As people who work with their bodies frequently, dancers often suffer from injuries of varying severity. However, to what extent do dancers understand their injuries? Do they understand the cause of these injuries? Do they know what they should do upon incurring an injury? Do they seek proper medical attention or do they dance through their injuries?
On 29 August 2020, *SCAPEdance Science hosted a webinar with Dr Jason Chia (Head of Sports Medicine and Surgery Clinic, Senior Consultant at Tan Tock Seng Hospital) that was moderated by Melissa Quek (Head of School of Dance and Theatre at LASALLE College of The Arts). The webinar addressed the topic of injury occurrence and common injuries identified among dancers. A total of 75 participants attended the webinar, which was accompanied by articles that were written on dance injuries identified in pre-professional, professional dancers, and street dancers.
Related: Injuries Amongst Pre-professionals and Professional Ballet and Contemporary Dancers and Injury Occurrence in Street and Break Dance
During the webinar, we posed questions to the participants and gathered information with regard to their understanding of dance science, injuries, as well as health-seeking behaviours. Here are some of the insights that we gathered:
From the polls and Q&A questions posed by and to the participants, we identified that 90% of them have suffered from an injury due to their dance practice. They were also interested in methods on how to heal such injuries properly, as well as ways to prevent injuries from occurring. Participants voted knees as the most common site of injury, followed by ankles, which strongly correlated to the results presented in the articles which can be found here and here.
Though we identified a large number of individuals who knew where to seek medical attention for their injuries when necessary, there was a select group who stated otherwise. This small group of individuals either lacked the essential information of where they could properly treat their injuries, or have simply chosen not to seek medical attention for their injuries. This remains a topic of concern.
Hence, the introduction of the *SCAPEdance Science programme hopes to grant dancers and dance educators easy access to resources, such as articles, online videos, and physical workshops. These will provide an avenue for them to learn from other professionals and incorporate the applications of research into their everyday dance practice.
*SCAPEdance would like to take this opportunity to thank our speaker Dr Jason Chia, moderator Melissa Quek, and the participants of *SCAPEdance Science webinar once more.
To read more *SCAPEdance Science articles: https://www.scape.sg/scapedance/scapedance-science/
To find out more about ongoing dance events: https://www.scape.sg/whats-on/?category=dance
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