dance – Page 3

Supplemental Physical Fitness Training Can Improve The Artistic Elements Of Dance Performance

December 2, 2013 by 4dancers

Happy November (again!) –

We’re pleased to to share with you an article on the relationship between outside-of-class-fitness-training and dance performance. You may remember we’ve had a number of articles on this topic, and how important it is for dancers to do more than just take class / rehearsal, if they want to stay as healthy as possible and lower their risk of injury.

Our contributor for this piece is Dr. Matthew Wyon, who is Professor of Dance Science at the University of Wolverhampton (England), where he divides his time between the Sport and Dance Departments. He is on the Medical Advisory Committee of Dance UK, and as a certified strength and conditioning specialist works as exercise physiologist for Birmingham Royal Ballet and The English National Ballet. As one of the leading researchers in dance medicine and science, he is also the incoming President-elect / Vice-President of IADMS (International Association for Dance Medicine and Science). I’m so glad he agreed to write something for us, and happy we can share this with you……just one more piece of evidence on why dancers need to do outside-of-class conditioning! Mahalo, Matt! (that’s Hawaiian for “thank you”!)

Best to all!

Jan, Editor, Dance Wellness

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Is dance class and rehearsal enough to get you fit to perform? Should you also do other fitness training as well? The link between physical fitness and performance has been demonstrated in sport, where winners are often physically fitter than their rivals. Dance UK’s two “Fit to Dance” reports noted that dancers said fatigue was one of the main causes of injury. The research we have carried out at the University of Wolverhampton examined whether there was a similar relationship between fitness and dance, as there is in sport. Specifically, are dancers able to improve the artistic elements of dance performance by improving their underlying physical fitness?

A recent study has shown that judges gave higher grades to fitter dancers dancing the same piece of choreography than less fit dancers. The study used professional dancers and final year vocational school dancers in a performance group. Each group (ballet and contemporary) performed a solo-piece before and after a 6 week training period and carried out the same fitness tests. Half of each genre group did an extra 1 hour fitness class a week while the others just did their normal routine. The fitness training consisted of circuit training and whole body vibration training on a PowerPlate. The circuit training exercises chosen focused on upper and lower body exercises (such as press-ups, lunges, bench dips), as well as development of the aerobic energy system. Each group also carried out exercises that focused on developing active and passive flexibility.

Results showed that all dancers who were part of the intervention (i.e, the fitness regimen) group improved their artistic marks significantly more than the control groups (the ones who did not do the fitness regimen).

The study has also shown that as long as supplemental training is focused, benefits can be achieved in a short period of time, which is vital within the training and rehearsal schedules of today’s dancers.

Matthew Wyon, PhD

Professor in Dance Science, Research Centre for Sport Exercise and Performance, University of Wolverhampton, UK

National Institute of Dance Medicine and Science, UK

Dancing to Feed the Body…Not Starve It

November 12, 2013 by 4dancers

by Lucy Vurusic Riner

As a high school dance educator you can’t really avoid the issue of body image in your dance class. There are ways to skirt around the issue, maybe even make light of it at times when things are tense, and there is always the batch of us that quite honestly, make it worse.

So I’m suggesting we face it head on. Some thoughts on how we as dance educators can start turning this horrible phenomenon around:

1. This point is number one for a reason. Dance Educators need to check their own personal opinions of body image at the door.

We all, at some point in our careers, have bought into the stereotype of what the dancer body looks like no matter how hard we try not to. Our own images of our bodies may have even prevented some of us from following a dream we had in dance because we assumed our bodies needed to look a certain way. We also all know a teacher that said something mean or inappropriate to us (and we remember it don’t we?); those teachers that said it in our best interest right?

Being a woman in this world is hard enough; being a dancer can add a whole other layer to our insecurities if we aren’t taught in an environment that is safe and nurturing. How do we address body image in our classes to let young girls, especially many at the middle and high school level that are experiencing puberty, know that they have to love and respect the bodies they are in? How do we talk to our students about being healthy without looking like we are passing judgment in one way or another?

I try to emphasize that we have different bodies and that they benefit us all in different ways. I want my students to focus on their strengths. That doesn’t mean that I don’t want them to work on the things that are challenging for them but I want them to be able to look at their bodies and point out the things that they love about them.

I do an ice breaker exercise early in the year where everyone has to share one thing about themselves as a dancer that they love. You would have thought I asked them to help raise the debt ceiling. Blank stares. But if I asked the opposite question, “If you could fix one thing about yourself as a dancer…” we could spend an entire semester in group therapy. I actually think some of the girls in my classes do like themselves more than they let on–they just think it’s taboo to let anyone know they like themselves…..Geesh.

I always try to point out the benefits of how each of my dancers is built and how that is special to who they are as movers. That doesn’t mean I don’t give corrections or feedback, it just means that talking about their physical bodies is irrelevant. Sadly, there are plenty of places in our society that try to keep us down as women by focusing solely on our bodies and how they SHOULD look. My job is to continue building my students up regardless of that.

