July 2021 – NEXTSTEPPAD

Brand new app Help4Dancers has launched to help dancers with physical and mental well-being

A brand-new free mobile app is aiming to help dancers from across the globe become mentally fit and emotionally strong by building resilience from the stresses and strains of dance training and performance.

Help4Dancers, which can be downloaded from both the Apple and Google play stores, provides dancers with access to a professional program of daily sessions, including weekly check-in health questionnaires and advice from dance-related psychotherapists and counsellors on many aspects of mental health; exercise and meditation videos; and injury prevention and maintenance with leading physiotherapists.

Other features are strength and conditioning sessions and Pilates with professional coaches, advice on career development and nutrition, and regular guest speakers including UK and international dance professionals.

Help4Dancers has been created by psychotherapist Terry Hyde MA MBACP, founder of Counselling for Dancers. Hyde started ballet classes at the age of six, was awarded a five-year scholarship to the Royal Academy of Dance in London and attended The Royal Ballet Senior School. He later joined The Royal Ballet, followed by a move to London’s Festival Ballet (English National Ballet) as a soloist. After five years, he moved to musical theater, performing in London’s West End, film and TV.

Hyde said, “During the pandemic, dancers have been missing in-person training and performing and sadly, as a result, I have seen an increase in clients seeking my help. Because of my own experiences as a performer, I can bring a genuine understanding of the unique demands that are placed on dancers, from body image and bullying to audition anxiety.”

Hyde, who has been running free online well-being sessions for those in the performing arts throughout the pandemic, has been working on the app for the last six months on its design and comprehensive, professional content as well as trialing it out to a team of dancers. He feels the app will help dancers to continue their career, keep mentally and physically fit, and prepare them for live performances and in-person classes.

Hyde added, “On this free app, users will be able to join a six-week program which tracks their progress and, in turn, helps them to recognize what they can do to help improve their emotional and physical strength. And, as it’s mobile, we can reach dancers across the globe, providing free access to expert help whenever they need it.”

Help4Dancers participants can join pre-recorded sessions with a host of professional dancers and practitioners, including Director and Choreographer Brendon Hansford, who has shared his skills with the likes of Sam Smith, Rod Stewart and David Guetta; Isabella Gasparini, soloist with The Royal Ballet; Tomorr Kokona, coach, mentor and former international arts professional; Ballet Physio Luke Abnett, who spent six years treating students at The Royal Ballet School; Mikko Nissinen, artistic director of Boston Ballet and School; and Professional Irish Dancer and Pilates Teacher Joe Duffey (Riverdance/Lord of the Dance/Broadway).

If successful, the team behind the app hopes to expand its offer with the introduction of seminars, workshops and conferences.

Help4Dancers, for professional and student dancers as well as parents and teachers, is available for all dance styles, including ballet, Irish dance, tap, hip hop, ballroom and South Asian dance.

The Help4Dancers app can be downloaded now from both the Apple and Google play stores.

The post Brand new app Help4Dancers has launched to help dancers with physical and mental well-being appeared first on Dance Informa Magazine.

5 stretches to avoid: Helping your students avoid injury

We are all different. Our anatomy, our goals and our dance styles vary. So is there really a golden list of stretches you absolutely should not do? No, not really. But are there some really smart rules to follow to help you avoid teaching or encouraging ineffective and injurious stretching practices? You betcha! Here is one such list of five things about stretching that you should avoid.

# 1. Avoid overstretching.

Dancers need to learn their own range of motion and how far they can go before feeling tension, followed by pain. Stretching into pain doesn’t do anything for you and won’t improve your flexibility; in fact, the only effect you might get out of it is injury. It might not seem like it in the moment, especially if you’re trying to be careful, but overstretching over the course of time contributes to breakdown of the protective surfaces in your joints. So those crazy stretches that your students are trying to do in their teens could eventually cause them pain in their 20s and onward. There are a couple over-stretches that dancers seem to love. But don’t do it!

