With a competition weekend looming, studio owner Kim McDonough was rehearsing students for an up-tempo jazz piece at Dansations in Jacksonville, Florida. As one dancer crouched low to the floor, a nearby teammate kicked her leg up, connecting her foot with the side of the crouching dancer’s forehead. McDonough stopped the music to assess the […]
The ankle joint can only move about 25 degrees outward and 35 degrees inward from a neutral position. Why does that seem hard to believe? Because in a dance context, these minute motions have huge aesthetic effects. They can punctuate the line of an arabesque, elongate a tendu—or indicate a lack of training. In a […]
When Paula Frasz fell from a horse in 2015 and broke her tibia and fibula, she couldn’t put any weight on her left leg for three months. She continued to teach with the aid of a scooter, also known as a “knee-walker.” (This device allows you to kneel on the scooter and glide, coast, speed […]
Like any dance teacher, Christopher Busbin witnesses his students’ popping joints and often experiences his own. “My shoulders were always cracking, and I thought it was from torn rotator cuffs,” he says. Busbin, who teaches at Fred Astaire Dance Studio in Birmingham, Alabama, saw a massage therapist, who discovered that the stress in his joints […]
It can be very isolating for a dancer when she’s injured. She has to sit out classes and rehearsals, and the timetable for returning to dance is not always straightforward. To help remedy this, The Dancers’ Resource, a subset of The Actors Fund, is offering a free weekly support group for dancers recovering from injuries. […]
Tappers may use their feet more than any other type of dancer, as they slide, jump, slap, stomp and balance on the balls of their feet, quickly shifting into various positions. “Tappers use all points of the foot in contact with the floor in different percussive or frictional ways,” says Megan Richardson, a clinical specialist […]