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Stolberg, Tonie L. "Communicating Science through the Language of Dance: A Journey of Education and Reflection." Leonardo 39, no. 5 (October 2006): 426–32. http://dx.doi.org/10.1162/leon.2006.39.5.426.
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Bharatanatyam, the classical dance style of South India, is adept at conveying complex, multilayered narratives. This paper documents and reflects upon the interactions between the author, a scientist and educator, and a professional dance company as they strive to develop and produce a dance-drama about the carbon cycle. The author examines the process by which scientific ideas are shared with the artists and the way a scientific narrative becomes one with an artistic meaning. The paper also examines areas for possible future science-dance collaborations and explores the necessary features for a collaborative science-dance pedagogy.
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Croft, Clare. "Dance Returns to American Cultural Diplomacy: The U.S. State Department's 2003 Dance Residency Program and Its After Effects." Dance Research Journal 45, no. 1 (December 3, 2012): 23–39. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0149767712000265.
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By focusing on a 2003 dance residency program sponsored by the U.S. State Department, this article locates twenty-first century American cultural diplomacy in a post-9/11 political context. The article focuses specifically on collaboration between San Francisco–based Margaret Jenkins Dance Company and Kolkata, India–based Tansuree Shankar Dance, which grew from the 2003 residency, to consider how artists find ways to facilitate cultural diplomacy that might be a blueprint for future American cultural diplomacy efforts. The article also addresses, however, the limits of that collaboration—limits that highlight the central tension of American cultural diplomacy: a desire to build relationships of so-called “mutual understanding” while also forwarding American national interests.
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Bronner, Shaw, Sheyi Ojofeitimi, and Donald Rose. "Injuries in a Modern Dance Company." American Journal of Sports Medicine 31, no. 3 (March 2003): 365–73. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/03635465030310030701.
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Background Professional dancers experience high rates of musculoskeletal injuries. Objective To analyze the effect of comprehensive management (case management and intervention) on injury incidence, time loss, and patterns of musculoskeletal injury in a modern dance organization. Study Design Retrospective/prospective cohort study. Methods Injury data were analyzed over a 5-year period, 2 years without intervention and 3 years with intervention, in a modern dance organization (42 dancers). The number of workers’ compensation cases and number of dance days missed because of injury were compared across a 5-year period in a factorial design. Results Comprehensive management significantly reduced the annual number of new workers’ compensation cases from a high of 81% to a low of 17% and decreased the number of days lost from work by 60%. The majority of new injuries occurred in younger dancers before the implementation of this program. Most injuries involved overuse of the lower extremity, similar to patterns reported in ballet companies. Benefits of comprehensive management included early and effective management of overuse problems before they became serious injuries and triage to prevent overutilization of medical services. Conclusions This comprehensive management program effectively decreased the incidence of new cases and lost time. Both dancers and management strongly support its continuance.
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Kumar, Lavanya P., and Shruti J. Shenoy. "Survey of Musculoskeletal Injuries among Female Bharatanatyam Dancers in the Udupi District of India." Medical Problems of Performing Artists 36, no. 3 (September 1, 2021): 199–206. http://dx.doi.org/10.21091/mppa.2021.3022.
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BACKGROUND: Bharatanatyam is an Indian classical dance form that is practiced globally. There is limited information about the prevalence of injuries in Bharatanatyam dancers. OBJECTIVES: To investigate the prevalence of musculoskeletal injuries and specifics of dance training in female Bharatanatyam dancers in the Udupi district of India. METHODS: We developed and tested a survey for Bharatanatyam dancers regarding injury history in the prior year, including location, time loss, cause, and need for medical help. We also obtained demographic and training information. RESULTS: 101 dancers completed the survey. 10.8% of dancers reported musculoskeletal injuries because of participation in dance. They sustained 0.65 injuries/1,000 hours of dancing. The most frequently injured areas were ankle (27.2%) and knee (27.2%) followed by lower back (13.6%) and hip (9%). Despite being injured, 36.4% of the dancers continued to dance. 54.5% of the injured dancers sought the help of a medical professional for their dance-related injuries. The most common surface for dance was concrete followed by other hard surfaces such as marble and tile. CONCLUSION: Female Bharatanatyam dancers are prone to injuries of the lower extremity and back. Most dancers in our study practice the Pandanalluru style on hard surfaces. There is a need to investigate the impact of training factors on the injury occurrence.
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Vargas-Cetina, Gabriela. "India and the Translocal Modern Dance Scene, 1890s–1950s." Review of International American Studies 13, no. 2 (December 31, 2020): 39–59. http://dx.doi.org/10.31261/rias.9805.
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At the end of the nineteenth century and during the first half of the twentieth, lead dancers from different countries became famous and toured internationally. These dancers—and the companies they created—transformed various dance forms into performances fit for the larger world of art music, ballet, and opera circuits. They adapted ballet to the variety-show formats and its audiences. Drawing on shared philosophical ideas—such as those manifest in the works of the Transcendentalists or in the writings of Nietzsche and Wagner—and from movement techniques, such as ballet codes, the Delsarte method, and, later on, Eurythmics (in fashion at the time), these lead dancers created new dance formats, choreographies, and styles, from which many of today’s classical, folk, and ballet schools emerged. In this essay, I look at how Rabindranath Tagore, Isadora Duncan, Anna Pavlova, Ruth St. Denis and Ted Shawn, Uday Shankar, Leila Roy Sokhey and Rumini Devi Arundale contributed to this translocal dance scene. Indian dance and spirituality, as well as famous Indian dancers, were an integral part of what at the time was known as the international modern dance scene. This transnational scene eventually coalesced into several separate schools, including what today is known as classical and modern Indian dance styles.
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Vargas-Cetina, Gabriela. "India and the Translocal Modern Dance Scene, 1890s–1950s." Review of International American Studies 13, no. 2 (December 31, 2020): 39–59. http://dx.doi.org/10.31261/rias.9805.
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At the end of the nineteenth century and during the first half of the twentieth, lead dancers from different countries became famous and toured internationally. These dancers—and the companies they created—transformed various dance forms into performances fit for the larger world of art music, ballet, and opera circuits. They adapted ballet to the variety-show formats and its audiences. Drawing on shared philosophical ideas—such as those manifest in the works of the Transcendentalists or in the writings of Nietzsche and Wagner—and from movement techniques, such as ballet codes, the Delsarte method, and, later on, Eurythmics (in fashion at the time), these lead dancers created new dance formats, choreographies, and styles, from which many of today’s classical, folk, and ballet schools emerged. In this essay, I look at how Rabindranath Tagore, Isadora Duncan, Anna Pavlova, Ruth St. Denis and Ted Shawn, Uday Shankar, Leila Roy Sokhey and Rumini Devi Arundale contributed to this translocal dance scene. Indian dance and spirituality, as well as famous Indian dancers, were an integral part of what at the time was known as the international modern dance scene. This transnational scene eventually coalesced into several separate schools, including what today is known as classical and modern Indian dance styles.
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Collins, Aletta. "A Choreographer's Approach to Opera." Dance Research 33, no. 2 (November 2015): 269–72. http://dx.doi.org/10.3366/drs.2015.0141.
