Tom Welsh's response which served as a springboard for other responses appears first. Then, listed alphabetically by author below are the responses submitted to the question for discussion at the Dance Kinesiology Teachers Special Interest Meeting at the International Association for Dance Medicine and Science Annual Meeting in San Francisco in October 2004. Responses are printed here with permission of the authors.

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What should we be teaching dancers to keep them dancing well?

Tom Welsh, PhD
Florida State University
twelsh@dance.fsu.edu

A comprehensive answer to this question would contain more topics than we have the time to teach. The challenge, it seems, is to identify the skills and abilities likely to have the greatest impact on improving performance and maintaining health, and to focus our efforts there. Here are the priorities as one dance kinesiology teacher is seeing them today.

I believe we should teach dancers exercises that will make them stronger, longer, more efficient, and more durable. This is particularly important when new dancers are entering our programs since they cannot know, with any precision, what capacities they need to develop until they have more experience in their new training environments.

A first-year dance conditioning class should include exercises to increase strength & muscular endurance in the muscles of the lower leg and feet, the muscular corset (core control), the hip muscles, and the shoulder and scapula muscles that are used when supporting the body on the arms. It should also teach exercises to release and lengthen muscle groups that tend to be tense and short in dancers (hip flexors & outward rotators, plantar flexors, and the shoulder girdle elevators and forward tilters. A third focus should be on exercises that teach dancers to release unnecessary tension beginning with whole body relaxation and progressing to isolated release of over-active muscle groups (the hip flexors and scapula elevators, for example).

We should help dancers become aware of alignments essential for efficient movement and help them turn these alignments into habits. Four alignments seem relevant to all concert dance forms: Knees over toes, Arches vertical, Pelvis balanced on the heads of the femurs, and Bottom of the rib cage released down and back. Refinements might be added to this foundation.

I believe we should also teach dancers the principles of physical conditioning (accommodation, reversibility, specificity, progressive overload, and compensation) and teach them how to apply these principles to optimize their training. Learning to apply the principles of conditioning will allow dancers to:

Choose teachers, classes and workshops that are well-suited to their individual training needs;
Choose exercises to correct deficiencies and build capacities that they know they need;
Adapt exercises to their specific needs;
Take responsibility for their growth as dancers by directing their own training; and
Competently teach and direct the work of other dancers, while choreographing, for example.

I believe we should teach dancers enough of the biomechanics of human movement that they will be able to:
Recognize risky movements and modify them to make them safer;
Untangle stubborn training, alignment, or performance challenges;
Use the principle of specificity effectively in the applications above.

We should teach dancers that the human body is an integrated system with parts that can be operated independently but which nearly always interact with other parts, making attention to the whole system essential. This includes the concepts of chain reactions and compensations and their implications for dancing well. While this concept can be presented as information (e.g., Fitt, 1996, Chapter 13), it probably needs to be reflected in how we approach everything we teach dancers,

We should teach dancers how to work with teachers, choreographers, company directors, and repertory that subjects their dance instruments to unreasonable risks. We should be clear that it is the dancer’s professional responsibility to negotiate accommodations, knowing that there are always trade-offs and there is rarely a perfect solution.

I will leave it to other participants to suggest other health-promoting skills that we should teach our dancers. Here are two skills I am not certain we can teach sufficiently in our programs, but I hope someone will convince us I am wrong.

I am not sure we can teach all dancers to identify the specific active muscles for many dance movements with precision. The skills required for analyzing dance movements are complex and multi-layered and may require more time and motivation than is available in most undergraduate, performance and choreography programs. I will be delighted if we hear that someone has made this work or has negotiated a compromise that makes sense to us all.

I am also not sure we can teach all dancers enough to allow them to design and manage a complete, supplemental training program entirely on their own. In fact, many body-training certification programs (e.g., Pilates) devote hundreds of hours to teaching these skills. Can most dancers afford to invest the time needed to develop these skills while they are also responsible for learning technique, performance, and choreography skills? I am guessing they cannot. On the other hand, if we can give our dancers a solid foundation and a head-start on developing these skills, they will probably get more from any training program they may participate in after leaving our universities.

Finally, I believe we should not be teaching dancers to deny their choreographers’ and teachers’ movement requests simply because the movements appear to be risky. The skills we teach our dancers should help them to see the essence of movement and to find strategies for reducing the risks. Helping the world of dance achieve progressively higher levels of effectiveness, and responsiveness to dancer needs, will require a continual negotiation in which dancers are key players as well as recipients.

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Rosine Bena, Former Prima Ballerina
Artistic Director, Sierra Nevada Ballet
<rosineb@hotmail.com>

I have taught ballet for over 30 years and have also taught in a university. I find that dance science specialists are much needed to educate those students interested in dance. The art form – especially ballet – needs to change in that more teachers need to be properly educated so as not to harm students. I believe by teaching proper dance science-body alignment and correct muscle use in college, we ensure a better future for the art form and arts education in general. I look forward to the day when every teacher of dance has a knowledge of the science of movement.

