Answered and unanswered questions

In my last post, I came up with 4 key questions surrounding my professional practice which I found to be of importance.  I have subsequently received several comments on my blog answering my questions and have interviewed a few colleagues in my company to see what the general response was. Although there is always a degree of differentiation, largely speaking, people were on the same page with one or two queries which I found particularly interesting.

My findings

I conducted some audio interviews with a few colleagues at Vienna Festival ballet, asking them my questions and the responses I received was very interesting. I tried to ask a variety of people with different dance backgrounds to gain a broader understanding of the issues I feel may exist.

My first dancer is 25, she trained vocationally from 16 and has worked with Vienna Festival Ballet for 6 years since graduating. Her responses were as follows:

1)  Q: Do you feel there is enough support and advice for injured dancers both physically and psychologically?  

     A: "I think physically there is a lot of support for injured dancers, because I had a lot of minor injuries myself and I've had a lot of support in finding physio and recovering quickly. I think psychologically, theres not always enough emphasis on the impact that getting an injury can have, so I think that more could be done with the impact in can have psychologically on a dancer. "

2) Q: Do you think dancers receive enough education about how to prevent injury and how to keep their bodies in peak physical condition?
   A: "Personally, when I trained I was given a lot of information about how to deal with injuries and how to identify the difference between just pain and an actual long-standing injury. I felt quite prepared to deal with that in professional life."

3) Q:  Do you think there is enough emphasis on preparing yourself for a life and career outside of dance? 
    A: "I think there is. The school that I went to (which is Central School of Ballet) I received quite a lot of preparation for life after dance but I think there is such a stress and emphasis on dancers to get a job as soon as they graduated that it can sometimes become less important to think about what you are going to do after you retire. This could do with being stressed more as a dancer' career is so short".

4) Q: Do you think it is important to build strength and stamina outside of the studio as well as in training and performance?
   A: " Yes I believe it is important, I believe the most important thing is always going to be your career and the performance you give at work but having a certain amount of fitness outside of work is incredibly important especially as many dancers are going to carry on into other professions that involve physical exercises so I think it is important to keep that up."


My second interview was with a 27 year old dancer who trained in Russia. She also worked with 2 different companies in Romania and also a Russian company here in the UK before joining Vienna Festival Ballet this year. Her responses, as you will see, where quite different from my first dancer's.

1) A: "I'm lucky in that I've never been injured, but I feel in the larger companies there is enough support for injured dancers, but not so much in the smaller companies"

2) A: "In my opinion it is much better in Russia than here in the UK. We had lessons on injury prevention and management which were very helpful. We also learnt a lot more on anatomy."

3) A: "No I don't think there is actually. You should be encouraged to find something outside of dance  than you can continue doing after dance e.g teaching or something like that."

4) A: "NO, because i've always done what I've needed in the studio and haven't felt the need to do anything else. Our rest time should be exactly that, rest time."

Finally, my last interview is with a 21 year old dancer, whom after graduating took a year off to have hip surgery and has subsequently returned to dance this year.

1) A: "I think that in terms of physically there is more advice, i'd say, but psychologically not so much.  The impact a physical injury can have on your mental wellbeing is strong so it could do with more attention."

2) A: "I think at the school I went to there was quite a lot of information about preventing injury but then there's not so much in terms of post injury which is equally as important ."

3) A: "no I don't think so,  well at school we didn't get any advice about life after dance. It felt like if you didn't get into a ballet company, then you're a failure. So I think more attention could be paid in that area." 

4) A: "Yes, I think there is importance for strength and stamina. I feel it won't have a negative effect, only positive. As someone with not greta stamina, cardio work would definitely help me." 