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My first professional commission as a choreographer was not for a dance company but for an opera company, for the Bregenz Festival in Austria. In 1988, while I was still a student at London Contemporary Dance School, I was approached to choreograph Camille Saint-Saëns's Samson et Dalila; the commission also included giving ‘movement’ to the chorus (a group of 120 singers) and directing the dancers when they were not dancing. The dancers were a classical company from Sofia, Bulgaria, a company of thirty none of whom spoke English.
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Scialom, Melina, Aguinaldo Gonçalves, and Carlos Roberto Padovani. "Work and Injuries in Dancers: Survey of a Professional Dance Company in Brazil." Medical Problems of Performing Artists 21, no. 1 (March 1, 2006): 29–33. http://dx.doi.org/10.21091/mppa.2006.1006.
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This study examined the daily life and most important physical injuries suffered and reported by the dancers of a professional (contemporary) dance company in São Paulo, Brazil. Through an observational, cross-sectional, retrospective procedure using a questionnaire that collected qualitative and quantitative data, we were able to gather information on 30 dancers who collaborated with the survey. We determined that the injuries considered as most important by dancers were those that prevented dance activity during some months. These injuries occurred mainly during rehearsals (which is the activity occupying the most time on the schedule). Articular injuries were the most frequent and mainly involved the knee and ankle. They were related to classical technique, in which most of the company’s artists started their dance careers. Medical care usually was sought within 1 day, and the prescribed treatment resolved the problem, but the injury cause was not identified in all cases.
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Østern, Tone Pernille. "Teaching Dance Spaciously." Nordic Journal of Dance 1, no. 1 (December 1, 2010): 46–57. http://dx.doi.org/10.2478/njd-2010-0007.
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Abstract This article focuses on and discusses the concept of space as a theoretical tool in connection with dance pedagogy. The author suggests that to look at the dance class as spacious contributes to the dance teacher’s awareness of the fact that she operates in, and also creates, many different spaces as she teaches. This awareness might support the teacher in broadening the dance space in order to embrace differences among dancers, thereby providing the word spacious with a second meaning: generous. The author’s interest in the concept of space as a theoretical device to help understand what goes on in a dance class was born during the analysis of the video material collected for her PhD in dance (Østern, 2009). The practical investigation of the study dealt with formulating an approach to dance pedagogy with a group of mixed-ability dancers based on an understanding of the meaning-making processes among the different dancers in the project. Dialoguing with scholars like Maurice Merleau-Ponty (1962/2002), Valerie Briginshaw (2001), Shaun Gallagher, Dan Zahavi (2008) and Leena Rouhiainen (2007), the author distinguished different spaces in the dance improvisation classes she was teaching, video recording and analysing. Through this process, she developed a theory on the fact that in a dance improvisation class with differently bodied dancers meaning was made in different ways, touching on and producing different spaces. The author concludes that one main advantage of regarding a dance class as spacious is that it allows for an understanding that in class meaning-making can happen in different ways, within different spaces. Together with the dancers, the dance teacher moves in and out of these spaces as she teaches. Tone Pernille Østern (Doctor of Arts in dance) is a dance artist, teacher and researcher based in Trondheim, Norway. She is the artistic leader of the Inclusive Dance Company (www.dance-company.no) which is a small independent contemporary dance company. She has developed the Dance Laboratory (www.danselaboratoriet.no) which is a performing group with differently bodied dancers. The Dance Laboratory also formed the basis of her field work in relation to her PhD in Dance at the Theatre Academy in Helsinki (Østern, 2009). Østern is also the leader of the MultiPlié Dance and Diversity Festival, a biennial in Trondheim since 2004. The festival tries to stretch and discuss ideas about what dancing is and who can be a dancer. From 2009 she also takes up the position as assistant professor at the Program for Teacher Education at the NTNU University where she teaches and carries out research. E-mail: inclusive@dance-company.no / tone.pernille.ostern@plu.ntnu.no
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Escobar Álvarez, Juan Antonio, Pedro Jiménez Reyes, Miguel Ángel Pérez Sousa, Filipe Conceição, and Juan Pedro Fuentes García. "Analysis of the Force-Velocity Profile in Female Ballet Dancers." Journal of Dance Medicine & Science 24, no. 2 (June 15, 2020): 59–65. http://dx.doi.org/10.12678/1089-313x.24.2.59.
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Jumping ability has been identified as one of the best predictors of dance performance. The latest findings in strength and conditioning research suggest that the relationship between force and velocity mechanical capabilities, known as the force-velocity profile, is a relevant parameter for the assessment of jumping ability. In addition, previous investigations have suggested the existence of an optimal force-velocity profile for each individual that maximizes jump performance. Given the abundance of ballistic actions in ballet (e.g., jumps and changes of direction), quantification of the mechanical variables of the force-velocity profile could be beneficial for dancers as a guide to specific training regimens that can result in improvement of either maximal force or velocity capabilities. The aim of this study was to compare the mechanical variables of the force-velocity profile during jumping in different company ranks of ballet dancers. Eighty-seven female professional ballet dancers (age: 18.94 ± 1.32 years; height: 164.41 ± 8.20 cm; weight: 56.3 ± 5.86 kg) showed high force deficits (> 40%) or low force deficits (10% to 40%) regardless of their company rank. Our results suggest that dance training mainly develops velocity capabilities, and due to the high number of dramatic elevations that dance performance requires, supplemental individualized force training may be beneficial for dancers. The individualization of training programs addressed to the direction of each individual's imbalance (high force or low force) could help dancers and their teachers to improve jump height and therefore dance performance.
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Šimunić, Katja. "Literary dance: A personal reflection about two dancers in Zagreb in the eighties." Maska 32, no. 183 (June 1, 2017): 127–33. http://dx.doi.org/10.1386/maska.32.183-184.127_1.
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A personal account of one segment of the Zagreb dance scene of the 1980s, on the example of a choreographic collaboration between Blaženka Kovač Carić and Snježana Abramović Milković, iconic dancers from the 1980s Zagreb dance scene, on the pieces Attic (1984) and Angel Hair (1986), produced by Zagreb Dance Company.
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Chakraborty, Aishika. "Book review: Anna Morcom, Illicit Worlds of Indian Dance: Cultures of Exclusion." Indian Journal of Gender Studies 27, no. 2 (June 2020): 333–38. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0971521520910971.
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Abouaf, J. ""Biped": a dance with virtual and company dancers. 1." IEEE Multimedia 6, no. 3 (1999): 4–7. http://dx.doi.org/10.1109/93.790605.
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Abouaf, J. ""Biped": a dance with virtual and company dancers. 2." IEEE Multimedia 6, no. 4 (1999): 5–7. http://dx.doi.org/10.1109/93.809227.
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Aldor, Gaby. "The Borders of Contemporary Israeli Dance: “Invisible Unless in Final Pain”." Dance Research Journal 35, no. 1 (2003): 81–97. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0149767700008780.
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When Vertigo, an Israeli dance company, performed in collaboration with the English Ricochet dancers, there was one dance on the stage—one choreography—but the audience saw two different modes of movement. The English dancers were learned, elegant, arms and feet drawing long lines in space, the feet articulate. The Israelis danced with a powerful thrust, extremities loose, with total commitment and daring, their movements leaving in space traces of explosions too fast to recollect rather than spirals of continuity. How did this mode of movement develop? What is “Israeli” about Israeli dance?In this essay I offer a brief history of concert dance in Israel, then a largely descriptive account of choreographic and motional themes that distinguish contemporary Israeli dance. My descriptions of works by contemporary Israeli choreographers Jasmine Goder, Ronit Ziv, Anat Danielli, Shlomi Bitton, and Noa Dar are drawn mostly from observation of performances held during yearly Curtain Up festivals at the Suzanne Dellal Center for Dance and Theater in Tel Aviv. I also discuss works by Inbal Pinto, Rami Be'er, Nir Ben-Gal and Liât Dror, and finally, Ohad Naharin, artistic director and choreographer of the Batsheva Dance Company.
