Trait anxiety and coping strategies among ballet dancers

This study examined relationships between competitive trait anxiety and coping strategies among ballet dancers. Participants were 104 classical dancers (81 females and 23 males) ranging in age from 15 to 35 years (mean 19.4 years; SD 3.8 years) from three professional ballet companies, two private dance schools, and two university dance courses in Australia. Participants completed the Modified COPE scale and the Sport Anxiety Scale. Trait anxiety scores, in particular for somatic anxiety and worry, were significant predictors of 7 of the 12 coping strategies (wishful thinking, r2 = 42.3%; selfblame, r2 = 35.7%; suppression of competing activities, r2 = 27.1%; venting of emotions, r2 = 23.2%; denial, r2 = 17.7%; effort, r2 = 16.6%; active coping, r2 = 14.3%). Approximately 96% of dancers could be classified correctly as high or low trait-anxious from their reported coping style. No significant effects of gender or status (professional versus students) were found. Findings showed that high trait-anxious athletes tend to use more maladaptive, emotion-focused coping strategies compared with low trait-anxious athletes; a tendency that has been proposed to lead to negative performance effects. Dancers who are by nature anxious about performance may need special attention to help them to learn to cope with performance-related stress. Med Probl Perform Art 18:59–64, 2003.

Coping strategies used by ballet dancers : effects of individual differences in competitive trait anxiety

The purpose of the present investigation was to examine relationships between coping strategies and competitive trait anxiety among ballet dancers. Participants were 104 classical ballet dancers from three professional ballet companies, two private dance schools, and two full-time, university dance courses in Australia. Coping strategies were assessed using the Modified COPE scale (MCOPE: Crocker & Graham, 1995), while competitive trait anxiety was assessed using the Sport Anxiety Scale (SAS: Smith, Smoll, & Schutz, 1990). Standard multiple regression analyses showed that trait anxiety scores were significant predictors of seven of the 12 coping strategies, with moderate to large effect sizes. High trait anxious dancers reported more frequent use of all categories of coping strategies. A two-way MANOVA showed no main effects for gender nor status (professional versus students) and no significant interaction effect. The present results emphasize the need for the effectiveness of specific coping strategies to be considered during the process of preparing young classical dancers for a career in professional ballet.

Coping strategies used by ballet dancers: effects of individual differences in competitive trait anxiety

The world of classical ballet exerts considerable physical and psychological stress upon those who participate, and yet the process of coping with such stressors is not well understood. Relationships between coping strategies and competitive trait anxiety were investigated among 104 classical dancers (81 females and 23 males) from three professional ballet companies, two private dance schools, and two full-time, university dance courses in Australia. Coping strategies were assessed using the Modified COPE scale (MCOPE: Crocker & Graham, 1995), a 48-item measure of 12 dimensions of coping. Competitive trait anxiety was assessed using the Sport Anxiety Scale (SAS: Smith, Smoll, & Schutz, 1990), a 21-item measure of three anxiety dimensions. Trait anxiety scores, in particular for Somatic Anxiety and Worry, predicted seven of the 12 coping strategies (Suppression of Competing Activities: R2 = 27.1%; Venting of Emotions: R2 = 23.2%; Active Coping: R2 = 14.3%; Denial: R2 = 17.7%; Self-Blame: R2 = 35.7%; Effort: R2 = 16.6%; Wishful Thinking: R2 = 42.3%). High trait anxious dancers reported more frequent use of all categories of coping strategies, some of which are considered to be maladaptive. No effects of gender or status (professional versus students) were identified. Results emphasize the need for the effectiveness of specific coping strategies to be considered during the process of preparing young classical dancers for a career in professional ballet.

Coping strategies used by ballet dancers : effects of individual differences in competitive trait anxiety

