Transcriber: Robert Tucker Reviewer: Ariana Bleau Lugo
Hi! Anybody knows what dance science is?
No, I thought so. So, before introducing my research project,
which is in the field of dance science,
I sort of decided that it might be a good idea
to give you a little introduction of what is dance science.
First you see these two dancers, one of them has a big mask on its face.
She's performing for the purpose of scientific research
that involves dancers and their fitness.
So, what is dance science? It's a field of research
that takes everything from exercise and sport science
and tries to see if that can apply to dancers.
It's very recent, so, basically all the research coming out at Master's level
are all innovative.
We don't have a choice, there's not much done,
so whatever we do we have to figure out a way
of doing it ourselves.
It is a multi-disciplinary field, it is impossible to do everything,
look at the body, look at the art,
and not involve every single field that is involved in the human body.
So, we look at neuroscience, anatomy, physiology, psychology, somatics,
but we also have to look at the art,
so dance, anything that has to do with arts and the body.
Why do we need all this?
First of all, dancers get injured all the time.
Dancers get injured more than football players,
and for longer.
90% of dancers will get injured within one year's time.
So, from now until next year, we'll have 90% of all dancers in the UK
having an injury.
So, we need to understand what happens,
why are they getting injured, and how can we make them better.
And how can we, not just prevent injury, but as well
care for the [injuries] once they occur.
But is it all about injuries only?
No. It's also about: How can dance help everybody else?
So, I just did a workshop on: How can dance help
in understanding our social perception of the world?
And it went really well.
People saw that communication can come out of just plain movement,
and how our bodies interact with one another without any words.
Really interesting how dance can change our perception of thinking,
so it can involve sociology, it can involve anthropology,
and get us to think outside the box.
So then for health, there is a lot of research that's been done
with dancers and Parkinson
and dance and how can tango help with Alzheimer patients.
And that was really interesting research
showing that, actually, if they learn to dance tango,
they're making decision, they're using that part of the brain
that's going weaker.
And we can make sure that Alzheimer doesn't fade
that part of the brain too quickly.
So, we found that dance has a lot of benefits for other people,
and all that because dance science existed.
So, it does benefit everybody and everybody, but dancers in general,
tend to not read a lot of the research.
So, there's a lot of work still to be done in our field,
in disseminating that research.
So, what we're doing right now in our field
is mainly looking at: How can we screen dancers and make them better?
So, we came up with a lot of different assessments
that help us look at dancers in a different way,
and these are all things that are taken from exercise science.
And then we came up with other things that are more about dancers.
Dancers need to be flexible, they need to be strong,
and they also need a lot of coordination,
so we come up with a lot of different ways
to measure, to see if an intervention works better,
if our training is appropriate for them,
and a lot of different aspects of dance.
We also developed a fitness test.
So, normally that fitness test is done while we run.
Dancers don't really like to run.
We like to dance. Running is really not our thing.
So, if you're going to assess our fitness, please do not assess it through running.
We can't run. Put shoes on our feet
and we're like (Pain groan) and we look incredibly foolish.
I don't why, but it's a generalization, but most dancers don't run very well.
So, they came up with this 5 stage
that takes exactly the same science
behind the actual fitness test, aerobic fitness test,
that's done in sports.
But this one is all dance from A to Z.
There's one in contemporary, one in ballet.
So, different genres of dance can have their own test.
So, I've talked already about the kind of research that's coming out.
But also I'd like to talk to you about my research.
What I've talked to you about was a lot of these scientific research
going from pure science. When I started my Master's degree,
I had no idea what dance science was.
That's why I decided to introduce it to you,
because, if me as a dancer, I had no idea what that field was about,
even when I started my degree, I was like...
Oh! Okay, so I'm going to do psychology. Why am I doing psychology again?
I understood everything just by doing the degree
and reading more of the research, which most people don't know about.
But my research ended up being not about the physiology of the dancers,
but: Why do we look at dance?
Because we want to observe a dancer and enjoy?
There's a lot of artistry involved, it's not just about how high the leg is,
Okay, beautiful. She can kick? Yeah. She can do the splits? Great.
But really, why do we look at art? Because it makes us feel something.
So, what my interest was, was mainly on stage presence.
How can we work for dancers' stage presence?
So, who thinks here that stage presence is something you either have it or you don't?
Don't be shy. Okay.
And who thinks that you can learn stage presence, you can be taught?
Lot more advanced than a lot of the people I've interviewed.
I had so many people telling me that,
'Na, it's like talent, either you have it or you don't.'
Okay. As a dance teacher, I really don't want people telling me
I can't teach something, that I don't want to lose my job, really.
So, what I'm going be doing is looking at what am I doing as a teacher
that helps these students be more present on stage.
But before that, what is stage presence?
So that's the first question my supervisor asked me and I said,
'Right, there's a lot of definitions, but mainly I'm going to ask my dancers
and my panel members what they think stage presence is.'
Really very simple, there's this definition,
my definition is: What makes us look at somebody on stage and not stop looking?
So, if I'm going to be watching somebody dance,
what is making me not think of something else? That's stage presence.
It's actually a lot simpler than we try to philosophically think about it.
How am I going to enhance stage presence? I've used a field called somatics.
Somatics is a field that looks at the body as a whole.