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Sen-Podstawska, Sabina Sweta. "Moving towards aṇgasuddhi and saustabham with a conscious bodymind: Embodied imagery, metaphor and sensory awareness in Odissi dance training." Journal of Dance & Somatic Practices 14, no. 1 (July 1, 2022): 35–56. http://dx.doi.org/10.1386/jdsp_00068_1.
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This article investigates the usage of embodied imagery, metaphor and sensory awareness in the teaching and learning process of Odissi dance, an Indian classical dance from the eastern state of Odisha. It analyses examples of Odissi dance training used by chosen dance institutes and dancers in India. The discussion is undertaken in correlation with the psychophysical performers’, dance scholars’, somatic movement practitioners’, dance anthropologists’ and philosophers’ study of bodymind and embodiment. It proposes a shift from the objectified to a subjective approach to the dancer’s body that empowers students/dancers to reclaim the ownership of their bodies and movements. Altogether, it highlights a missing block in the training process that enables dance students to move towards the socioculturally imagined level of ‘perfection’, however, with a healthy, thinking, feeling, moving and agentive bodymind.
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Karreman, Daphne E., Stephanie C. Keizer-Hulsebosch, and Janine H. Stubbe. "Performing artist and Athlete Health Monitor: user experience, content and conditions for use of an online dance-health surveillance system in a professional ballet company." BMJ Open Sport & Exercise Medicine 5, no. 1 (November 2019): e000566. http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/bmjsem-2019-000566.
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ObjectivesThe user experience, content and conditions for use of an online dance-health surveillance system (Performing artist and Athlete Health Monitor, PAHM) was examined through a focus group interview with professional ballet dancers.MethodsNine professional dancers (56% female (n=5), average age=27.56± 5.17) completed biweekly questionnaires using the PAHM, including questions on health problems, injuries, mental complaints and illnesses. After 6 weeks, nine dancers participated in a focus group interview to investigate the user experience, content and conditions for use of the PAHM. Data were analysed using thematic analysis.Results25 of the 27 questionnaires were completed (response rate of 93%). Dancers were positive about using the PAHM. They recommend to clarifying the questions about pain and injury, expanding items on mental health, including items on workload, sleep, rest and nutrition, and receiving feedback regarding their own results. Dancers were reluctant regarding sharing their personal data with others. Data on an aggregated level can be shared because this might gain insight into the association between scheduling, workload and injury risk.ConclusionThe user experience of the monitor contributes to the willingness of dancers to keep using the PAHM. Dancers recommended adjusting the content in the PAHM to match their dance activities and health problems. The conditions for using the PAHM effectively within a company are a safe and trusting culture. Even though the PAHM alone cannot change the culture in a ballet company, it can play a role in the communication between staff and dancers.
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Katrak, Ketu H. "Toward Defining Contemporary Indian Dance: A Global Form." Congress on Research in Dance Conference Proceedings 40, S1 (2008): 129–39. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s2049125500000613.
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This essay explores innovations in contemporary Indian dance based in classical Indian dance, martial arts and Western dance vocabularies. Who is making change and how does change work? I delineate the parameters of contemporary Indian dance as a genre (since the 1980s) and distinguish it from Bollywood style “free” dance. I analyze the creative choreography of one prominent contemporary Indian dancer, Chennai (India) based Anita Ratnam. Ratnam's signature style, evoking the “feminine transcendental,” is rooted in Indian aesthetic along with a pan-Asian scope. Ratnam's over twenty-year dance career of solo, group, and collaborative work, along with pioneering artist, Astad Deboo, serve as role models for second-generation contemporary Indian dancers such as Los Angeles–based Post-Natyam Collective's movement explorations, among other dancers based in the diaspora.
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Kang, Manpreet Kaur. "Bharatanatyam as a Transnational and Translocal Connection: A Study of Selected Indian and American Texts." Review of International American Studies 13, no. 2 (December 31, 2020): 61–86. http://dx.doi.org/10.31261/rias.9884.
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Bharatanatyam is a classical dance form derived from ancient dance styles, which is now seen as representative of Indian culture. In India, it is the most popular classical dance form exerting a great impact not only on the field of dance itself, but also on other art forms, like sculpture or painting. The Indian-American diaspora practices it both in an attempt to preserve its culture and as an assertion of its cultural identity. Dance is an art form that relates to sequences of body movements that are simultaneously aesthetic and symbolic, and rooted in specific cultures. It often tells a story. Different cultures observe different norms and standards by which dances should be performed (as well as by whom they should be performed and on what occasions). At the same time, dance and dancers influence (and are influenced by) different cultures as a result of transcultural interactions. Priya Srinivasan’s Sweating Saris: Indian Dance as Transnational Labor is a particularly valuable source wherein its author critically examines a variety of Indian dance forms, especially Bharatanatyam, tracing the history of dance as well as the lived experience of dancers across time, class, gender, and culture. With the help of this text, selected journal articles, and interviews with Bharatanatyam dancers in India and the US, I explore larger issues of gender, identity, culture, race, region, nation, and power dynamics inherent in the practice of Bharatanatyam, focusing on how these practices influence and, in turn, are influenced by transnational and translocal connections.
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Kang, Manpreet Kaur. "Bharatanatyam as a Transnational and Translocal Connection: A Study of Selected Indian and American Texts." Review of International American Studies 13, no. 2 (December 31, 2020): 61–86. http://dx.doi.org/10.31261/rias.9884.
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Bharatanatyam is a classical dance form derived from ancient dance styles, which is now seen as representative of Indian culture. In India, it is the most popular classical dance form exerting a great impact not only on the field of dance itself, but also on other art forms, like sculpture or painting. The Indian-American diaspora practices it both in an attempt to preserve its culture and as an assertion of its cultural identity. Dance is an art form that relates to sequences of body movements that are simultaneously aesthetic and symbolic, and rooted in specific cultures. It often tells a story. Different cultures observe different norms and standards by which dances should be performed (as well as by whom they should be performed and on what occasions). At the same time, dance and dancers influence (and are influenced by) different cultures as a result of transcultural interactions. Priya Srinivasan’s Sweating Saris: Indian Dance as Transnational Labor is a particularly valuable source wherein its author critically examines a variety of Indian dance forms, especially Bharatanatyam, tracing the history of dance as well as the lived experience of dancers across time, class, gender, and culture. With the help of this text, selected journal articles, and interviews with Bharatanatyam dancers in India and the US, I explore larger issues of gender, identity, culture, race, region, nation, and power dynamics inherent in the practice of Bharatanatyam, focusing on how these practices influence and, in turn, are influenced by transnational and translocal connections.
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Reed, Susan A. "changeABLE cohesion : Dance and Disability in Post-war Sri Lanka." Asian Theatre Journal 41, no. 1 (March 2024): 130–60. http://dx.doi.org/10.1353/atj.2024.a927716.