2. Use your body as a way to show young girls how to appreciate who THEY are. [Read more…]

Lessons In Creativity – Outside The Dance Studio

June 6, 2013 by 4dancers

by Emily Kate Long

Another full-time season is over for my company, and another semester has come to an end for the school. Cue the identity crisis! What on earth am I supposed to do with all this unstructured time? How will I prove my worth to myself if I can’t dance every day?

Ordinarily, these thoughts and worse would be running through my head this time of year. Somehow, it’s different now. I have always envied and admired dancers who could maintain a strong (or at least extant) sense of identity through layoffs. Am I finally becoming one? This installment of Finding Balance is a celebration of summer’s not-guilty-anymore pleasures: rest, leisure, creativity, and study. All are enjoyable, all well-deserved, and all are outpourings of myself. Each creative or restorative undertaking teaches me something I can take into the studio. Each makes my dancing more valuable for those lessons.

One of my greatest creative loves outside the dance studio is drawing. Chance brought me to a facilitated figure drawing session in the spring of 2010, and I’ve attended with relative regularity ever since. My rehearsal and teaching schedule this season finally allowed me to get there weekly (or more, if I was lucky) and seeing consistency pay off has been truly rewarding.

Honing another craft to a level I can take pride in is a gift to myself. Facing a blank piece of paper, planning a composition (or not), capturing the gesture of a pose, examining the geometry and architecture of the human form…all these things are so similar to dance, just translated from three dimensions to two. Sensitive consideration of the tools (the dancer, music or dance style on one hand, the pencil, charcoal, model, and paper on the other) makes for a better artistic product and a more enjoyable process in any dimension.

Showing up to those early classes made me nervous! I was mostly learning on the fly, and overwhelmed much of the time. Being in the company of artists I admire and trust kept me coming back. Now, experience and practice have eased those initial fears. I really enjoy how much freedom there is to interpret what’s in front of me once the basics of proportion and tone are more or less in place. As a naturally cautious person, I find a devilish sort of delight in just slapping a bunch of soft charcoal down on the paper and finger-painting with it. Other times I better appreciate the delicate, faintly oily smokiness of graphite, laid down one gentle layer at a time.

Working loosely without a definite goal in mind is not something I’m usually comfortable with. The progress I’ve made under those conditions offers a few lessons to me:

Progress is directly related to consistent practice. Showing up ready to work opens the door to improvement.
Judging my technique against something concrete (Does is look like the model? Is it at least believable as the likeness of a human being?) is kinder than judging it against a vague set of ideals. (Is this great? Is this skillful? Is this perfect?)
In a class with no peers, I am free to judge my progress against myself alone. My work will never look like anyone else’s, and shouldn’t. That knowledge makes me both more confident in and more accountable for my own success.
Analyzing my work, or asking others to analyze it, gives me valuable information about how to use technique. Observing what feelings drawings inspire and why is so much easier with a little perspective.

What I love most about the class is that everyone shows up because we want to create something that day. We arrive needing to express. We get together enough money to pay the model and a little bit of rent, and we make art. It’s such a clear, simple philosophy of creativity. It creates a working atmosphere that’s open, positive, respectful, and vibrant. It reminds me that such a mentality is essential for every art form, and it’s what I try to bring into the ballet studio each morning.

When I pack up my art bag at 9:15 every Thursday night, I take a lot with me. Pride in my new skills, feedback to contemplate, techniques to try, and a generous mottling of charcoal smudges from face to fingers. I treasure all of it.

Readers, what other expressive outlets do you use to enrich and inform your dancing? Please share them in the comments section!

Assistant Editor Emily Kate Long began her dance education in South Bend, Indiana, with Kimmary Williams and Jacob Rice, and graduated in 2007 from Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre School’s Schenley Program. She has spent summers studying at Ballet Chicago, Pittsburgh Youth Ballet, Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre School, Miami City Ballet, and Saratoga Summer Dance Intensive/Vail Valley Dance Intensive, where she served as Program Assistant. Ms Long attended Milwaukee Ballet School’s Summer Intensive on scholarship before being invited to join Milwaukee Ballet II in 2007.

Ms Long has been a member of Ballet Quad Cities since 2009. She has danced featured roles in Deanna Carter’s Ash to Glass and Dracula, participated in the company’s 2010 tour to New York City, and most recently performed principal roles in Courtney Lyon’s Sleeping Beauty, The Nutcracker, and Cinderella. She is also on the faculty of Ballet Quad Cities School of Dance, where she teaches ballet, pointe, and repertoire classes.

Student Spotlight: André Fabien Francis

April 22, 2013 by Ashley David

Here’s our latest student spotlight–André Fabien Francis…

1. Can you tell readers how you became involved with dance?

I first became seriously involved in dance while I was auditioning for the Aspire Dance Mentoring Programme – which is run by the Council for Dance Education and Training. On the Panel was Vanessa LeFrançois who is the Director of Prevocational & Recreational Dance at The Place: London Contemporary Dance School and while auditioning for Aspire she scouted me to join the Centre for Advanced Training at The Place – which I joined in January 2009 – before graduating to accept a fully Funded Place at London Studio Centre in September 2011 where I’m currently in my 2^nd Year.

student spotlight

2. What do you find you like best about dance classes?

I’d have to say one of the best things about dance classes is being somewhere you want to be. Then to add to that; being taught by a teacher who loves what they do and therefore encourages you to go beyond your limits each every time is something I love. Being surrounded by other individuals who want to be there and want to work hard to achieve their goals too is always a bonus!

