rehearsal space.

If you are in the southern California area (SoCal), one such conference that should not be missed is the August event at Chapman University, located in Orange (Orange County). The meeting, co-sponsored for the third year in a row by the University and PAMA (Performing Arts Medicine Association) addresses dance, music, and theatre, and can provide information taught by experts in the field. Put it on your calendar!

Healthy Approaches in the Training of Performing Artists

Place: Partridge Dance Center, Chapman University, Orange CA USA

Date: August 17-18, 2013, 8:30am-4pm

Happy summer dancing:)

Jan

Ballet — How Hard Should It Be?

May 9, 2013 by 4dancers

Our guest contributor for this posting is Janet Karin, OAM, currently on the faculty of the Australian Ballet School as Kinetic Educator. Janet is a former principal dancer with The Australian Ballet, and also directed a ballet school / youth dance company in Canberra, Australia. She has a distinguished career not only as a dancer, but also as a well-known dance educator, having developed dance studies courses for the Australian National University School of Music, and other educational institutions. She has worked in many dance-related capacities, such as cultural development, arts funding, safe dance practice (dance medicine) and other initiatives. She is currently Vice-President / President – Elect of IADMS (International Association for Dance Medicine and Science).

Her article “Ballet: How Hard Should It Be?”, provides some valuable perspectives for both dancers / teachers / school and company directors, and we are very pleased she has joined our Guest Contributor roster at 4dancers.org.

– Jan Dunn, MS, Dance Wellness Editor

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“You are working hard” – students usually take this as a compliment. People may think you are working hard if your face is red and you are sweating a lot. You may think you are working hard if you are breathing heavily and feeling a lot of muscle tension, possibly even trembling with effort. After years of praise for these signs of “working hard”, students can begin to feel guilty if their work isn’t accompanied by effort and muscle tension. But, is this how you want to dance in the future, possibly as a professional dancer? In fact, really good ballet dancers make dancing appear completely natural and effortless, as if their movements grow out of the music and their emotions. There is no apparent tension or “work” in good dancing.

You get better at doing what you do. If you dance with tension, you’ll get better at dancing with tension, so it makes sense to dance with as little tension as you can. Tension is energy that is not achieving what it wants, rather like water building up in a garden hose with a bend in the middle. Efficient use of energy helps you achieve your goals more easily, making your work look professional, and much more enjoyable for you and for the audience. How do you achieve this?

Firstly, you need to breathe. It sounds so obvious, but most young dancers hold their breath in difficult movements. Focus on breathing out slowly at the back of your lower ribs, especially on bends and difficult movements. You don’t have to think about breathing in – your brain will take care of that because it wants to keep you alive.

Next, imagine all your movements radiating outwards from deep inside your pelvis – energy streaming out the top of your head, your fingers and your toes, like water streaming out of a hose. Let your movements trace enormous circles in space. Feel as if you are expanding from a secure centre.

Thirdly, remember that we are never really static, because there are always small micro-movements throughout your body as it responds your breathing and small changes in weight from limb movements. Dancers are never “still”; their tiny automatic response to changing balance makes them appear to be still. Make sure you don’t “lock” your body into position, especially your spine.

So, what do teachers really want when they ask you to “work hard”? They want you to use energy, not tension. They want you to focus on making your movements as pure and harmonious as possible. They want you to develop your body’s potential without forcing your muscles or distorting your bony alignment. They want you to breathe freely and move like the music, expressing the pleasure of movement in every part of yourself. And in the end, that’s what you want too!

BIO: Guest Contributor Janet Karin OAM

After an early career as a Principal Dancer of The Australian Ballet, Janet Karin directed a ballet school and youth dance company in Canberra, Australia. She devised her own teaching system, training many highly successful dancers and teachers. She wrote and delivered dance studies courses for secondary education and for the Australian National University’s School of Music and also worked in cultural development, arts funding, safe dance and other dance-related initiatives.

Janet Karin returned to The Australian Ballet as Assistant to the Artistic Director, then moved to The Australian Ballet School as Kinetic Educator. In this role she coaches students individually, applying somatic techniques to improve their neuromotor function. She also collaborates with scientists from various universities in dance science research. In 2009 she was awarded an Australian Centre of Clinical Research Excellence Grant to investigate dynamic pelvic stability.