So, I can look at flexibility, I can look at little aspects,
but somatics looks at the body and the dancer,
body and mind as a whole.
So, all different somatic techniques
come from, I would say, the 60's, 70's, 80's,
there's all these people that created new techniques
of raising body awareness, being straighter, posture.
You might know the Alexander Technique, that's one of the somatics techniques,
Feldenkrais one of the somatics techniques.
But I wasn't interested in the techniques per se, I was interested in what they do.
So, I looked at what the principles were,
and if I was actually already using that in my teaching.
I came up with four different things that I'm going be using in this study.
I came up that breath is important.
How many of you can live without breathing?
Yeah. I didn't think so.
A lot of dancers think they can go through
a whole dance without breathing, I don't know how they do it.
Don't know how I did it when I was training ballet.
I used to stop breathing for about 50 minutes of my class,
and then I would take one deep breath and then go on.
Probably scared of the teacher and being kicked,
but that being said, yes, breathing is important.
Body awareness.
Can you feel how your feet are on the floor?
What are you doing with your left hand?
Yeah, we don't think a lot about every body part and where it is in space,
but that's quite important for dancers.
I would say it's important for everybody to have body awareness,
but dancers especially.
They use their body as their tool, so it is quite important.
So body awareness, breath, and I've used tools such as
imagery, constructive rest, and touch.
Today, instead of telling you the results and everything,
I'm just going to tell you: What is stage presence,
how can I enhance it. If I'm enhancing their confidence,
they're going to have a better stage presence.
If I enhance their body awareness,
they're going to have a better stage presence.
These are quotes from the dancers that were on the project with me.
And I've decided today,
I could have brought some other dancers at the project with me,
but instead I decided to demonstrate
what I did in my [introduction] just in front of you.
So, I'm going to pull up the carpet that you saw,
that didn't really want to be rolled.
So, I'm going to roll it again, and while I'm doing that
Karina is going to demonstrate a little piece that I've created.
It's really very short.
And then I'm going to give her some instruction
and see if that changes the piece.
So we're going to put some music on
and going to leave you with the last quote --
yeah, perfect --
["I feel like I am so much more of a dancer with this work."]
So, if you can put the music on,
and she's going to demonstrate just a simple phrase.
(Electronic percussion sounds)
Okay, thank you.
So, what I'm going to ask Karina: Can you do the whole phrase?
This time, if you can, instead of thinking of where the movement is,
you're going to just go through it without music,
and think, are you breathing in or out?
And decide for yourself, is breathing in better for each movement,
or breathing out is better for each movement?
So, go ahead. So, while she's doing that,
she's also concentrating on her whole body,
instead of just a single movement.
She will be deciding at every point in time:
Is it a breath in or a breath out?
As you can see, she has also slowed it down,
because her mind and her muscular system
need to coordinate that new information.
What I would normally do is try that with the dancers,
and they would probably take a lot longer to really assimilate the material,
and decide which breath in and breath out is going to be.
So, now what I'm going to ask her is:
Do you know which breath you're taking at every point in time?
Karina: More or less.
Karine: More or less. Which one is missing?
Karina: So, I exhale here. Karine: Yep.
Karina: Inhale Karine: Yep.
Karina: Exhale Karine: Yep.
Karina: Inhale, lift. Karine: Yep. Karina: Exhale, go down.
Inhale, turn, exhale, inhale, exhale.
Karine: OK. Karina: More or less? Karine: More or less. Yeah, yeah.
I mean, is there a right or wrong?
No, there's what works better for her and her body.
And that's partially what I'm taking out of the field of somatics.
Every person is different, so I need to work with each dancer differently.
But the principle is the same, she's keeping her breath throughout,
not thinking: How high is my leg?
Just thinking I'm exhaling while I'm doing it.
So, we're just going to do it one more time.
This time I'm going to give you little bit of imagery.
So, here you're actually getting punched.
Somebody just punched you in the stomach while you're doing it.
And, the next movement
I want you to think that after this punch,
you actually got an amazing idea and you're going to open up to that idea.
And then you're going to swing that idea through your body,
and that's going to create that kick,
that you're going to spread around the world.
Yes.
Good.
Let's just keep it simple like that.
I can continue, I'm just showing you how we can use imagery.
And so we're going to keep these images, keep the breath.
And what we're going to do, we're just going to show you the whole sequence.
This time she's going to do it two times in a row,
integrating the breathing and integrating the imagery.
Karina: OK
Karine: Music.
(Electronic drum sounds) Thank you.
(Electronic music)
Thank you.
So, obviously nothing can happen within five minutes
of working with somebody. You might have seen a difference
in the way she was moving,
not necessarily an improvement or anything,
but she did move differently.
Did anybody see a difference between the first time and the last time?
Yeah? So, all these instructions,
all they do, is change our mobility,
and, by doing that, what I'm trying to get into the dance world as well,
through this scientific knowledge of research and methodology,
we can actually, instead of thinking in dance,
that we need to repeat the same thing over and over,
which leads to overuse injury,
what we can do is just rethink the way we teach,
and rethink the way we rehearse direct by introducing another field within it.
Now my time's been up for about two minutes now,
so I'm going to finish on that note.
I hope you've learned something from the field of dance science and dance,
and thank you very much.
(Applause)