The world of classical ballet exerts considerable physical and psychological stress upon those who participate, and yet the process of coping with such stressors is not well understood. The purpose of the present investigation was to examine relationships between coping strategies and competitive trait anxiety among ballet dancers. Participants were 104 classical dancers (81 females and 23 males) ranging in age from 15 to 35 years (M = 19.4 yr., SD = 3.8 yr.) from three professional ballet companies, two private dance schools, and two full-time, university dance courses in Australia. Participants had a mean of 11.5 years of classical dance training (SD = 5.2 yr.), having started dance training at 6.6 years of age (SD = 3.4 yr.). Coping strategies were assessed using the Modified COPE scale (MCOPE: Crocker & Graham, 1995), a 48-item measure comprising 12 coping subscales (Seeking Social Support for Instrumental Reasons, Seeking Social Support for Emotional Reasons, Behavioral Disengagement, Planning, Suppression of Competing Activities, Venting of Emotions, Humor, Active Coping, Denial, Self-Blame, Effort, and Wishful Thinking). Competitive trait anxiety was assessed using the Sport Anxiety Scale (SAS: Smith, Smoll, & Schutz, 1990), a 21-item measure comprising three anxiety subscales (Somatic Anxiety, Worry, Concentration Disruption). Standard multiple regression analyses showed that trait anxiety scores, in particular for Somatic Anxiety and Worry, were significant predictors of seven of the 12 coping strategies (Suppression of Competing Activities: R2 = 27.1%; Venting of Emotions: R2 = 23.2%; Active Coping: R2 = 14.3%; Denial: R2 = 17.7%; Self-Blame: R2 = 35.7%; Effort: R2 = 16.6%; Wishful Thinking: R2 = 42.3%). High trait anxious dancers reported more frequent use of all categories of coping strategies. A separate two-way MANOVA showed no significant main effect for gender nor status (professional versus students) and no significant interaction effect. The present findings are generally consistent with previous research in the sport psychology domain (Crocker & Graham, 1995; Giacobbi & Weinberg, 2000) which has shown that high trait anxious athletes tend, in particular, to use more maladaptive, emotion-focused coping strategies when compared to low trait anxious athletes; a tendency which has been proposed to lead to negative performance effects. The present results emphasize the need for the effectiveness of specific coping strategies to be considered during the process of preparing young classical dancers for a career in professional ballet. In particular, the results suggest that dancers who are, by nature, anxious about performance may need special attention to help them to learn to cope with performance-related stress. Given the absence of differences in coping strategies between student and professional dancers and between males and females, it appears that such educational efforts should begin at an early career stage for all dancers.

Accelerometer based performance assessment of basic routines in classical ballet

Classical ballet requires dancers to exercise significant muscle control and strength both while stationary and when moving. Following the Royal Academy of Dance (RAD) syllabus, 8 male and 27 female dancers (aged 20.2 + 1.9 yr) in a fulltime university undergraduate dance training program were asked to stand in first position for 10 seconds and then perform 10 repeats of a demi-plié exercise to a counted rhythm. Accelerometer records from the wrist, sacrum, knee and ankle were compared with the numerical scores from a professional dance instructor. The sacrum mounted sensor detected lateral tilts of the torso in dances with lower scores (Spearman’s rank correlation coefficient r = -0.64, p < 0.005). The RMS acceleration amplitude of wrist mounted sensor was linearly correlated to the movement scores (Spearman’s rank correlation coefficient r = 0.63, p < 0.005). The application of sacrum and wrist mounted sensors for biofeedback during dance training is a realistic, low cost option.

Celebrating difference/censoring difference? : Marie Chouinard’s bODY rEMIX

This paper examines performances that defy established representations of disease, deformity and bodily difference. Historically, the ‘deformed’ body has been cast – onstage and in sideshows – as flawed, an object of pity, or an example of the human capacity to overcome. Such representations define the boundaries of the ‘normal’ body by displaying its Other. They bracket the ‘abnormal’ body off as an example of deviance from the ‘norm’, thus, paradoxically, decreasing the social and symbolic visibility (and agency) of disabled people. Yet, in contemporary theory and culture, these representations are reappropriated – by disabled artists, certainly, but also as what Carrie Sandahl has called a ‘master trope’ for representing a range of bodily differences. In this paper, I investigate this phenomenon. I analyse French Canadian choreographer Marie Chouinard’s bODY rEMIX/gOLDBERG vARIATIONS, in which 10 able-bodied dancers are reborn as bizarre biotechnical mutants via the use of crutches, walkers, ballet shoes and barres as prosthetic pseudo-organs. These bodies defy boundaries, defy expectations, develop new modes of expression, and celebrate bodily difference. The self-inflicted pain dancers experience during training is cast as a ‘disablement’ that is ultimately ‘enabling’. I ask what effect encountering able bodies celebrating ‘dis’ or ‘diff’ ability has on audiences. Do we see the emergence of a once-repressed Other, no longer silenced, censored or negated? Or does using ‘disability’ to express the dancers’ difference and self-determination usurp a ‘trope’ by which disabled people themselves might speak back to the dominant culture, creating further censorship?