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Pamela Geber, MFA
University of Utah
p.geber@m.cc.utah.edu

I would first like to propose that the field of dance science is getting less compartmentalized. This seems to be true in the field of dance as well, at least amongst the professionals and students with whom I have been talking and sharing ideas. I think that this is a positive shift, one that is necessary in order for more of the dance science information to successfully transfer to dancers’ training and performance needs.

More Specific Responses:

1) As the science ultimately, is in service of the art form, I believe that dance science specialists (in the more compartmentalized perspective) need to understand the needs of dancers first – what is most important aesthetically and in their practice? This is, of course, keeping in mind what specific injuries the specialists have seen. I think that there are some general themes of importance but that the specific concepts vary from one demographic to the next and from one aesthetic style to another. I agree with many of Tom’s suggestions re: a first-year, college-level dance conditioning course. I would add to his list, a strong suggestion to do special units on breathing---often a profound way to help these students undo unnecessary tension and help them re-align and re-work any muscular imbalances. I would also strongly advise that college/university level dance students get a good exposure to several somatic-based approaches that are less exercise-based (Alexander, Feldenkrais, Laban/Bartenieff, Ideokinesis, others). Within a somatically minded approach, there is often easier transference of information into dancing. Sometimes a more traditional exercise-based class doesn’t help dancers learn how to transfer information to performance and aesthetic demands.

2) I believe that dance science specialists need to share their information in a dancer/user-friendly way. Often this means that specialists need to figure out how to embody (or help a dancer embody) the scientific concepts. Transferring valuable information to a dancer’s practice takes a teacher who is able to speak in kinesthetic (movement-based) terms. There also might be different demands placed on a dancer (aesthetic vs. functional ones). It is not the science specialists’ job to tell a dancer NOT to do something that might potentially put them in harm’s way injury wise. It is, however, important for them to give dancers the information. Dancers can make their own choices---perhaps designing their own conditioning programs that help them balance out their bodies, perhaps learning how to modify movements without sacrificing aesthetic demands (when possible). There will continue to be aesthetic and functional discrepancies. Tom suggests that we should teach dancers how to work with teachers, choreographers, company directors. I think that giving the dancers the kinesiological information related to their dancing is the most important thing we can do. How they choose to work with teachers, choreographers and directors is up to them. Once again, aesthetics and function won’t ever be perfectly in agreement.

3) Tom spoke about alignments essential for efficient movement. The term movement efficiency has received a lot of attention lately, particular in the post modern dance era. Efficiency oftentimes means that a person is dancing with minimal effort. I propose movement effectiveness instead of movement efficiency. Sometimes you want to dance with minimal effort (for a desired aesthetic effect) and other times, you want other qualitative choices as a dancer. I have been using movement effectiveness to refer to usage of just the right amount of effort necessary to achieve the desired effect. It seems to be true (in my experience) that many first year college/university level dancers overwork their musculature, so often it becomes important to learn how to work more efficiently. It empowers dancers when they realize that they aren’t wed to their muscular habits and rather, can make a more nuanced choice. I disagree with Tom’s suggestion to ask dancers to release the ribcage down and back. The design of the ribs is such that they hang forward and down. The issue of splaying the ribs (which, I think is what Tom is trying to address) can more effectively be dealt with with other images.

4) I have heard colleagues talk about this idea: Put your bones in the right place and the correct muscular support will follow. As a kinesiology and dance technique teacher, I have found this to be helpful. I also question whether or not dancers need to understand the specific muscles that fire for a given action---muscular analysis that I have done in my kinesiology classes. I agree with Tom---we can’t fully determine which muscles are firing and in what types of contractions---not without doing an EMG reading. And if dancers knew that info, would it make them better dancers? Dancers free from injury? I don’t think so. I do think that basic muscular analysis is extremely beneficial to help dancers, perhaps, design their own conditioning programs specific to their individual needs. (I have choreographed on students who did just this when they were trying to train themselves to do some overhead lifts.) It can also help dancers understand how their musculature is 3-dimensionally layered. (Deeper muscular support is necessary for efficient movement and efficient stabilization.) But the trap is: micromanagement. Most people who try to micromanage their musculature when they dance aren’t able to make smooth coordinations and put the parts together into the whole.

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Donna Krasnow, MS
York University
<dkrasnow1@aol.com>

Below is my response and some ideas for the discussion about "What can dance science specialists contribute to the university dancer’s training?" I hope it does not come off as negating what was in the response Tom sent to us, as I did not intend it that way. It is really more to enhance or complement that statement. I look forward to the discussion!