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Abstract: Dancers with disabilities are increasingly participating in performances throughout Asia. In this article, based on long-term research, I provide an analysis of changeABLE cohesion , a mixed-abled, intercultural performance co-created by Sri Lankan dancers and Gerda König, choreographer of the renowned German DIN A13 dance company. The article focuses on the experiences and interpretations of the dancers, analyzing the creative process they employed as well as the long-term impacts that participation in changeABLE cohesion had on their lives and work. By providing the perspectives of multiple actors, the article seeks to demonstrate how an expansive ethnographic approach can enrich our understanding of disability and intercultural performances and provide the means to more accurately address the many thorny ethical questions they raise .
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Farmer, Claire, Helen Laws, Stella Eldon, and Russell Maliphant. "Relationships between dance, health and aesthetic performance in a company of mature dancers: An exploratory study." Journal of Dance & Somatic Practices 14, no. 2 (December 1, 2022): 197–216. http://dx.doi.org/10.1386/jdsp_00084_1.
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Dance with the older body is often viewed as a means to slow the physiological and cognitive decline associated with ageing or chronic health conditions. However, little research has investigated the aesthetic qualities and performance potential of mature dancers and how this might influence health outcomes. During a choreographic project bringing together a renowned contemporary dance company with one of mature dancers, a co-designed, mixed-methods approach was taken to explore the impact of a somatically informed approach to choreography on the dancers’ movement quality, efficiency and performance aesthetics. Quality-of-life measurements showed no significant differences between pre- and post-choreographic project, although high scores suggested good overall health amongst participants. Subjective changes in movement quality were observed alongside improvements in balance ability ascribed to the inward focus of the somatically informed creative process. Participants commented that they were able to achieve more, physically and aesthetically, than they had previously believed possible.
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Matos, Mariana Inocêncio, and Elirez Bezerra da Silva. "New Notes on the Cardiorespiratory Capacity of Dancers." International Journal of Art, Culture, Design, and Technology 11, no. 2 (July 1, 2022): 1–11. http://dx.doi.org/10.4018/ijacdt.305795.
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Cardiorespiratory capacity is one of the most important components of our physical fitnes for the general population. How much this ability is required in dance depends on factors such as dance mode, duration and intensity of step sequences and choreographies, and even the hierarchical position that the dancer occupies within a company. Although far from the values found in athletes, the cardiorespiratory capacity of dancers is good compared to the general population. Although the theme is explored in the 1980s, there are many points that still need further investigation, such as the relationship between this capacity and the performance of a dancer? How to include in the routine of a dancer? Isolated workouts? Still, the evaluation of this ability in dancers seems not yet to happen in the dance routine, even with field tests, such as Dance Specific Aerobic Fitness Test (DAFT) already validated and presented in the literature, why? These are some of the issues addressed in this narrative review.
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Abottaf, J. ""Biped": A Dance With Virtual And Company Dancers, Part I." IEEE Multimedia 6, no. 3 (July 1999): 2–1. http://dx.doi.org/10.1109/mmul.1999.790604.
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Ojofeitimi, Sheyi, and Shaw Bronner. "Injuries in a Modem Dance Company." Journal of Dance Medicine & Science 15, no. 3 (September 2011): 116–22. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1089313x1101500303.
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Injury costs strain the finances of many dance companies. The objectives of this study were to analyze the effect of comprehensive management on injury patterns, incidence, and time loss and examine its financial impact on Workers Compensation premiums in a modern dance company. In this retrospective-prospective cohort study, injury was defined as any physical insult that required financial outlay (Workers Compensation or self insurance) or caused a dancer to cease dancing beyond the day of injury (time-loss injury). Injury data and insurance premiums were analyzed over an eight-year period. Injuries were compared using a mixed linear model with phase and gender as fixed effects. It was found that comprehensive management resulted in 34% decline in total injury incidence, 66% decrease in Workers Compensation claims, and 56% decrease in lost days. These outcomes achieved substantial savings in Workers Compensation premiums. Thus, this study demonstrates the effectiveness of an injury prevention program in reducing injury-related costs and promoting dancers’ health and wellness in a modern dance company.
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Chima, Emmanuel, Subthiga Mathanamohan, Abdullahi Yussuf, Brandon Farnsworth, Cassandre Langlois, and Amritha Sruthi Radhakrishnan. "New Research." TURBA 2, no. 2 (September 1, 2023): 18–63. http://dx.doi.org/10.3167/turba.2023.020203.
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Abstract The refugee experience is exacerbated by hostile receiving environments, out of which have developed an essentialized refugee imaginary. Media reporting has evidently been rife with documentation of anti-immigration political rhetoric and prejudice toward refugees. In this article we employ a framework of migrant-directed artistic programming to examine the experiences of refugees hosted in Malawi, United Kingdom, and India as curated in their visual, literary, and performance artworks. We interrogate context, meaning, and practice for the annual Tumaini Festival at Dzaleka Refugee Camp, Malawi; Refugee Week Festival, United Kingdom; and the recently published collection of artistic works from India Why did I become an illegal migrant? Tamil refugee students and youth on citizenship. Our examination pays particular attention to the dynamics and interplay of refugees’ individual and collective agency and the paternalistic oversight of their host communities. The distinct and overlapping experiences of refugees in the three countries echo the salience of the resulting power relations in society. This article highlights the agency and tactful resistance of refugees across communities in three different countries. Using thoughtfully curated artwork and related experiences, the refugee communities highlighted in this article begin to remold the layperson's understanding of the refugee experience. Our article contributes to the growing body of literature on refugee experiences and underscores the importance of elevating the voices and perspectives of marginalized migrant communities. Following the author's experience of the performance SÅLE at the 2022 Ultima Oslo Contemporary Music Festival in Norway, this article argues that the concept of curating as deployed in contemporary music must be expanded beyond an understanding of the authorial individual carried over from the figure of the composer. Using Aneta Szyłak's (2013) concept of curating context, the text argues that a more open-ended understanding of the term will allow practitioners organizing musical events to think beyond this narrowly delimited role and engage in new ways with the organization and constitution of musical events. The text then addresses organizers of contemporary music events directly to detail what this wider view of the curation of musical context could entail for their practices, while speaking to the specificities and challenges of musical curating specifically. The article concludes by suggesting that an expanded notion of working with musical context facilitates the inclusion of new people and perspectives into contemporary music and serves to better frame and value the work of many people already working in this musical genre whose labor does not fit into established notions of musical work. This article questions the potential of pre-enactment to embody prototypical counter- strategic forms in artistic and curatorial practices, within the European context, in light of a resurgence of authoritarianism, political populism, and the presence of various conflicts, migratory phenomena, and environmental crises. Pre-enactment has been characterized, for example, in certain works of the duo Hofmann & Lindholm, the Public Movement and Interrobang collectives, and the director Milo Rau. According to Friederike Oberkrome and Verena Straub in the introduction to their book (2019), pre-enactment is the invention of hypothetical scenarios, speculations on possible futures, and the experimentation of fictitious times and spaces order in to act on the present. This article approaches pre-enactment from the perspective of performative action-exercises based on three examples: Training for the Future (2019–) by Jonas Staal and Florian Malzacher, la facultad (2021–) by Myriam Lefkowitz and Catalina Insignares, and The Truth Commission (2013–) by Chokri Ben Chikha and his company Action Zoo Humain. Festivals and their arrangements illuminate aspirational, economic, and aesthetic questions of societies and their citizens. However, to what extent do festivals reflect or represent the crucial concerns of the community they are a part of? This article addresses negotiations in the curatorial process of various festivals, while unraveling the layers of identity formation maneuvered through historical dance narratives. It addresses concerns about how festivals or cultural events become “sites” of curation that can speak to power. The attempt is to define the politics of curation and the need for “curation as a strategy of critique” for the existing presentation of “national” culture and its performance (display) in India. Considering the massive expansion of festivals in artistic arenas, national marketplaces, the international cultural industries, and scholarly programs in festival studies, this article tries to map out the historical context of the dance (performance) festival culture that exists in India.