Janet Karin has received the Medal of the Order of Australia and several awards for artistic direction and dance teaching. She is currently Vice-President of the International Association for Dance Medicine & Science, and will become its President in October 2013.

“Older Dancers”

May 7, 2013 by 4dancers

We are pleased to welcome back guest contributor Gigi Berardi, dance author and critic, who has written over 150 articles and reviews that have appeared in Dance Magazine, Dance International, The Los Angeles Times, among others. She is also a natural and social scientist currently on the faculty of Western Washington University.

Her academic and background and performing experiences allow her to combine her passion for both dance and science. Her fifth book, “Finding Balance: Fitness and Training for a Lifetime in Dance” is in it’s second printing, and is one I highly recommend especially for younger dancers. Gigi’s master degree thesis in dance, from UCLA, focused on older dancers who were able to continue dancing and performing well past the age when most have to retire because of injuries – i.e, what were they doing differently that kept them actively performing into their 50’s, 60’s,70’s? Her current book project is called “A Cultivated Life” — look for it soon!

– Jan Dunn, MS, Dance Wellness Editor

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by Gigi Berardi, MA

To be honest, I don’t like using the term, “older dancer” to describe dancers over 30 or 40 or 50. I’m not exactly sure why (it connotes “less than,” not as compelling?) – although I used it mightily in my Masters thesis at UCLA, developing “Case Studies of Older-aged Dancers and the Factors that Contribute to the Longevity of Their Performing Careers” (UCLA, 1989). But, the “older-aged” part now, for me, is about psychological and emotional staying power in dance, as I describe in “Bill Evans: “Changing the Body and the Geography of Modern Dance” (Dance Magazine, pages 38 – 43, October, 2003) and elsewhere, see: http://myweb.facstaff.wwu.edu/gberardi/performing_articles.shtml.

It seems to me that for most dancers in their 40s and older, the important questions for them are, “do they feel like they can still do what they want to do in a particular role?” and “do they want to?”

Few dancers are being taken off the stage, fighting and kicking, and screaming “Nooooooo…” I think that what happens, over time, is more subtle (and, if you will, nefarious). They begin to have fewer opportunities for lead roles (for whatever reason, but I must say that audience demand for younger, thinner, and those more capable of dizzying pyrotechnics may comprise a sensibility that artistic director are particularly aware of). Further, past injuries may be catching up with them, other conditions in the work place may be undesirable (re: physical space, etc.), and they may have other personal constraints (wanting to raise a family, spending more time with their children) or financial ones (wanting to be financially solvent at the advanced age of 45, say).

From my perspective as a dance critic and using a lens of physicality, as a career progresses, it is nimbleness and stamina that seem to be on the wane. Strength and flexibility, emotional prowess, commitment to conditioning (for me right now, as a “mature” dancer, Thai kick boxing is my passion) and a diet high in good fats and low in sugar – all seem to characterize dancers with staying power. Nimbleness and stamina are the more illusive traits.

What to do, then, for a “lifetime in dance” (the subtitle of both editions of my Finding Balance book)?

feed that mind with good cholesterol and saturated fat (for more, see my forthcoming book, A Cultivated Life, 2014) that coat the myelin sheaths in and around and of all the parts of the central nervous system,
get some sun, which helps in all of the above,
find your passion in conditioning – martial arts or Franklin Method ©, or Pilates, or step aerobics, and above all,
keep dancing, which is the best way to build character and flexibility and strength and stamina in all that dancers do.

Or, dancers might want to look for a job in Europe where all (above) seems easier. See: “From Dance to Danse: Why so many American Dancers are Heading to Europe” (Dance Magazine, 2009, at website mentioned in this article).

Gigi Berardi holds a MA in dance from UCLA. Her academic background and performing experience allow her to combine her interests in the natural and social sciences with her passion for dance, as both critic and writer. Over 150 articles and reviews by Ms. Berardi have appeared in Dance Magazine, Dance International, the Los Angeles Times, the Anchorage Daily News, The Olympian, The Bellingham Herald, and scientific journals such as BioScience, Human Organization, and Ethics, Place, and Environment. Her total work numbers over 400 print and media pieces. Her public radio features (for KSKA, Anchorage) have been recognized by the Society of Professional Journalists. She has served on the Board of Directors of the Dance Critics Association, and is a member of the American Society of Journalists and Authors, as well as Book Review editor for The Journal of Dance Medicine & Science. A professor at Western Washington University, she received the university’s Diversity Achievement Award in 2004. Her fifth book, Finding Balance: Fitness and Training for a Lifetime in Dance, is in its second printing. Her current book project is titled A Cultivated Life.

