Dance Kinesiology Special Interest Group Meeting
International Association for Dance Medicine and Science Annual Meeting
Stockholm, Sweden
November 2005

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Small group results
Pam Geber, recorder

Disclaimer: Comments are paraphrased. If a comment attributed to you is inaccurate, please send corrections to the site webmaster at the following emai: jane.baas@wmich.edu

Participants: Katy Ewalt, Pamela Geber, Anna V Mayr, Jayachandran Palazhy,
Nili Steinberg, Allyson Way Wanselius, Jon Zahourek, Renee Zahourek, Patricia Zaretti

What are the advantages and disadvantages of each approach (more quantitative/biomechanical and more qualitative/descriptive/somatically informed)?

• Jayachandran Palazhy: Empirical data can be used as tools. If a dancer has an injury or is trying to prevent an injury, you can look at the empirical info to help assess, retrain. The measurements, however, often reduce the movement in some capacity though.
• Katy Ewalt: Different learning styles necessitate a combined approach.
• Allyson Way Wanselius: Science can be used for rehab, to help the dancer. Science can help a technical problem. This is a foundation for the art to be built on.
• Jon Zahourek: Our kinesthetic minds are constantly being bullied by science. There is a hierarchy, of sorts. As an example, I believe in alignment as a dynamic, rather than static state.
• Allyson Way Wanselius: The teacher can translate the science info (physics) into a feeling/image. It is their responsibility to do this. Teacher as an interpreter/translator.
• Patricia Zaretti: The teacher as a link between the science and the feeling, sense, direction.
• Jayachandran Palazhy: Talked about the Eastern notion of space. There is a very different fundamental understanding of space where he comes from—different from the Descarte model in which body and mind are separate. There is a flow of energy through the nervous system. This system is completely different from Descartes’ separation.
  
  Led by Patricia Zaretti, we began talking about the cultural differences on this topic.
• This is not just a cultural issue (this separation of mind and body). It’s a MIND SET because there are people doing this blend, believing and practicing this blend all over the world. You can find them in almost any culture.
• Jon Zahourek: Dancers have the perfect opportunity to teach knowledge of the body and continuity of experience to the rest of the world. They understand it the best.
• Nili Steinberg: Dancers are inherently smart.

What core info is critical for dancers in order to remain healthy?

• Renee Zahourek: Diet should be a core set of info that is critical for dancers to remain healthy.
• Jon Zahourek: Anatomy/kinesiology works for well being. It doesn’t just have a dancer specific goal. Pain is driven by fear. Self knowledge is key. If you can help dancers empower themselves with anatomy/kinesiology information, they ultimately have learned a crucial and key bit of self knowledge.
• Allyson Way Wanselius: Knowledge of self is key. Dancers need to feel empowered, not inhibited (as they often are in many settings.)
• Jon Zahourek: Is a dancer at the mercy of an outside specialist?
• Patricia Zaretti: Responsible, self empowerment is most important. Consider the dancer who is doing it for pleasure, not as a profession. In a way, the professionally driven dancers and teachers should reflect on that population. Return to the pure joy of studying and doing it.
• Jayachandran Palazhy -- An artist is someone who can call the child in themselves alive. We are guiding, supporting and teaching artists.

Succeeding discussion was led by Patricia Zaretti, who asked the question “How do you define technique, then—as it’s often considered a training ground?”

• Jayachandran Palazhy: The technique = tools and devices to give you facilities to do what you’d like.
• Anna V Mayr: Ask the question—are you, as dancers, a slave to your choreographer, teacher…? We can’t expect that everyone becomes democratically educated.
• Patricia Zaretti: What about when function and aesthetic don’t agree? We can empower the dancer with anatomically informed information but personally, I think that aesthetic options and range can decrease if it’s solely ruled by function. It’s the teachers’ job to give the dancers the straight-up scientific info and info about their own bodies to help them supplement what they’re doing more specifically for choreographic tasks.
• Nili Steinberg: Screening is important for this. This info is used as empowerment for the dancers. Start with younger generations. Give them this info earlier.
• Allyson Way Wanselius: Psychological pressure of screening. Are you fighting to stay IN a school, a program, a company? The pressure of a good screen (whatever that means) is detrimental. Part of your art is surpassing your limitations. Think about the misfits of sorts---people who might not have been the easy body type or personality for the dance world and yet they made it a successful career for themselves.
• Katy Ewalt: Agreed with what was just said. When dealing with sensation vs. science, misconceptions can develop.
• Nili Steinberg: Sensation vs. science. For example—a stretch being proprioceptively felt as a contraction.
• Renee Zahourek: Can you, as teacher, use an aesthetic metaphor as a description or directive for a dancers’ movement rather than one that links itself so directly to incorrect science.
• Patricia Zaretti: Teacher could say—anatomically you do… and imagistically/metaphorically you do… These may not seemingly agree, necessarily.
• Jon Zahourek & Allison Way Wanselius: Example: Open your pelvis. What does that make manifest for the dancer? Why not say open your flower as an image since, as 1 says The pelvis never actually opens.
• Jon Zahourek: Science and convention have to be interpreted.
• Patricia Zaretti -- We cannot deny a huge body of language that speaks directly to the vocabulary of movement. Why should we throw that away? (More specifically—language that speaks about space, timing and force.)

The last question we didn’t really get it was: What components do you feel your students enjoy and are able to master? And with what components do they struggle?

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