Reviewing literature - 'Reading with the purpose of reviewing is very different from reading for pleaure. Reading to review has the goal of producing a product: an analytical evaluation of the research on your topic. This means that you are expected to unravel the reasoning that informs the research and arguments you find in the literature.' Hart - Reader 4
I am continuing my hunt for literature and decided to start with looking for articles about supplementary training for dancers as there seems to be more easily accessible information on this topic rather than dance therapy. I came across this article of the Trinity Laban website and it raised some interesting thoughts.
The benefits of supplementary training for dancers:
https://trinitylaban.wordpress.com/2015/11/28/the-benefits-of-supplementary-training-for-dancers/
Firstly I wanted to do some background research about the article and who wrote it and why.
Amelia Wilkinson - I found this biography about Amelia on the Trinity Laban website:
Amelia graduated from The Royal Ballet School in 2008 and has a BA (Hons) degree in Sociology (research major: dance) from Goldsmiths University of London and an MSc in Dance Science from Trinity Laban. Also working as the Health Administrative Intern at Trinity Laban, she is heavily involved in the provision of Dance UK’s POP package as well as the screening for TL dance students. Amelia delivers the lab skills component of the MSc in Dance Science at Trinity Laban and visits undergraduate institutions to provide Dance Science workshops. To date, her research has primarily focused on the notions of identity, passion and injury related coping and she is continuing to develop these ideas based on findings from her masters final project.
Knowing a little about Amelia's background is very useful for me and I now know that similarly to me she also has a ballet trained background, which may mean that we have similar outlooks on various subjects. I also found the bold section at the bottom of her biography very interesting because these are areas of research that I am also interested in.
The title of the article is 'The benefits of supplementary training for dancers' so this immediately shows the reader that the article will solely be looking at the benefits of supplementary training rather than the negatives as well. The article starts by stating 'dance class has been shown to be fairly ‘stop start’ or intermittent in nature and as a result dancers’ cardiovascular training needs may not be simply met by participating in class or rehearsal'. Obviously some types of repertoire may be more stop start than others and some will require higher stamina so her careful use of the conditional 'may' is relevant.
Amelia mentions 'screening' as one way you can identify areas that require focus and says that this could be in relation to cardiovascular fitness, flexibility, muscular endurance, strength or power. She also mentions how for each dancer the effects a dance class has on their individual body will be different because everyone has varying physical capacities and capabilities. This makes me think how although everyone is doing the same class everyone will take something different away from it and the physical effects will vary from person to person. This is not something I had really given too much thought to before so this could be an interesting area for me to do some further research into. Amelia refers to a training principle called 'overload' which is needed in order for physiological adaptations to occur and she points out that the dance class alone may not facilitate such changes, hence proving how supplementary training is important to make physical improvements and changes in oneself. Amelia also mentions 'fatigue' and how it increases the risk of injury so if one can delay the onset of fatigue it could, in consequence reduce the risk of injury!
She then proceeds to talk about various types of supplementary training such as:
- Pilates
- Yoga
- Aeorbic and endurance training
- Plyometric training
- A more somatic approach
I am already familiar with the background and history of Pilates and yoga as I have previously done research into these topics as part of my diploma work at Elmhurst but the other three areas I have a lot less knowledge about so it has been interesting for me to broaden my knowledge and research into these areas too. I was especially interested in the results I have found about 'somatic approach' because the first thing that came up on google was 'somatic dance therapy'. As I have previously spoken about, dance therapy is another topic I was interested in researching for my inquiry and I feel like now I am definitely building a bridge between these two fields of research. I have found a lot more literature about dance/movement therapy now and look forward to reviewing it!
Amelia finishes the post by stating:*The extra stress placed on the body through supplementary training can cause temporary fatigue. You should aim to leave at least two weeks between end of training and any scheduled performance periods. - This really got me thinking because when I am on tour with my company I am performing 6 days a week, so if I am following this guide it is impossible for me to fit in any sort of training! I began considering if perhaps this article is aimed more for for students who will have perhaps have less performance periods than professionals. I was also surprised that she has said allow two weeks because to me this seems like an awfully long time. Maybe there is some evidence to back up this statement, perhaps that is the optimum muscle recovery time? But for us professional dancers two weeks seems like a very long time!!
Amelia has posted some other related web links and titles of books at the bottom of her article and I will continue my research by looking at these and seeing where they take me.
One of the links I have found relating to dance/movement therapy:
https://books.google.co.uk/books?hl=en&lr=&id=aOnmCAAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PR13&dq=somatic+dance+therapy&ots=jbErBc1w8H&sig=fVpkihHLLVsIMXkxMPS9GZVo_BQ#v=onepage&q=somatic%20dance%20therapy&f=false
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