Safe Dance Practice Question 2

Q2. What is meant by the term ‘alignment’ in dance and why is it important?

Consider the following in your response:
• How does it relate to safe dance practice?
• What are the key elements of an ideal posture/alignment for dance?
• You could create a ‘check list’ for an observation of posture in yourself as a dancer. Some examples are listed below, but you will need to add to this and think about any particular areas which you personally may need further support in.
• Head: is it directly above the shoulders? Chin parallel to the floor?
• Scapulae: Are they protruding or rolled forward?
• Spine: is there an excessive curvature anywhere?
• Pelvis: is there a posterior or anterior tilt or even a slight lateral tilt/rotation?
• Knees: are the knees hyperextended?
• Feet: are they rolling inwards (pronated) or rolling outwards (supinated)?
• What are the common issues/injuries associated with poor posture in dance?
• Where the muscles of the core are located, there is little skeletal support, which suggests why they are so essential to correct posture and injury prevention. Identify the major core muscles and some stability/strengthening exercises for each.

Good body mechanics is relative to the type of activity being engaged in, such as floor work, barre, centre work, moving in space and jumps and aerial work, as well as the body build that the individual is endowed with. To maintain proper alignment, the human body must continually combat the force of gravity as it is being pulled toward the centre of the earth. Body segments such as the hip and knee that are misaligned react to gravity more adversely than segments that are in good alignment.

The key elements for alignment and posture and alignment are:
• Stomach sucked towards the spine.
• Chest relaxed.
• Shoulders relaxed.
• Derriere sucked in.
• Hip flexors turned out.
• Make sure whole body is at its centre of weight, but have weight on your toes.

Follow these tips and you are less likely to injure yourself because your weight was in the wrong spot.

Poor posture can result in a bad arch in the back, poor alignment and poor lines when practicing and performing. Having an arched back may cause pain in the back making any activity slightly uncomfortable. Poor alignment causes muscles to work in the wrong way or maybe even using the wrong muscles all together. And poor lines results in sloppy dance quality and you not looking your best.

Written by Claire Liversidge

The act of aligning or state of being aligned; especially: the proper positioning or state of adjustment of parts (as of a mechanical or electronic device) in relation to each other
How does it relate to safe dance practice?

Correct alignment should be applied to both static (still) and dynamic (moving) actions, checking and reinforcing the correct use of posture, through a full range of movement. Observing and correcting basic technical faults in students allows them to move more safely and efficiently. Correct alignment of the body, and in particular, the feet, ankles, knees, hips and spine, is critical. Alignment should be observed whether seated, standing and travelling.
The body is correctly aligned when the weight is transferred through the centre of each joint. In the first example, when standing, the alignment is determined by the line drawn between the ear lobe, the centre of the shoulder, the hip being slightly in front of the centre of the knee joint and the ankle bone. The arms and hand should hang easily. As the body leans forward the relationship of the head, shoulders and hips is maintained along with the line of the hips, knees and ankles.

What are the key elements to posture?
What are the common issues related to poor posture


Written by Bonnie Johnson

Q.1 What is meant by the saying “safe dance practice” and why it is important?
According to NSW Department of Education and Communities Safe dance can be defined as the practice of selecting and executing safe movement.
According to ausdance.org.au Children have a fundamental right to be safe while involved in dance, sport or associated activities and teachers need to be aware of their legal obligations.
In my opinion Safe Dance Practice is to select safe ways to reduce the chance of injury.

A safe dance warm up is touching your toes. This warm up stretches your legs. Warming up, warms all your muscles where stretching extends all your ligaments and everything to help you move further than you do.

A good way to prevent injury is to warm up, don't dance in inappropriate foot wear, beware of space, don’t dance inexperienced without training.

There are two types of injuries, acute vs chronic. Acute injury is a sudden injury that is usually associated with a traumatic event. Chronic pain may originate with an initial trauma/injury or infection, or there may be an ongoing cause of pain. An example of an acute injury is a broken arm. The broken arm could lead to a chronic injury where the broken arm may not heal properly and it could cause long term pain.

When i am dancing i make sure i follow safe dance guidelines and beware of my space. the only injury i have had is a chronic injury in my legs which has caused me to limit my dancing.

Q.2 What is meant by the term ‘alignment’ and hy is it important.
The term alignment means to keep your body straight. The key elements of an ideal posture for dance include:
head - your eyes should be facing the audience
Shoulders - straight and facing the audience
Spine - Straight
Pelvis - there can be a posterior, anterior or lateral tilt depending on the style of movement
Knees - Should be soft
Feet - should be like a penguin
From poor posture in dance you can get spinal injuries, torn ligaments, neck kink etc.

There are 8 core muscles. These are: pelvic floor muscles, transversus abdominus, multifidus, internal and external obliques, rectus obdominus, erector spinae and the diaphragm.

Strengthening excerices for each:

Pelvic floor muscles - planking
tranversus abdominus - reverse curl-ups
Multifidus - bending normally over a chair or lounge
internal and external obliques - put feet on exercise ball and roll in and out
rectus abdonmius - sit ups on an exercise ball
erector spinae - weight lifting
diagphram - lie on your back with your knees bent, place your palms at the bottom of your rib cage and focus on deep breathing

Q.3 Write a post endeavouring to raise awareness to the prevalence of injuries within the dance industry
Dancers often push themselves so they can get it right but sometimes this can do more harm than good. This often results in injury. If dancers continue to dance whilst they have an injury, the injury can get worse. If the dancer doesn’t warm up, repeats incorrect posture, tries so hard to get the dance right and overdoes themselves they can be prone to injury.
Dancers ankles are one of the many body parts that have the highest incidents of injury. This can be caused by standing with an incorrect posture which could lead to landing on it incorrectly. Something to always remember when dancing is to warm up, be aware of your surroundings and think about your posture to prevent injury!