Safe Dance ®

Some helpful advice for making good choices about dance experiences for your children.

What professional or serious dancers should be eating and drinking to train and perform at their best and minimise risks of injury and/or burnout.

Some general advice for studio teachers and/or managers about meeting OH&S requirements for maintaining a safe dance environment and for caring for the participants in a dance class.

How can dance teachers recognise students who might have an eating disorder, and how might they help them to acknowledge and deal with this complex and debilitating condition?

Traditionally, teaching and training concentrate on technique, alignment, flexibility and aesthetics. With advances in sports medicine and dance science research, there are easy-to-apply techniques to evaluate strengths and weaknesses.

Recommendations for what you should and should not do when you are stretching, and some different stretching techniques.

Simple first aid advice that is particularly relevant to dancers and dance teachers, whether in a social, recreational or professional environment.

This information is especially for young female dancers who can do much to prevent or minimise a common condition called osteoporosis by eating plenty of calcium during the growth years.

What is the difference between ‘being warm’ and ‘warming up’? Why is warming up before dancing and cooling down afterwards important for avoiding injury or pain?

What you need to know about the floors that you are dancing and teaching on, and recommendations for installing a safe dance floor.

Professional or full-time dancers—and athletes—are at risk of burnout, so it is important to be aware of the warning signs and take action.

This report documents the recurrence of injury in Australia professional dancers. It follows the work of Tony Geeves which began 10 years earlier.

The second Safe Dance report presents research into adolescent health issues during intensive dance training.

This project was the first of its kind undertaken in Australia. The report is supported by statistics and extensive consultation with dance and health professionals.

Screening for dance readiness is an accepted practice used to identify risk factors to injury and minimise “down time” from performance. The results can be used to design and implement programs to help directors, teachers and choreographers better understand possible physical limitations rather than perceive technical fault. Screening is not considered to be a strict filtering tool for acceptance into companies or dance schools but rather to gain a baseline profile of an individual and a good opportunity to introduce the dancer to healthcare providers. This paper aims to arm dance practitioners with practical, research-based strategies to apply in the realm of traditional teaching procedures.

Lesley Graham (Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane) seeks to apply the findings of the Sport and Recreation Training Australia Draft Position Paper for the Australian Fitness Industry and the National Fitness Professional/Trainer Registration model, to the dance industry. The implications and appropriateness of these models are discussed with reference to a process of risk stratification in dance teaching.

Christine Babinskas (PhD Candidate Victoria University) has been developing a movement practice that draws on various dance techniques, movement work within a drama context, improvisation, and often involving artists from other disciplines. Her movement has shifted from the strictly codified aesthetic of classical ballet, to something more indeterminate, open and unique.

The key message of the paper is that while observing a person moving, somatic and sensory processes are elicited and these have an impact on both the observer and the mover. The recognition of these processes is important to assessment, observation and clinical therapy protocols. The paper describes embodied awareness, including methods used in Authentic Movement, Dance, Dance/Movement Therapy, Body Psychotherapy, Body-Mind Centring, Sensory Awareness and Jungian Analysis. Arts-based practices can inform clinical practices, and embodied interaction in clinical practice can also inspire artistic research. The methodology of kinaesthetic attunement weaves subjective and objective experiences and can inform clinical relationships, childcare and educational practices.