-Oversplits

-Forcing your frog (on your belly)

-Walking on your knuckles/tops of toes

-Backbend without abdominal muscle support

# 2. Avoid stretching when you haven’t warmed up.

When you are warm, getting your heart rate up and starting to sweat, your muscles and other soft tissues respond and are able to stretch more easily. It really doesn’t help to try and stretch something that isn’t willing to let go. Learn more about this here.

#3. Avoid stretches that don’t prepare you.

You should be stretching for a reason. Usually, that reason is to prepare your dancers to perform certain kinds of movement or to increase flexibility. The warm-up and pre-dance stretching should be based on what you are going to do in class or performance, and generally focus on dynamic stretch. After dancing, usually during the cool down when you no longer need to produce powerful movements, is when you’d want to focus on increasing flexibility and do more static stretching. Review your static, dynamic and ballistic stretch here and here.

# 4. Avoid copying others.

Here’s where Instagram can steer your students really, really wrong. Discuss this with your dancers. Once they know the limits of their range of motion, they must honor and respect their amazing bodies and maximize within their personal limits. Other people have their own body to learn and figure out. Learn more about these differences and what contributes to individual flexibility in this article.

#5. Avoid forcing your students into stretches

Sometimes it can be fun to have students play games and push each other into stretches, but they don’t know what each other are feeling and they can very easily push bodies past a safe position. Same goes for teachers! Educators should not be forcing students into positions either. When someone else is moving you, you’re also often not engaging the muscles that stabilize your joints, so a lot of the natural protection mechanism your body has for your joints is lost. This same problem holds true for using devices that force you into a passive stretch. If you want to stretch with your friends, focus on Proprioceptive Neuromuscular Facilitation.

#6. Bonus: Do you even need to stretch?

If you’re really tight or injured, stretching could make it worse. Remember that you should stretch to the point of tension, not to the point of pain, so if it is hurting, stop! If you think you might be injured or know you are, see a healthcare provider to find out what happened. Stretching something like a strain or sprain could exacerbate the sensitive injury.

Experts who generously contributed opinion to this article:

Kathleen Davenport, MD
Melody Hrubes, MD
Ellie Kusner, MSc
Yuriko Nabeta, PT, DPT, OCS
Esther Nolton, MEd, LAT, ATC, CSCS
Marissa Schaeffer, PT, DPT, CSCS
Carrie Skony, DC, CCSP
Hillary Pane, MD

By Leigh Schanfein of Dance Informa.

The post 5 stretches to avoid: Helping your students avoid injury appeared first on Dance Informa Magazine.

Danscend launches to provide mental wellness resources for dancers

Former professional dancers and long-time dance educators Michelle Loucadoux and Kristin Deiss have joined forces to bring mental wellness to the forefront of the minds of the dance community by providing a virtual space for education and connection for dancers and dance educators. Their new company, Danscend LLC, currently offers a free five-day mental wellness challenge, and a 12-week comprehensive mental wellness course.

According to the U.S. National Library of Medicine, “It is well documented that professional dancing increases the risk for, or strongly associates to, mental health issues like eating disorders, anxiety and compulsive-obsessive disorders.” Danscend hopes to begin to change the conversation surrounding mental wellness in the dance community.

“Both Michelle and I are fully aware of the serious mental challenges that come with being a dancer,” explains Deiss. “Yet, there are few resources available to help them cope with these challenges.” In the words of Kathleen McGuire Gaines in a July 2017 article in Dance Magazine, “Dance institutions are failing their dancers with a lack of support for mental health.”

A study by Minding the Gap found that 75 percent of dancers say they have dealt with a mental health challenge in the past five years, and 81 percent of those dancers do not believe the community does enough to address these issues. Danscend was created to address this, and their students can access courses by visiting the school’s website. They will then be provided course materials and emailed private links to real-time virtual events with mental health professionals and dance industry professionals.

For more information about Danscend, visit www.danscend.com.

The post Danscend launches to provide mental wellness resources for dancers appeared first on Dance Informa Magazine.