Literature Review
Dancers’ Health Pilot Scheme article ( Dance UK News Issue
66 Autumn 2007)
Executive Summary of Vision and Pilot (Briefing Paper 1,
DCMS Dance Forum- Dance Health 22 January2007)
I have been reading over a lot of articles that all relate
to the same project “ The Healthier Dancer Programme” which has been publicised
by Dance UK magazine and is taking place over the course of the next 2 years.
The articles and reviews relate very well to the inquiry
that I am hoping to undertake, which will involve “An exploration of how
dancers work through injury and injury prevention from a dancer’s point of view”.
The fact that the inquiry I plan to take on is so topical is
really exciting. I’m so relieved that a big organisation is as passionate about
this subject as I am.
I shall be watching the Healthier Dancer Programme closely as
I am very intrigued as to how it works out and feel that this is exactly what professional
dancers need to have the best chance of sustaining their careers for a longer
amount of time. If anything I hope that the project will heighten awareness of
dance injury to dancers and companies and hopefully provide knowledge into
injury prevention especially over cure.
I’m interested in finding out my own data from dancers that
I know personally rather than just looking at numbers. I am looking forwards to
looking at how some of my colleagues and associates injuries have evolved and
their personal experiences so that I can understand from stories rather than
numbers.
In a nutshell here is my review from the different articles
that I have been reading on “The Healthier Dancer Programme”.
Since 2006 Dance UK have been promoting a national project
that aims to help freelance dancers who are not entitled to free specialist
medical healthcare to recover from their injuries. The project is a big deal
for dancers and promises a twice yearly screening to them for their injuries
and free injury care provided by dance specialists. The project is a brilliant
idea and will last 2 years providing treatment equivalent to what is already
available to elite sports athletes. It is hoped that the project will help to understand
the infrastructure that will be needed to set up “hub-sites” around the UK
where dancers can go and see specialists such as physiotherapists,
nutritionists, doctors, physiologists, and psychologists etc to help treat and
prevent injuries.
Finally it has been realised that all dancers need
affordable access to specialist treatment and advice, not just those dancers
fortunate enough to work in the top two or three dance companies.
The Project will collaborate with the top companies whose
dancers already have access to specialist advice and treatment enabling a
larger amount of data to be provided and be used to help research into the
causes of certain injuries, how they can be treated and prevented in the
future.
I feel that it has taken too long for action to be taken
towards helping dancers through injury and that elite sports athletes should
have funded access to injury specialists and dancers not.
The Healthier Dancer Programme states that the project will “hugely
benefit dancers and enable them to push the boundaries of performance to new
heights, safely”
Just imagine the new possibilities and what could be
achieved by dancers if we knew more about minimising certain risks that could cause
injury, or knew more about preventing injury. The standard of dance could
improve phenomenally and the limits of performance could be endless. Keeping
dancers at their peaks for longer means new skills can be mastered and adapted
and that it is worth spending the money on becoming a professional dancer in
the first place.
The cost of the project is £500, 000. I am sceptical about
where the Healthier Dancer Project is going to get its money from. This is a
large amount of money and some of the comments about the project were against
it arguing if we can really justify spending this amount of money on
researching injury and injury prevention when there are more desperate needs in
the world.
I am very excited about the Healthier Dancer Programme, but
is there a way that it could be done by spending less money?
In my opinion we can justify spending money on this cause.
So much money is spent on saving lives maybe it’s time that a small amount or
money in the overall perspective of what is given to charity every year is
spent on researching how to make the most of enjoying the lives we are living.
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