I believe that many of the ideas described in the response that we received are excellent and necessary approaches, but overlook some of the psychological and neurological aspects that place obstacles or barriers between dance science courses for dancers (conditioning classes, anatomy, kinesiology, biomechanics, etc.) and enhancements to dance practice and performance.

(1) Dancers need encouragement to dialogue openly and regularly about the contradictions between certain aspects of dance aesthetics, and what it means to dance in a way that prioritizes healthy practice. They need to come to terms with how that has informed their earlier training and body image (prior to coming to the university setting), how that has influenced habitual patterns, and that they may need to re-examine and re-define their ideas about beauty and their technical goals before significant changes can be made.

(2) Dancers are maturing emotionally as well as physically in their university years, and we as teachers are critical in assisting them in developing a sense of identity that is not entirely dependent on the opinions of teachers, choreographers, artistic directors, etc. Another way of saying this is that we should be encouraging them to become self-aware, and listen to the body when it speaks to them. Without a self-defined sense of identity, they are more likely to ignore knowledge they have gained in the dance science context, and work in ways that are damaging but win approval. In some ways, our role is hypocritical in this area, because at the same time that we want them to define their own artistic voices and personal identities, we are grading them.

(3) Dancers will probably not succeed in transferring body knowledge learned from conditioning, and intellectual knowledge learned in dance science courses, if they do not fully understand certain key motor control and motor learning issues in dance, that is, what role the unconscious centers of the brain and the neurological system play in determining alignment, and habitual movement patterning. No amount of conditioning exercises will change habitual patterns if the neuro-muscular aspects are not addressed. Further, dancers need practical and ongoing skills, not just information, about how to do neuro-muscular repatterning, whether that consists of somatic work, or one-on-one sessions in a slow and focused environment, or dance classes that link directly to conditioning and dance science classes, and attend to transfer of training issues.

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Lisa Shoaf and Judith Steel
Virginia Commonwealth University
<ldshoaf@vcu.edu> and <jsteel@vcu.edu>

• Self-management and advocacy tools
• Physical conditioning principles and experiences
• Experiences that build both skill-based and somatic-based awareness and knowledge – i.e., alignment
• Strategies for decision making processes that reduce risk and injurious approach to dancing
• Mind-set/attitude….build a culture of curiosity, inquiry, and exploration with possibilities….build choices that broaden possibilities, not narrow
• Teach principles; not excessive or overly complex pieces of information
• Reinforce several key important principles with multiple avenues of communication and experience, imagery, and information.
• Build on the model that allows an intrinsic experiential art form to best be served by combining sensation, with cognitive knowledge, with healthy training choices and role models.
• Return to a basic premise that body is an integrated system. “The body organizes itself if you give it direction and clarity”; the whole is what we are after; not just training the parts.

CONSIDERATIONS FOR DANCE TRAINING

PROVIDE FOUNDATIONAL KNOWLEDGE
Foundational anatomical knowledge: joint use, muscle structure and function, prime movers, characteristics of major joints and overall structure of human body, principles of alignment in anatomical terms
Foundational dance knowledge: plies, releves, jumps, weight shifts, leg extensions, rotations, spine articulations, foot use, use of gravity and energy, spatial design, propulsion through space, principles of alignment in dance terms

LAYERED LEARNING
Integrate core knowledge of alignment principles and basic knowledge of anatomy with an experience. In order to make any changes in one’s movement habits, students have to feel it. Provide a guided discovery experience within the context of a [technique] class whereby students can integrate cognitive knowledge with intrinsic experience.

THE HOLISTIC DANCER
Basic issues of healthy dancing refer to larger issues of health such as: nutrition, life-style issues such as smoking, coping skills and stress management, cross training, time management, and relaxation and recuperation.

ACKNOWLEDGING AND PROVIDING OPTIONS FOR LEARNING STYLES
There is a tendency for dancers to gravitate towards their own preferences and comfort zone when it comes to learning styles and movement choices. When given an option, many dancers will tend to gravitate toward ‘familiar’ and ‘comfort zone’ training choices. For example, a dancer with a tight, strong body tends to reinforce this tendency with strength building movement choices. Loose, long limbed flexible dancers on the other hand tend to reinforce this very feature by engaging in (and preferring) stretching as a method of enhancing their dancing. The dance educator can be of help by encouraging students to seek other options and choices; by providing concrete information on the physiological and anatomical realities of engaging in a balanced program of training and learning.

THE DANCER AS ADVOCATE
Promote the idea that advocacy for dance begins with the dancer. A dancer can sustain a long and healthy career by making smart choices. The dancer can successfully navigate a wide range of movement styles and demands place on him/herself by taking responsibility for his/her actions:
• sustaining a balanced and healthy body
• working to the highest potential within one’s physical capabilities
• recognizing when modification and adjustments are necessary
• understanding that taking responsibility for one’s self means to engage in a process of communication and collaboration with those who are striving to develop the artistry of dance.

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