Health Promotion Personal Health Worksite Wellness

A Dancer’s Perspective: Sustainable Performance

dance health wellness moving

Setting the Stage

To become a professional dancer requires complete mastery of the human body. It is a meticulous combination of strength, flexibility, endurance, and dexterity, guided by a supreme sense of rhythm and musicality. No singular factor creates a dancer, it is the unique combination of mental and physical prowess that embodies brilliance, and sets each performer alight. Whether one dances ballroom, ballet, African or modern, to be a professional requires passion, tenacity, discipline and survival tools.

Dancing is an exquisite art form, however, underneath the beauty lays a hard, cruel side. Dancers are usually poorly paid, they lack reasonable benefits and job security, face high risk of injury, and must submit to a grueling daily mental and physical regime. Given these odds what is it that makes, in the first place, anyone survive a career?

Moreover, are there elements of sustainability that as health promotion professionals we can learn from dancers?  I believe the answer is YES! It can even assist us in developing programs, with an eye towards performance longevity.

In looking back over my 30-year career as a professional dancer- such a fragile profession – two cornerstones of sustainability emerge that apply to health promotion.

  1. Stay warm
  2. Don’t get hurt

For time purposes this post focuses only on the first survival tool.

Cornerstone #1: Stay warm!

A dancer’s livelihood is based on the performance of the body. Staying warm is not only a training requirement it is a matter of survival, therefore, everything revolves around that pillar. Dancing, be that in rehearsal or in performance has a tremendous amount of stop and start, on and off stage, which demands the body be ready at a moment’s notice. Staying warm means staying in motion. It also entails assisting, supporting and using whatever means necessary to create an atmosphere of heat individually, and as a group.

Whether in performance or rehearsal mode, the idea of remaining sedentary is not an option for the dancer. During rehearsal and performance, dancers are continually in motion, stretching, moving in place to keep the body warm, balancing on one leg, and or mentally going through a piece of choreography. Dancers will utilize any space, no matter how small or confined, to stay in motion, dressing rooms, bathrooms, hallways or wings of a stage.

How does this apply to Health Promotion?

Similar to dance, normal business activity of any type is full of starts and stops. Movement increases the body temperature, prepares muscles for activity and safely empowers a mechanism for action. What if individuals and organizations focused on small intermittent bouts of movement, throughout the day, as a tool to keep the body prepared, energized and warm?

There is research by Marc Hamilton, Genevieve N. Healy, Neville Owens and others, to support the theory that metabolic processes are stimulated by interruptions of movement, such as standing and light intensity activities. So not only is motion a boon for warmth, but it also benefits the inner workings of the body.

Positive gains are possible through small recesses, standing meetings, sit to stand desk options and encouraging individuals to walk to colleagues in lieu of email. It relays back to the dancer’s thinking, I must stay warm and ready, not only to perform at a moment’s notice, but as a precautionary tool for career longevity.

If I were a CEO I would think, OK, now that’s the type of employee I am interested in hiring. A team player, prepared, actively energized, and more than likely a positive contributor when called upon, even if at the last moment. Which we all know, never happens in business!

Creating sustainable performers in business is in many ways no different than the performing arts. Yes, the end performance might be a key stakeholder meeting, as opposed to an opera house. Both require meticulous preparation, expert coaching, mental and physical skills, alternative support systems and above all, tools for survival.

A performance doesn’t exist without performers, in business or the arts.

Stay Tuned for Part 2-Don’t Get Hurt!

1 comment Add New Comment

  1. Katrina Gabelko says:

    Well Ms. Krisna you have done it again!! Such great “food for thought!” It’s funny, “preparedness” is the cornerstone of everything from dance to national defense. And it all really does hinge on sustainability. Thank you for summarizing these thoughts with such eloquence! Wish you were in Minnesota so I could study with you!

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