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Greben, Stanley E. "Career Transitions in Professional Dancers." Journal of Dance Medicine & Science 6, no. 1 (March 2002): 14–19. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1089313x0200600103.
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The psychiatrist-author summarizes his experience with 160 dancer-clients within the context of various career transitions: e.g., the ballet school student who graduates and moves into a ballet company; the dancer whose career is threatened by injury; the otherwise untrained performer facing retirement at a young age. Some psychological aspects of dance careers and of career transitions are considered, as is the potential role of psychotherapy in mediating their interrelationships. Finally, the career transitions of each of four dancers are presented to illustrate their personal reactions to the experience.
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Ingber, Judith Brin. "Identity Peddlers and the Influence of Gertrud Kraus." Congress on Research in Dance Conference Proceedings 39, S1 (2007): 100–105. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s2049125500000182.
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Gertrud Kraus, Jewish expressionist modern dancer, directed a company and school both in interwar Vienna and in Tel Aviv after she fled the Nazis in 1935. This paper examines her work as both a Diaspora and Israeli dance artist and her influence on the identities of different dancers who in turn affected American audiences, students, and dancers. Some of the Kraus dancers who emigrated to America from Vienna before and during World War II included Jan Veen, Fred Berk, Katya Delakova, and Claudia Vall; from Israel they included Ze'eva Cohen and Zvi Gotheiner, whose latest work, Gertrud premiered in 2007 in New York.
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Walker, Imogen J., and Sanna M. Nordin-Bates. "Performance Anxiety Experiences of Professional Ballet Dancers." Journal of Dance Medicine & Science 14, no. 4 (December 2010): 133–45. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1089313x1001400402.
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Performance anxiety research abounds in sport psychology, yet has been relatively sparse in dance. The present study explores ballet dancers’ experiences of performance anxiety in relation to: 1. symptom type, intensity, and directional interpretation; 2. experience level (including company rank); and 3. self-confidence and psychological skills. Fifteen elite ballet dancers representing all ranks in one company were interviewed, and qualitative content analysis was conducted. Results revealed that cognitive anxiety was more dominant than somatic anxiety, and was unanimously interpreted as debilitative to performance. Somatic anxiety was more likely to be interpreted as facilitative, with the majority of dancers recognizing that a certain amount of anxiety could be beneficial to performance. Principal dancers suffered from higher intensities of performance anxiety than corps de ballet members. Feeling out of control emerged as a major theme in both the experience of anxiety and its interpretation. As a result, prevention or handling of anxiety symptoms may be accomplished by helping dancers to feel in control. Dancers may benefit from education about anxiety symptoms and their interpretation, in addition to psychological skills training incorporating cognitive restructuring strategies and problem-focussed coping to help increase their feelings of being in control.
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Solomon, Ruth, John Solomon, Lyle J. Micheli, John J. Saunders, and David Zurakowski. "A Personality Profile of Professional and Conservatory Student Dancers." Medical Problems of Performing Artists 16, no. 3 (September 1, 2001): 85–93. http://dx.doi.org/10.21091/mppa.2001.3015.
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The Test of Attentional and Interpersonal Style (TAIS), a 144-item personality inventory developed by sport psychologist Robert Nideffer, was used for the first time with dancers in this study to explore (1) what it would divulge about the shared personality traits of elite-level dancers and (2) whether it might be useful as a teaching/counseling tool to enhance the performance of under-achieving dance students. Two sets of subjects were tested: group 1 (n = 41: 22 females, 19 males) was composed of professional dancers from the Boston Ballet Company, while the subjects in group 2 (n = 42: 38 females, 4 males) were all dance majors at the Boston Conservatory. A composite profile was developed for each group by averaging the scores recorded on each of the 18 scales used in the TAIS analysis, and the two profiles were then compared in accordance with standard testing procedures. Both groups were found to be characterized by an internally focused attentional style, but the professionals were clearly more skilled in adapting this style to the elimination of internal and external distractions. This finding was reinforced by a contrast in the personality traits relating to interpersonal style, which again portrayed the student dancers as relatively vulnerable to distraction as a result of higher levels of extroversion and impulsivity, and greater ambivalence in their response to external authority. It is concluded that elite dancers do share certain traits in common, and that identifying personality characteristics that are important to success in dance may provide both students and their teachers with insight for enhancing performance.
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Hazra, Prof Aparajita. "Nachni: The Saga of Art Unappreciated." SMART MOVES JOURNAL IJELLH 8, no. 4 (April 28, 2020): 113. http://dx.doi.org/10.24113/ijellh.v8i4.10528.
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The Nachni s of Purulia are a group of women dancers who dance to the characteristic Jhumur of rural Bengal. The dance form of the Nachni is without a doubt part of the cultural heritage of Bengal—and in a broader sense, of India. Yet, a closer look at the community would show up a distinctive lack of acknowledgement about this art form. On the contrary, these women, these dancers are most of the time stigmatized and looked down upon, so much so that these women themselves have come to see their profession as something not to be proud of. This paper proposes to talk of the Nachni s in the Rarh Bengal area—especially, Purulia—to unearth some not-so-pretty causes for the stigma that keeps these artisans of Nachni dance from holding their head high in society.
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Aduonum, Ama Oforiwaa. "Memory Walking with Urban Bush Women's Batty Moves." TDR/The Drama Review 55, no. 1 (March 2011): 52–69. http://dx.doi.org/10.1162/dram_a_00048.
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Like the childhood songs and butt-shaking contests of Ghana, Batty Moves by the Brooklyn-based dance company Urban Bush Women celebrates the African American female form. The choreographer and the dancers share their memories of butt-tucking ballet classes, and the author shares her memory walk from Ghana to black America.
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Diamond, Catherine. "Being Carmen: Cutting Pathways towards Female Androgyny in Japan and India." New Theatre Quarterly 34, no. 4 (October 8, 2018): 307–25. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0266464x18000398.
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In this article Catherine Diamond examines the flows of transcultural hybridity occurring in dance between Spanish flamencos, Japanese exponents of flamenco, and Indian dancers interacting with flamenco within their classical dance forms. Japan and India represent two distinct Asian reactions to the phenomenon of global flamenco: the Japanese have adopted it wholesale and compete with the Spanish on their own ground; the Indians claim that as the Roma (gypsy) people originated in India, the country is also the home of flamenco. Despite their differing attitudes, flamenco dance offers women in both cultures a pathway toward participating in an internal androgyny, a wider spectrum of gender representation than either the Asian traditional dance or contemporary Asian society normally allows. Catherine Diamond is a professor of theatre and environmental literature. She is Director of the Kinnari Ecological Theatre Project in Southeast Asia, and the director/choreographer of Red Shoes Dance Theatre in Taiwan.
