Jena – Dancing – whether recreational or professional – is often seen as a pure art form: looking beautiful, being flexible and looking good on stage/parquet. But dance medicine speaks other volumes. Dancing is a tough, high-performance sport in which the risk of injury is very high. How high it really is, what risks there are and why they often lead to permanent physical and psychological damage in life – Judith-Elisa Kaufmann, dance scholar and international university lecturer, will speak about this at the 38th annual GOTS congress in Luxembourg.
Kaufmann has evaluated extensive data from studies on musculoskeletal injuries in children and young people in dance. On the one hand in stage dance, such as ballet, jazz dance, tap dance. On the other hand in dance sports like standard or latin. Both recreational and professional dancers were included.
Injury rates between 0.77 and 4.71 injuries per 1000 hours of training are found among young people between the ages of 9 and 18 in vocational training. With 1.38 injuries per 1000 hours of training, a prospective study on professional training in classical ballet documents an injury risk of 76 percent during a school year. Another describes 5.5 injuries per 1000 hours of training for boys and 2.6 injuries for girls aged 15 years.
Things don’t look any better in dance as a recreational sport. Of 1,336 medically examined children between the ages of 8 and 16 who trained in ballet, jazz and modern dance, 42.6 percent had injuries.
In younger children (8-10 year olds) it is primarily tendinopathies (chronic/overuse injury) at the rear ankle, joint injuries, inflammation, lower back pain and injuries to the spine. In older children from the age of 14, the focus of injury shifts from the foot to the knee and spine. What is frightening here is that chronic injuries and overexertion also dominate among young people at 60-90 percent.
“This wouldn’t have to be if there wasn’t the old cliché of having to work through the injury. There is still a kind of athlete identity in the dance world: pain and injuries are part of it. The more you can do despite injury and overwork, the better you are regarded,” says Kaufmann.
Pain has become a symbol of discipline and dedication in the dance world for decades, she says. However, there is no change in sight if “dancers learn to keep going as children – despite injury”.
Even in recreational sports, this approach has become established in many places: keep going, clench your teeth, see pain as motivation and a measure of performance. It is important to break through this traditional thinking of trainers, teachers, society and the dancers themselves, not only to prevent injuries, but also to increase performance and well-being.
Every child would intuitively say: “Ouch, please stop, something is hurting”. Normally everyone seeks the cure. “If this intuitively healthy path has consequences – from being looked at wrongly to being thrown out of schools or clubs – something is wrong here,” warns the scientist. “That does something to the dancers’ brains, it teaches them to deal with pain incorrectly, to perceive it incorrectly and counterintuitively, and thus to interpret dance discipline and goal setting dangerously.” Many professional dancers don’t even dare to anonymously take part in studies on pain and injury for fear their answers would be seen by employers and teachers.
Kaufmann emphasizes the importance of viewing dancers not only as artists but also as athletes. “It’s not about being nice and thin and pretty, but about having the necessary fitness and strength for the artistic excellence to be achieved with a balanced diet. The right kind of performance improvement and comprehensive injury prevention can only be established through evidence-based, targeted training planning.
In addition to the permanent physical damage caused by injuries and wear and tear, the psychological component is so strong that many former dancers pay excessive attention to weight and appearance throughout their lives, have to compare themselves and always want to please other people in order to show performance, not offend, loved to become.
Judith-Elisa Kaufmann is therefore also concerned about enlightening the public, the media and politics: “Do you really want to see very thin dancers, some of whom are performing an artistic pleasure in pain and with a low self-concept? Or should it be young athletes in the future who are fit and full of self-confidence, who prevent injuries or who are given the time and take the time to conscientiously heal them?”
The GOTS is the largest association of sports orthopedists in Europe. It is a guarantee for seriousness, competence, experience as well as advice and quality in the care of sports injuries.