Email: Gigi.Berardi@wwu.ed<mailto:Gigi.Berardi@wwu.edu>u

Website: http://myweb.facstaff.wwu.edu/~gberardi and http://www.gigiberardi.com/

Blogs: http://blog.gigiberardi.com/ and http://resilientfarmsnourishingfoods.blogspot.com/

Dancing Through the Adolescent Growth Spurt

March 21, 2013 by 4dancers

(also known as “What’s happening to my body??!!!!”)

by Jan Dunn, MS

You’re a 12 year old dancer, on the path to a professional career, with daily classes / rehearsals / several performances a year. If you’re a girl, you’re getting really good at knocking off double pirouettes on pointe (sometimes triple!), or if you’re a guy, doing a double (or triple) tour en l’air. And then – you start growing fairly fast, and suddenly you can barely do a single turn – What’s going on??!!!

teenage dancers on stage — Photo by Catherine L. Tully

Well, what’s going on is that you’re starting your Adolescent Growth Spurt – AGS for short. This is the age (usually between 11-14 for girls, a little later for boys) when your body is making very fast changes, and it can be challenging for both you as a dancer, and for your teacher as well. But the good news is that it can be a lot less challenging if everyone knows what’s going on, what to expect –and that things will get better! It’s a phase everyone has to go through, so being knowledgeable and prepared will go a long way towards feeling ok with the changes that are happening.

So here’s what’s going on:

The AGS usually lasts between 18-24 months – it’s very individual, so comparing yourself to your best friend who’s the same age won’t help!

I was given a powerful visual reminder of this at an IADMS conference, when Rachel Rist, head of Dance at Tring Park Arts Educational School in the UK (a very prestigious arts school – call it the Julliard of England!) gave a presentation on AGS, and had 5 of her dancers on stage standing next to each other. Each girl was within a month of being exactly the same age (13), and every one of them looked SO different — one looked like a 10 year old, one like a 17 year old, and all stages in between.

Rachel did that presentation to show us how individual the AGS can be – and to remind teachers that dancers going through this period will vary greatly in what they can do / what their bodies need (in other words, one size does NOT fit all!).

So here are some AGS facts: [Read more…]

Dance Wellness: Preparing For The Summer Intensive

January 24, 2013 by 4dancers

Summer intensives can be hard on the body. Intense training coupled with being away from home in an unfamiliar environment is stressful mentally–and physically. Today we have Jan Dunn, MS, our Dance Wellness Editor with some tips for preparing the body for such a demanding experience…. Catherine

by Jan Dunn, MS

Happy New Year ! It’s January, and it may be cold and chilly where you are, with visions of sugarplums still lingering in your head–but it’s not too early to start thinking about preparing yourself for a summer dance intensive you may be thinking of attending.To get in top shape for a safe summer of dancing, here are some things to think about…

Unfortunately, it’s easy for a dancer to get injured when going to a summer intensive, for a number of reasons–the good news is that injuries in this situation are, for the most part, preventable.Some of the reasons you can unintentionally hurt yourself are:

Going from a school-year schedule of taking maybe 4-5 classes a week, to suddenly doing 4-5 a day while at a summer intensive….i.e., you’re doing too much too soon.
Taking classes in a style that you haven’t previously trained in-for example, you take primarily ballet all year, and then suddenly you’re doing jazz and African on a daily basis. You’re now using muscles you haven’t necessarily used in ballet, and it might be easier to get injured, especially if you have muscle imbalances in your legs / torso.
You may be going to a climate you are unaccustomed to, such as hot and humid, whereas your normal dance environment is in a cooler, dryer clime. The body takes a while to adapt to that new environment, and trying to keep up the heavy schedule of an intensive during that initial adjustment period may lead to an injury.

Knowing the possible risk factors in advance may well help you avoid a summer injury.No one wants to go to an exciting summer intensive and then be laid up with an injury right off the bat! Here are some suggestions that might help:

[Read more…]

Healthy Approaches in the Training of Performing Artists

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