Tag: health

What You Need to Know About Concussions

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 […]

How to Keep a Student With a Chronic Health Condition Safe and Happy in Class

A few years ago, dance teacher Elaine Mannix of Commonwealth Dance Academy in Walpole, Massachusetts, learned a 10-year-old student had been diagnosed with type 1 diabetes. The dancer had just added hip hop and lyrical to her class schedule and would sometimes dance three hours a day, building toward participating in more competitions as she […]

Learning to Breathe From the Diaphragm Has Many Benefits for Dancers

Just when young dancers need oxygen the most—during a challenging balance or speedy petit allégro—it often seems they instinctively hold their breaths. Sometimes this happens as a reaction to stress; other times it might simply result from a constant sucking in of the waistline. No matter, it is an important habit for dance teachers to […]

Here Are Steps—and Phases From Dance/USA—to Guide You in Safely Reopening Your Dance Studio

Small businesses across the U.S. are keeping careful tabs on their states’ reopening schedules and making changes to their business models accordingly. As pandemic-related guidelines and timelines evolve, it’s important that you have a multilayered plan for the gradual reopening of your studio—one that prioritizes your dancers’ and staff’s health, reassures families that it’s safe […]

OpEd: Are You Ready to Step Up Your Game When It Comes to Student Safety?

It’s time to talk seriously about safety in dance education. As the physical and psychological demands put on student dancers escalates—thanks to competitions, social media and ever-evolving choreography—there is a pressing need to consider how we can successfully safeguard young dancers. In the wake of the #MeToo movement, we’ve heard numerous accounts of unethical, dangerous […]