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Speiser, Vivien. "Artist Spotlight: A Tribute to the Work of Sylvia Magogo Glasser: Dancer, Dance Educator, Choreographer, Social Activist, and Visionary." Creative Arts in Education and Therapy 9, no. 1 (August 23, 2023): 94–101. http://dx.doi.org/10.15212/caet/2023/9/2.
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It is a great honor to offer this article as a tribute to the enduring impact of Sylvia Glasser’s breakthrough accomplishments in promoting dance education and performance in the South African context. This article is based upon interviews with Sylvia, who currently lives in Sydney, Australia, as well as some of her colleagues and former students. In addition, it draws upon writings, websites, and articles that describe her work. I am struck by the humility of this extraordinary and numinous person who has influenced several generations of performers, students, educators, and dancers. She has challenged and broken down stereotypes and barriers during the apartheid years in South Africa and has irrevocably changed the landscape of South African dance with her introduction of the methodology of Afro-Fusion into the dance world beginning in the late 1970s. As the founder of the Moving into Dance Mophatong (MID) Training Program and Dance Company, Sylvia was the CEO, the fundraiser, the choreographer, and the driving force behind this momentous accomplishment. Along the way, she gathered and trained a group of accomplished dancers, educators, administrators, and choreographers. The work of MID continues and remains a living and iconic force in contemporary dance in South Africa today.
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Schnepel, Cornelia. "Bodies Filled with Divine Energy: The Indian Dance Odissi." Paragrana 18, no. 1 (September 2009): 188–99. http://dx.doi.org/10.1524/para.2009.0012.
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AbstractThis article is based on interviews made with gurus and dancers in Orissa, East India. The Odissi, a classical dance which stands at the centre of attention here, is a mixture of centuries-old traditions and relatively new influences, or even inventions. By discussing the dance′s history, its aesthetic qualities and, most importantly, the emic points of view of contemporary practitioners of the dance, it is shown that today′s Odissi is based on ideas and practices that stem as much from old Sanskrit writings and late-medieval temple practices as they do from the contemporary realms of popular Hinduism and tribal religion and art. For its practitioners, the dance represents a form of devotion to Jagannath, and Odisssi is thus understood as a spiritual dance through which a relationship between the god and his adherents is established or performed. While the attitude exhibited by dancers and audience alike is one of spirituality and bhakti, this spirituality and loving surrender can only be achieved through the bodily practice of the dance, which turns the presence of the deity into a somatic experience in which all the bodily senses are involved.
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Rudisill, Kristen. "Japanese dancers, Bollywood dance: finding authenticity at Tokyo’s Namaste India Festival." Inter-Asia Cultural Studies 23, no. 4 (October 2, 2022): 627–44. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14649373.2022.2131112.
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Acton, Kelsie. "Stepping back: Reflecting on accessibility in integrated dance improvisation." Canadian Journal of Disability Studies 10, no. 2 (October 8, 2021): 68–92. http://dx.doi.org/10.15353/cjds.v10i2.791.
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Finding more accessible ways to train, create, perform and work is a major concern of researchers and practitioners (Ajula & Redding, 2013, 2014) of integrated and disability dance. In the spring of 2017 eight dancer/researchers from CRIPSiE, an integrated, disability and crip dance company located in Edmonton, came together to investigate their practices of timing through a participatory performance creation process. Participatory performance creation values researcher reflexivity (Heron & Reason, 1997). In this paper I reflect on the way that collaboratively building an improvisation score, a series of tasks and prompts that the dancer/researchers responded to (Gere, 2003), created inaccessibility for one of the dancers/researchers, Robert. At the time I assumed that improvisation itself was inaccessible. Upon reflecting I realized that the improvisation was accessible and that Robert was improvising in ways valued by both the integrated improvisation literature and the other dancers/researchers.
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황지영. "Narratives on the Lives of Professional Dancers in a Nonprofit Dance Company." Korean Journal of Dance Studies 65, no. 3 (August 2017): 159–74. http://dx.doi.org/10.16877/kjds.65.3.201708.159.
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Weinert, Adam H. "The Reaccession of Ted Shawn: A Study in Virtual Permanence." PAJ: A Journal of Performance and Art 38, no. 2 (May 2016): 69–79. http://dx.doi.org/10.1162/pajj_a_00319.
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In the spring of 2013, I was invited to represent the modernist choreographer Ted Shawn at the Museum of Modern Art as part of the exhibition 20 Dancers of the XXth Century, curated by Boris Charmatz. The exhibit proposed the both radical and rudimentary notion that the main museal space for dance is the human body. In many ways, this is in keeping with how dance has historically been preserved—passing down from generation to generation as an oral and kinesthetic tradition without the benefit of a comprehensive or standardized notation system. With this tradition in mind, I endeavored to become a living archive of Shawn's work. In determining how to approach this task, particularly in the absence of any living company members or company apparatus, I had to ask both practical and theoretical questions about the archive and dance re-performance.
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Jeffries, Annie C., Lee Wallace, Aaron J. Coutts, Ashlea Mary Cohen, Alan McCall, and Franco M. Impellizzeri. "Injury, Illness, and Training Load in a Professional Contemporary Dance Company: A Prospective Study." Journal of Athletic Training 55, no. 9 (August 20, 2020): 967–76. http://dx.doi.org/10.4085/1062-6050-477-19.
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Context Professional dance is a demanding physical activity with high injury rates. Currently, no epidemiologic data exist regarding the incidence of injury and illness together with training load (TL) over a long period of time. Objective To provide a detailed description of injury, illness, and TL occurring in professional contemporary dancers. Design Descriptive epidemiology study. Setting A single professional contemporary dance company during a 1-year period. Patients or Other Participants A total of 16 male and female professional contemporary dancers. Main Outcome Measure(s) Injury data consisted of medical-attention injury (Med-Inj) and time-loss injury (Time-Inj). Illness was measured using the Wisconsin Upper Respiratory Tract Infection Survey. Training load was collected for each dance session using the session rating of perceived exertion and classified into 3 groups based on individual and group percentiles: low, medium, or high. Results Reported injuries totaled 79 (86.1% new, 6.3% reinjury, and 7.6% exacerbation). The Med-Inj incidence rate was 4.6 per 1000 hours (95% confidence interval [CI] = 3.8, 5.8), and the Time-Inj rate was 1.4 per 1000 hours (95% CI = 0.8, 2.1). The median time until injury for Med-Inj and Time-Inj was 3 months. The number of days dancers experienced illness symptoms was 39.9 ± 26.9 (range = 1–96), with an incidence rate of 9.1 per 1000 hours (95% CI = 7.7, 10.7). Mean weekly TL was 6685 ± 1605 (4641–10 391; arbitrary units). Inconsistent results were found for the incidence of injury and illness based on individual and group categorizations of TL. Conclusions Professional dancing is associated with high injury and illness rates. This is worrying from a health perspective and underlines the need for further studies to understand how to decrease the risk. The TL is higher than in other sport disciplines, but whether the high incidence of injuries and illnesses is related to high training demands needs additional investigation, possibly conducted as international, multicenter collaborative studies.
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Marathe, Aishwarya, and Rekha Wagani. "ROLE OF GURU IN THE SUSTENANCE OF PASSION TOWARDS CLASSICAL DANCE: A QUALITATIVE ENQUIRY." ShodhKosh: Journal of Visual and Performing Arts 3, no. 2 (November 8, 2022): 326–40. http://dx.doi.org/10.29121/shodhkosh.v3.i2.2022.213.
