Tag: anatomy

2023 Dance Teacher Award Honoree Irene Dowd Has Transformed How Dancers Learn Anatomy

Irene Dowd brings the teaching of anatomy to dancers into motion. As a teacher of functional and kinesthetic anatomy and neuromuscular reeducation, perhaps most notably as a member of The Juilliard School’s dance faculty for 28 years, and the author of the seminal Taking Root to Fly: Articles on Functional Anatomy, she has influenced generations of dance professionals.

How Irene Dowd Teaches Anatomy Through Movement

Irene Dowd’s third-year students at The Juilliard School sound more like they’re in medical school than a dance class, citing complex kinesiology terms and muscle names, like multifidus and iliocostalis. But instead of memorizing the vocabulary with index cards and textbooks, the students in Dowd’s anatomy/kinesiology class come ready to move. “Motor-learning specialists have found […]