As you can see, the answers varied greatly but what I found interesting is the majority of people I asked these questions to, stated that there was a distinct lack of psychological support for injured dancers and that it is something they all believed required improvement. The amount of physical support for injured dancers variety broadly depending on training and circumstances. Larger companies with more funding tend to have a better care programmes for injured dancers as opposed to the smaller, non-funded companies. Another issue that arose when these questions were being discussed, was the lack of dance specific physiotherapists. Many of the treatments dancers receive are basic rehabilitation and physiotherapy for athletes rather than engineered programmes for dancers of a certain level. This, I feel, could have a big effect on the recovery of a dancer as the demands on the body are different and more specific to those of athletes and sportsmen. This got me thinking about a potential line of inquiry, as the body of a dancer interests me and looking into the rehab requirements is perhaps an area I may like to research.

Module 2 - 'Developing lines of Professional inquiry'

Module 2 begins our process into developing our professional inquiry for module 3. In Reader 4 it describes Professional inquiry as "an approach to learning that acknowledges the central role of the individual to the process of learning", which means that in this module we will be making our learning and our practice more personal and relevant to what we find important and of interest. 

Creating an inquiry at this moment in time seems rather daunting , however the tasks help to break it down and create a path towards our end goal. In task 4a, we are asked to create a set of questions surrounding our practice, that we find relevant to our possible line of inquiry. I began my making a spider diagram about my practice, this may not be the most sophisticated tool but i've always found it an excellent way to organise my ideas,  and start thinking of questions as I built on it. I started by making 4 legs (north, east, south and west) with 4 key thoughts I had on life as a ballet dancer, be it currently, previously, or in the future. The points that came to me were:

 

1) Well-being - the health and well-being of dancers is the key to a long career and getting the most out of your body.

2) The Education of dancers - ballet requires many years of training, the education of dancers is very important in my eyes and it is something that is often raised as a concern. 

3) The short manner of the career - As we all know the career of a professional ballerina is very short so looking into the next step of your career is something that needs attention.

4) Supplemental training- Dancers don't just dance to maintain their physical condition but there is a whole load of alternative forms of exercise that they must do whilst working and during their breaks. 

I then expanded on these elements and below is a picture of the completed mind map. 

As you can see this really does fall under the label of mind map as it really is just regurgitated thoughts with little structure! I did, however, begin to link similar points together and intertwine my categories slightly which enabled me to find common ground between areas. I honestly believe the '6 degrees of separation' rule applies to all areas of life and when it comes to the arts, it is almost more the case than any other field. Links can constantly be made and often one issue can lead to another and this is what I found particularly interesting when making this diagram.

When I decided to take the course, I had a clear path in mind as to what my inquiry would be based on. As someone who has always had an interest in science, in particular biology and the human body, it seems only natural for me to take my route in that direction. The human body fascinates me and when looking at it through a dancers eyes, I can appreciate what it can do.  One of the reasons I put a section on the diagram for "career future" is because it is something I have given a lot of thought about in recent years. My body is particularly injury prone, so I am very aware of how short and fragile a dance career can be. With my knowledge and experience of injury and my passion for biology I have always wanted to pursue physiotherapy post dance career. I find there are very few dance specialist physios around and bringing my knowledge of dance to that could be invaluable. This may all seem a little off track, but it means that my ideas around my inquiry should be linked to injury in dancers to incorporate my interests and future plans.

Taking a few steps back, I want to have a look again at my diagram and create some relevant questions to both my practice and my plans for my inquiry.  I thought a good way of doing this would be to come up with a question for each of my 4 sub-topics.

1) Do you feel there is enough support and advice for injured dancers both physically and psychologically? If not, what do you think could be done to improve it? (Well-being)

2) Do you think dancers receive enough education about how to prevent injury and how to keep their bodies in peak physical condition? If not, what more do you think can be done? (Education)

3) Do you think there is enough emphasis on preparing yourself for life outside of dance? If not, what more do you think be provided? (Career future)

4) Do you think it is important to build strength and stamina outside of the studio as well as in training and performance? If so, why? (supplemental training)

I am now going to take these questions to a few colleagues and dance friends and see what their responses are. I will blog about my findings soon! If any of you reading this have any thoughts, I'd love to hear what you have to say.