3. What is the hardest part about dance for you?

Honestly one of the hardest parts of dance for me would have to be: having to push myself constantly to achieve things… it’s hard work! Some people can turn well, others can jump like a kangaroo, some are more flexible than a rubber band and others have to work on all three.

The hardest part is having to work on the things that don’t come naturally and the things you’re working on that often really annoyingly do not come straight away, while knowing if you want to achieve them you have to keep working and pushing for that bit extra as if you keep doing what you always do you can’t really expect to see change!

4. What advice would you give to other dancers?

While I was at CAT one of my teachers Raymond Chai –who is Chief Ballet Master for Ballet Black – said something that has ALWAYS stuck with me: “Dancers never reach their 10 out of 10, when they reach what they thought was their 10 that then becomes their 9”

5. How has dance changed your life?

The amount of people who I have had the pleasure of meeting through my dancing experiences is honestly second to none. Dancing has given me so many opportunities to travel nationally and internationally and experience some of the Best Experiences of My Life so far which I am so thankful for! E.g. Performing in The Lion King West End as Young Simba, being the face of Move It 2013, representing Youth Dance England in Leeds as a National Young Dance Ambassador, performing at the London 2012 Olympic Closing Ceremony and the next exciting opportunity is going to New York this Summer to take part in the Alvin Ailey Summer School – I CANNOT wait!

The Arts – A Positive Impact On Bullying?

April 16, 2013 by 4dancers

by Janet Neidhardt

I have the opportunity each year to choreograph class dances for a spring dance concert at my school. I often seek out social issues that my students might find meaningful to base our work on. In the past I have choreographed dances based on body image and depression. Recently in one of my classes, through much discussion with my students, we came to the conclusion that bullying was a very important topic for them. So we have now begun the process of creating a piece based on bullying.

I started off by having my students write journal entries about how it feels to be bullied, what it’s like to be the bully, and what do we want our audience to walk away thinking or feeling. I picked out phrases and words from their entries and I’m now working with a composer to blend spoken word with music so their words will be heard throughout the piece. We have started the creation process with movement as well and the students have come up with some strong images of being left out, put down, as well as finding confidence. It is important to me and my students that we end the piece on a positive note to show the strength of being an individual.

It has been a month now that we have been working on this piece and something interesting has occurred within my class. I have seen positive changes in individual students as well as the dynamics of the whole class. Some students who have been very quiet during this school year are finally speaking up and volunteering to give ideas and even take on solo parts within the dance. Students who tend to be outspoken are listening better to the ideas of their peers.

Overall this group of students has become more supportive of one another and is really embracing their differences. I see new friendships developing now, at the end of the school year, which never occurred over the last 6 months. Although this has always been a nice group of students, I believe that creating this work about bullying has raised their own self awareness and that these students are thinking twice before they act.

After observing these changes within my class I started to think about how the arts inherently praise individuality and that perhaps the arts could be a great place to stop bullying before it even starts. Students are under so much pressure to fit in and standing out is seen as a bad thing. In the arts however we celebrate differences and unique thoughts, calling it creativity. So it makes me wonder if students were able to create art work from a young age and celebrate each others creativity and ideas, perhaps they would find self confidence earlier and not be so scared to stand out.

There is no question that bullying exists within every school at every age and so to have students confront it together might be a wonderful way to help them learn how to relate to each other in positive way. Creating an artistic work through any medium about bullying could be a very effective way to combat it at any age. I look forward to seeing what the audience reaction to this piece is when we perform it in May. Hopefully it will be so strong that I will write a second blog update about it.

Contributor Janet Neidhardt has been a dance educator for 10 years. She has taught modern, ballet, and jazz at various studios and schools on Chicago’s North Shore. She received her MA in Dance with an emphasis in Choreography from the University of North Carolina-Greensboro and her BA in Communications with a Dance Minor from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Throughout her time in graduate school, Janet performed with Sidelong Dance Company based in Winston-Salem, NC.

dancer posing upside down — *Janet Neidhardt*

Currently, Janet teaches dance at Loyola Academy High School in Wilmette, IL. She is the Director of Loyola Academy Dance Company B and the Brother Small Arts Guild, and choreographs for the Spring Dance Concert and school musical each year. Janet is very active within the Loyola Academy community leading student retreats and summer service trips. She regularly seeks out professional development opportunities to continue her own artistic growth. Recently, Janet performed with Keigwin and Company in the Chicago Dancing Festival 2012 and attended the Bates Dance Festival.

When she isn’t dancing, Janet enjoys teaching Pilates, practicing yoga, and running races around the city of Chicago.

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