Mindfulness and dancers

This chapter provides an overview of the relevant theory, history and evidence-based research regarding mindfulness interventions and practice within the dance profession. Further applied information will be provided to assist professionals and performers utilise and employ mindfulness techniques to the performance.

Telling bodies, mapping knowledge : recontextualising the dancer’s corporeality using a modular choreographic model

Creative Development: The Body and Light. Within the current cultural climate, the independent choreographer struggles to pursue and establish their artistic career outside the infrastructure of mainstream dance companies. The independent choreographer is challenged to articulate alternative choreographic models without the support of that infrastructure. My research examines that challenge by exploring my own independent choreographic practice through a number of performance-based dance projects. This exploration will be underpinned by theoretical research to enable clarification of the tacit understandings of an embodied practice and the point of intersection between practice and theory so as to articulate alternative choreographic models. As a starting point for that enquiry, an example is provided of how questions that emerge from within the choreographic practice can be discussed in terms of research through an initial investigation exploring light in relation to the moving body and the implications of atmospheres.

Trailing Touch

Trailing Touch (2014) is a twenty minute classically-based dance work set to music by composers Carter Burwell and Hildur Gudnadottir. It is an abstract work that explores images based on imperfect patterns and seeks to transmit the sensations felt when clusters form and disperse through the space or crisscross to create swirling wave-like reactions in the dancers’ tulle skirts. These simple references are inspired by the lyrical use of arms found in ballet, particular to the ballet aesthetic. Trailing Touch was created in collaboration with QUT’s third-year BFA (Dance Performance) students and performed as part of Dance14 at QUT’s Gardens Points Theatre from the 4th to 8th November 2014 and was performed in Singapore as part of Contact Contemporary Dance Festival on 30th November, 2014. Additionally, the creative process of Trailing Touch (2014) forms the initial project of Phase III of my PhD research, Writing the Dance Score in the Twenty-first Century: An approach for the Independent Choreographer. This PhD research will examine the potential of dance scores as a suite of choreographic strategies to map key aspects of the choreographic process. While a certain degree of ambiguity drives the creative process, the suite of choreographic strategies attempt to capture what is transmitted through the lived experience of dance. “[T]hese documents harbor a force of expression, a visual energy related to the body and the movement” (Louppe 1994, 7) that triggers movement responses, unforeseen intensities and enables personal interpretation. Consequently, Phase III will test and evaluate the relevance of Phase II research within the pressures of mainstream dance rehearsal and performance contexts. In Project One Trailing Touch this was demonstrated in the dance scores produced by the choreographer and interpreted by the dancers within the performance. By drawing from both the theoretical and practical, it is anticipated that this research will suggest a form of languaging movement that is not reliant on images or numbers, but generated in response to the intuitive and complex process underpinning choreographic practice. Rather than constructing a codified dance notation system, it will focus on strategies that reveal movement, its spatial patterns, qualities and intensities of expression and the procedures underlying key choreographic concepts. The outcome of this research project aims to support the independent choreographer in two major areas, by facilitating and enriching the choreographic process for both the performers and choreographer, and by strengthening artistic development and performance outcomes.

Sneak peek: Dance audience relationships during open rehearsals

Over the past decade there has been a surge of interest in behind-the-scenes events from mainstream dance companies and audiences alike. Online videos, open classes, open rehearsals, and backstage tours all provide insights for audiences about daily life in a dance company and how dance work is made. This article focuses on the use of open rehearsals in studio sites and investigates audience experience and relationship with dancers during these events. Applying Clare Dyson’s (2010) scales of audience engagement, I analyse two open rehearsal models that I observed as an audience participant in 2013: Friends Open Days with English National Ballet (London), and Inner Workings with Chunky Move (Melbourne). Through this analysis, open rehearsals emerge as an experience with elements reminiscent of both the traditional presentation paradigm and non-traditional presentation models. Elements such as close audience-dancer proximity, authenticity, and experiences in liminal sites, such as staircases and green rooms, present the possibility of new audience-dancer relationship within the mainstream dance company context.