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Guru is held in great respect and significance in Indian culture since he is the source of all wisdom and learning. India has a rich heritage of several art forms that are closely related to many aspects of life and are still practiced today and passed down from one generation to the next through the "Guru Shishya Parampara". The present study focuses on Indian classical dancers where each shishya has his own unique journey of learning wherein he evolves as a dancer and a human being. During this learning process, the role of guru plays a significant role in the life of the shishya and his overall grooming and continuing the dance journey for years together. Thus, understanding exactly the elements which keep the dancer going is extremely crucial. Therefore, this study aims to explore and understand the possible factors that help classical dancers to continue this long journey and sustain their passion throughout. The present study adopts a qualitative approach in which twelve Indian classical dancers were interviewed telephonically after contacting them using purposive sampling. Thematic analysis was done to illuminate the hidden meaning of the experiences shared by participants which reflected dancers’ experiences and perceptions regarding their guru and how it has shaped them as dancers and human beings both. In addition to this, it also the dancers also expressed how they could sustain their interest and passion for Indian classical dance and could pursue it further.
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Kane, Angela. "Episodes (1959): Entente Cordiale?" Dance Research 25, no. 1 (April 2007): 54–72. http://dx.doi.org/10.3366/dar.2007.0020.
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This article investigates Episodes (1959), which was a co-production by the New York City Ballet and the Martha Graham Dance Company. It assesses the immediate and longer-term impact of the work, both conceptually and choreographically, and the extent to which it can be considered ‘a historic meeting of two dance worlds’, as the New York Post claimed at the time. The article also explores the motivations of the three key figures involved – George Balanchine and Martha Graham as co-choreographers, and Lincoln Kirstein, General Director of NYCB – and the different working practices of the two companies. It draws upon dancers' accounts of the co-production, including Paul Taylor who performed in Balanchine's choreography, and extensive correspondence between Graham's company and NYCB.
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Foster, Andrew. "A Directory of Diaghilev Dancers." Dance Research 37, no. 2 (November 2019): 181–205. http://dx.doi.org/10.3366/drs.2019.0272.
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Serge Diaghilev's Ballets Russes came to an end with his death in 1929, but it has since been an endless source of fascination and inspiration for dancers, dance historians and fans. It would seem that every aspect of the Ballets Russes has been exhaustively explored and documented – from the art, the music and the choreography, to the personalities who created them. The names of Anna Pavlova, Tamara Karsavina and Vaslav Nijinsky are legendary, and many others (Michel Fokine, George Balanchine, Ninette De Valois, Marie Rambert) went on to influence and define the art of ballet for much of the 20th century. But what of the hundreds of dancers who actually gave life and form to the Ballets Russes? Who were they? Where did they come from? How long did they spend with the company? The following listing of more than 400 performers is a comprehensive record of the dancing artists who performed with Diaghilev's Ballets Russes.
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Tonkin, Maggie. "Lessons in Survival: The De-funding of Restless Dance Theatre." Journal of Cultural Management and Cultural Policy / Zeitschrift für Kulturmanagement und Kulturpolitik 8, no. 2 (December 1, 2022): 159–74. http://dx.doi.org/10.14361/zkmm-2022-080208.
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Abstract In March 2020, Michelle Ryan, Artistic Director of Restless Dance Theatre, an Australian dance company that includes both disabled and non-disabled dancers, was awarded Australia’s highest dance honour by the Australia Council, the federal arts funding body, for her transformative leadership of the company. Almost simultaneously, the very same Australia Council removed funding support for Restless, threatening the company’s survival. This essay examines Restless’s response to the fundamental incoherence of the Australia Council’s decision and situates it within the broader context of the company’s own evolving practice in disability art, which in effect saw it attempt to create policy in the field. I outline the government policy contexts that underpin both the funding cuts and Restless’s pivot to an alternate source of funding: the ideologically driven ‘culture wars’ underpinning the Coalition government’s hostility to the arts sector, and the establishment of a National Disability Insurance Scheme that enables individual ‘clients’ to access money for arts training. Finally, the essay examines the implications of a dance company receiving funding from a disability service provider rather than from a mainstream arts funding body, questioning whether this is a further ‘ghettoization’ of disability art.
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Tonkin, Maggie. "Lessons in Survival: The De-funding of Restless Dance Theatre." Journal of Cultural Management and Cultural Policy / Zeitschrift für Kulturmanagement und Kulturpolitik 8, no. 2 (December 1, 2022): 159–74. http://dx.doi.org/10.14361/zkmm-2022-0207.
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Abstract In March 2020, Michelle Ryan, Artistic Director of Restless Dance Theatre, an Australian dance company that includes both disabled and non-disabled dancers, was awarded Australia’s highest dance honour by the Australia Council, the federal arts funding body, for her transformative leadership of the company. Almost simultaneously, the very same Australia Council removed funding support for Restless, threatening the company’s survival. This essay examines Restless’s response to the fundamental incoherence of the Australia Council’s decision and situates it within the broader context of the company’s own evolving practice in disability art, which in effect saw it attempt to create policy in the field. I outline the government policy contexts that underpin both the funding cuts and Restless’s pivot to an alternate source of funding: the ideologically driven ‘culture wars’ underpinning the Coalition government’s hostility to the arts sector, and the establishment of a National Disability Insurance Scheme that enables individual ‘clients’ to access money for arts training. Finally, the essay examines the implications of a dance company receiving funding from a disability service provider rather than from a mainstream arts funding body, questioning whether this is a further ‘ghettoization’ of disability art.
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May, Jon, Beatriz Calvo-Merino, Scott deLahunta, Wayne McGregor, Rhodri Cusack, Adrian M. Owen, Michele Veldsman, Cristina Ramponi, and Philip Barnard. "Points in Mental Space: an Interdisciplinary Study of Imagery in Movement Creation." Dance Research 29, supplement (November 2011): 404–32. http://dx.doi.org/10.3366/drs.2011.0026.
