Physical and Mental Demands Experienced by Ageing Dancers

Abstract

Professional, contemporary dancers typically transition into another role or industry when their bodies begin to show signs of ageing in their mid-30s. In ‘Physical and Mental Demands Experienced by Ageing Dancers: Strategies and values’, the dance dramaturg and scholar Pil Hansen and the dance scientist Sarah J. Kenny take a close look at how dancers who continue to dance past this point and into their 60s, experience and meet the demands of professional dance praxis. Through a qualitative pilot study with three ageing Canadian dancers, Hansen and Kenny identify common demanding factors and strategies that these ageing dancers have developed to address them. When discussed in light of related studies, results indicate that interactions between a set of material, discursive and physical factors need to be addressed to help dancers build long-life careers. Findings also suggest the possibility that advanced cognitive and artistic strategies may provide essential support for the mature dancer’s physical practice and expressivity while countering the cognitive decline otherwise caused by ageing. It will require a multi-disciplinary research effort, involving a larger group of participants, to further understand the perceived demands and strategies utilized by aging dancers.

Notes

1 This study was approved by the Conjoint Faculties Research Ethics Board and seed-funded by the Faculty of Arts and the School of Creative and Performing Arts at the University of Calgary, Alberta, Canada.

2 For the purpose of this study, ‘professional contemporary dancers’ in Canada are defined broadly as dancers who are paid the fee rates recommended by the professional organization Canadian Alliance of Dance Artists and work with the range of styles associated with contemporary dance (see Note 3).

3 Note for the dance-naïve reader: contemporary dance is different from classical dance, which in the Western world tends to be understood as ballet. Contemporary dance is typically based in a combination of modern, postmodern and conceptual dance styles, but it may also incorporate urban dance influences and intercultural elements from folk dances and indigenous dance forms. That said, contemporary dancers do often have extensive ballet training that influences their movement vocabularies.