Dancers in Advertisement

Sold!

Tamara Rojo showing us how to sell a car.

Lexis IS 2013: Poise

Reasons for Employment

I found a very interesting article explaining why dancers are ideal candidates for employment by Sarah Jukes.

6 Reasons Why Ballet Dancers Make Awesome Employees

Oral Presentation

Hopefully you caught me giving my presentation!  Well done to everyone that completed their presentations.  It was wonderful to finally meet you and hear about the research you have been doing.

Its amazing to think how much we have learned during our time on the BAPP course, and I feel that I have only just scraped the surface of this new found knowledge.

Incase you were not able to join us, here is my presentation.

Enjoy.

Super-Human

This fabulous photo was brought to my attention the other day by a friend, and I still cant believe how Hyper-mobile this woman is!

Her her feet do not cease to amaze me.  Her arch is un-human, not to mention her vast sway back and her incredible fish!

I don't know who this spectacular woman is, but if anyone knows, please inform me!

She has obviously been working with the Thera-Band!

The Workout

Hamilton with Eric Underwood in Wayne McGregor’s "Infra." Photo by Bill Cooper.

Here is a very interesting interview with Royal Ballet Soloist Melissa Hamilton.

The Workout: Melissa Hamilton

I like how she describes her body as being "quite eleastic".  She strengthens this elastic body by strengthening exercises that improve technique and helps to prevent injuries.

Harkness Centre for Dance Injuries

Whilst researching the link between technique and injury in dance I discovered a site, which contained some usefull information on the treatment of the most common dance injuries.  I felt this information may be of use to my fellow dancers/teachers on this course.  

Harkness Centre for Dance Injuries

Although the pathomechanics of dance injury can be very complex and are best diagnosed and treated by a sports/dance medical professional, this site is very informative as an initial overview if you are experiencing pain (or should I say unusual pain, as we know for dancers pain is a fact of daily life and goes with the territory of being a dancer!)

Before the First Plie

I recently came across an article entitled 'Before the first Plie - The importance of Warm-up and Stretching'.  

I found this very interesting as the artical explains the value of warming up your muscles prior to any exercise (this helps prevent injury).  It also contains an interesting section on the Clam Exercise for strengthening turnout muscles.  It describes the science behind stretching and states 'the more you learn about the human anatomy, the more you will be able to improve your ballet techniques and do so in a safe way'.  

Free Treatment

I have become very interested in the work being done by the First National Institute of Dance Medicine and Science, which treats dancers with injury free of charge as long as they are referred by their GP.

Is there anyone out there who has made contact with this institution or indeed been treated at the clinic?  If so I would appreciate hearing from you to discuss your experience.  

I have read that their approach is one of treating the whole dancer as what people may not appreciate is that when a dancer is injured it also has a psychological effect and the dancer has to learn to trust their body again.

After injury your brain tries to protect the body and tells you to be careful it reminds you of the pain at the site of injury, this can make you over cautious, a dancer needs to have complete confidence in their body when they dance and freedom of movement or it will show to the ballet master, auditioner or audience.

"Link Tank"

One of the elements of this course was to discover and use different forms of comunication to the full.

Skype is a wonderful advance in technology.  I was very interested to read of Adosola's plans to experiment with skype to try to involve students who are unable to  attend campus sessions as they work in different countries or live at great distances from the University.  

One of the problems of this idea is the time differences.  However, i'm sure with a bit of work and determination this can be overcome.  Adosola refers to it as a 'think tank' but i believe it would be more aptly named a 'link tank', as it would give the students the opportunity to join together not only in thoughts (which can be done with the written word) but to have a voice and receive immediate reactions to their ideas.  This I believe would be highly motivating and I look forward to hearing other students thoughts on this matter.

Congratulations!

Congratulations to my fellow students who completed their course in January, I wish you all well and hope to be seeing you at graduation.

Like most ballet dancers it has been non stop rehearsals and performances over the past few months when the Nutcracker season was in full flow!

Although I am now rehearsing other works and indeed performing this weekend I have tried to get back on track and have managed to allocate some much needed time to my BA work. 

This week I will be taking stock and reviewing everything from the previous modules to help me move forward with my final project.  I'm not sure which students are still left but your comments will be of great help during this final push, so if you have time with your busy schedules, I look forward to hearing from you.