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As part of a programme of research that is developing tools to enhance choreographic practice, an interdisciplinary team of cognitive scientists, neuroscientists and dance professionals collaborated on two studies examining the mental representations used to support movement creation. We studied choreographer Wayne McGregor's approach to movement creation through tasking, in which he asks dancers to create movement in response to task instructions that require a great deal of mental imagery and decision making. In our first experiment, we used experience sampling methods (self-report scales and reports about the current focus of thought) with the full company of Wayne McGregor | Random Dance to describe what the dancers report thinking about while creating movement, and to establish how their experiences change as a function of different task conditions. In particular, we contrasted a conventional ‘active’ condition (where dancers are free to move around) with a ‘static’ condition (where they have to create movement mentally, without moving), because all neuroimaging studies of dance require participants to lie motionless within a scanner. We adapted the static mode from Experiment 1 for the neuroimaging session in Experiment 2. Here we recorded the brain activity of an experienced dancer from Wayne McGregor | Random Dance while she mentally undertook movement creation tasks similar to those used in our experience sampling experiment. Both studies involved imagery tasks of a primarily spatial-praxic nature (involving an imagined object or volume that could be approached and manipulated) and imagery that focused on content invoking emotional narratives. In the first study, the dancers’ awareness was focused more than they had anticipated upon conceptual rather than physical or bodily aspects. The very act of reflecting on, and categorising, their experiences provided the dancers with insights about their mental habits during innovative movement creation. Such insights provide conditions under which habits can be recognised and then altered to adopt alternative points in mental space from which to create movement material. Providing the dancers and McGregor with a means to communicate more productively about the properties of the task-based instructions has been acknowledged by the company to be of clear benefit and a useful addition to their working process. In the second study we assessed the feasibility of using fMRI to study the neural underpinnings of choreographing movement tasks. The experiment enabled us to compare brain activity in imagery and movement creation. The data raise some key questions concerning the mental context in which such thinking occurs and, given the clear limitations of the current fMRI and experience sampling work, how future research might usefully be directed. Taken together, these two exploratory studies indicate that the experiential and neural attributes of imagery during movement creation are open to systematic investigation: innovative movement creation can start from alternative points in mental, as well as physical, space. This enables us to look forward to establishing with greater precision how tasks that challenge dancers in different ways may affect mental and neural processes and how variation in imagery use across dancers might contribute to the variety of movement creation that they produce. Notably, the act of reflecting on the experience of movement creation also offers some practical leverage to help dancers develop a wider range of strategies for innovation. These findings are being used to contribute to further work informing the development of personal, notebook-like, Choreographic Thinking Tools.
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Shaw, Joseph W., Adam M. Mattiussi, Derrick D. Brown, Sean Williams, Matthew Springham, Charles R. Pedlar, and Jamie Tallent. "Rehearsal and Performance Volume in Professional Ballet: A Five-Season Cohort Study." Journal of Dance Medicine & Science 27, no. 1 (March 2023): 3–12. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1089313x231174684.
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Introduction: Few studies have published data concerning the longitudinal rehearsal and performance demands experienced by professional ballet dancers. We aimed to describe the rehearsal and performance volumes undertaken across five professional ballet seasons and identify factors associated with inter-dancer and inter-production variation in dance hours. Methods: Scheduling data were collected from 123 dancers over five seasons at The Royal Ballet. Linear mixed effects models were used to evaluate differences in: 1. weekly dance hours and seasonal performance counts across sexes, company ranks, and months; and 2. factors associated with the variation in rehearsal hours required to stage different productions. Results: On average across the five seasons, a peak in performance volume was observed in December, whereas rehearsal hours peaked in October and November and between January and April. Differences in weekly dance hours were observed between company ranks (p < 0.001, range in means: 19.1 to 27.5 hours per week). Seasonal performance counts varied across company ranks (p < 0.001), ranging from 28 (95% CI: 22, 35) in principals to 113 (95% CI: 108, 118) in the rank of artist. Rehearsal durations were considerably greater in preparation for newly created ballets compared with existing ballets (77.8 vs. 37.5 hours). Rehearsal durations were also greater in preparation for longer ballets, with each additional minute of running time associated with a 0.43 hour increase in rehearsal duration (p < 0.001). Full-length ballets, however, were consistently the most time-efficient to stage due to their long performance runs compared with shorter ballets (16.2 vs. 7.4 performances). Conclusions: Training principles such as progressive overload and periodization should be implemented in professional ballet companies to manage the high and variable rehearsal and performance loads.
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Monsma, Eva V., and Lynnette Y. Overby. "The Relationship between Imagery and Competitive Anxiety in Ballet Auditions." Journal of Dance Medicine & Science 8, no. 1 (March 2004): 11–18. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1089313x0400800102.
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Aligned with competitive anxiety research in athletics, this study explored audition anxiety and the role of imagery in the anxiety-performance relationship among 131 female auditioning ballet dancers. A better understanding of how auditioning dancers experience anxiety and associated image content can help train dancers preparing for anxiety-provoking, high-stakes performances. The CSAI-2 assessing competitive state anxiety and confidence and the SIQ assessing the cognitive and motivational functions of imagery were slightly modified for administration in the audition context. The MIQ-R was used to assess movement imagery. All instrument subscales, with the exception of the CG-Strategies subscale of the SIQ, demonstrated adequate internal consistency. Ballet dancers’ scores were similar to those reported by aesthetic sport athletes. Obtaining a position with a dance company was used as a proxy for defining success. Successful dancers with prior audition success were more confident than those without prior success and unsuccessful dancers with, and without, prior success. As a group, successful dancers experienced less cognitive anxiety and more somatic anxiety than unsuccessful dancers. Although imagery ability and image content did not differentiate dancers by performance, confident dancers had higher kinesthetic imagery ability and used more mastery and less arousal imagery than less confident dancers. In contrast, cognitively and somatically anxious dancers used less mastery and more arousal imagery. The athletic paradigm appears to be an appropriate framework for studying performance-related anxiety among dancers. Dancers and practitioners are encouraged to focus on mastery images for increasing confidence and decreasing anxiety. Dancers with prior audition success may be incorporating theses experiences in generating arousal imagery shown to predicted somatic anxiety, anxiety that does not appear to be detrimental to performance when cognitive anxiety is controlled.
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Pini, Sarah. "Cognitive Ecologies of Presence(S) in Three Different Dance Forms." Nordic Journal of Dance 14, no. 1 (June 1, 2023): 6–19. http://dx.doi.org/10.2478/njd-2023-0002.
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Abstract Presence is a central yet controversial topic in the study of performing arts and theatrical traditions, where the notion of ‘stage presence’ is generally understood as the performer’s ability to enchant the audience’s attention. How do dancers relate to the idea of presence in performance, and how do they understand, enact, and perform presence in their artistic work and practices? In this article I offer an investigation into presence’s variations in three different dance practices and choreographic contexts: the case of the Ballet National de Marseille during the staging of Emio Greco’s piece Passione; Contact Improvisation in the case of independent groups of contacters in Italy and Australia; and Body Weather, a radical movement ideology developed by Japanese choreographer Min Tanaka in the context of the company Tess de Quincey and Co. in Sydney. To illustrate how presence in dance practices emerges in relation to a complex and dynamic environment, I propose a cognitive ecological approach to the notion of ‘stage presence’, which considers both the co-presence of audiences and performers and the socio-cultural context of the performance event. By exploring how dancers articulate their lived experiences of presence in relation to their different dance contexts and traditions, I suggest framing phenomena of presence in an embodied ecological sense.
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Joncheere, Ayla. "Kalbeliya Dance from Rajasthan: Invented Gypsy Form or Traditional Snake Charmers’ Folk Dance?" Dance Research Journal 49, no. 1 (April 2017): 37–54. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0149767717000055.
Full textAbstract:
Since being listed as intangible cultural heritage by UNESCO in 2010, Kalbeliya dance from Rajasthan is now generally conceptualized as an ancient tradition from India. However, this same dance practice, also known as a form of “Indian Gypsy” or “snake charmers’” folk dance, appears to have originated as recently as the 1980s. This article gives an account of the swift development of Kalbeliya dance from its first appearance on stage in 1981 to the present. Ethnographic research with Kalbeliya dancers’ families has elucidated how this inventive dance practice was formed to fit into national and transnational narratives with the aim of commercializing it globally and of generating a new, lucrative livelihood for these Kalbeliya families. As a new cultural product of Rajasthani fusion, the dance finds itself at the crossroads of commercial tourism and political folklorism and is grounded in neo-orientalist discourses (romanticism and exoticism).