“The show must go on!” dance talent development in the context of coping during the COVID-19 pandemic

ABSTRACT

Psychobehavioral skills are acknowledged as useful for coping within talent development pathways, but the idiosyncratic nature of challenge experienced across individuals makes it hard to evaluate their use and efficacy. This study aimed to explore the impact of a generic stressor, the COVID-19 lockdowns, on dancers within a talent development pathway. We were interested in how dancers were perceived to have coped with this challenge and what skills, if any, they used. Fifteen practitioners (11 females, 4 males; M_age = 42.3 years; M_experience = 18.4 years) were interviewed across eight Scottish performance/educational government-funded organisations. Data analysis used reflexive thematic analysis. Findings revealed important perceived impacts on physical and psychological health and wellbeing, with the majority of participants reporting surprise that some coped differently than expected. Coping well was perceived to result from taking advantage of developmental opportunities, facilitative environmental factors, and possessing key psychobehavioral characteristics. Performers who were perceived to struggle did not cope well with teaching, interpersonal, physical, and psychological factors which were exacerbated by social/environmental contexts, leading to pathway disengagement/derailment. Data suggest a need for greater and proactive integration of psychobehavioral skills within this pathway to better support those advancing to professional status and those who do not.

Lay Summary

This study explored practitioners’ perceived use and relevance of performance psychology for dancers during the COVID-19 lockdowns. Dancers were perceived to be impacted both positively and negatively, notably reporting high relevance and use toward psychological and social aspects of the experience.

Implications for Practice

• Transitional challenges need to be recognized and embedded within the dance talent development pathway

• Psychological Characteristics for Developing Excellence are yet to be formally exploited in dance practice

• A psychobehavioral curriculum should be explored in tandem with, and through, technical skills training

KEYWORDS:

• Artists
• performance arts
• psychological characteristics for developing excellence
• schools

Despite the physical, technical, and/or aesthetic qualities of skills that are admired when watching elite level performers, these alone are insufficient for long-term elite level success. In addition to physical, technical, and/or aesthetic qualities, the possession of and confidence in deploying psychobehavioral skills and attitudinal characteristics are well known to underpin the development and maintenance of success within performance domains (e.g. Collins, MacNamara, and Cruickshank 2019; Gould, Dieffenbach, and Moffett 2002; Kim, Tasker, and Shen 2020). Notably, research concerning these skills and characteristics has often not been driven by theoretical development, but instead by a pragmatic approach intended to identify and develop key factors that make a difference within specific settings. Furthermore, this type of research has been considered as central to an applied focus but also capable of informing theoretical developments for more fundamental researchers (Christina 1987). In this regard, psychobehavioral skills are so termed because they reflect a set of psychological processes that manifest in observable behavior. Attitude on the other hand refers to the degree to which a performer possesses a favorable evaluation or appraisal toward an event/behavior (e.g. Ajzen, 1991) and has been explored within the talent development (TD) context through characteristics such as grit (Duckworth et al. 2007), growth mind set (Dweck 2006), and challenge versus threat appraisals (Portenga 2018). Gaining a better picture of how these psychological processes are implemented to promote coping responses within meaningful contexts, thus, has potential to inform our understanding of both expert performance and optimal development pathways.

There are many different frameworks that have been proposed to support and explain progress through common challenges along the TD pathway. For example, the differentiated model of giftedness and talent (Gagné 1995), and the long-term athlete development model (Balyi and Hamilton 2004). However, one framework that is particularly well-established, current within sport, and that has been applied also within the performance arts (e.g. music) context is the Psychological Characteristics for Developing Excellence (PCDEs; MacNamara, Button, and Collins 2010a, 2010b). Reflecting the outcome of much research into their influence, PCDEs are an empirically-derived set of psychobehavioral skills recognized to support developmental/transitory experiences and performances of those having attained elite-level status (Collins, MacNamara, and McCarthy 2016). Across a range of different contexts and domains, however, the formalized PCDEs consist of: commitment, focus and distraction control, realistic performance evaluation, self-regulation, managing the effects of pressure, planning and organization skills, goal setting and self-reward, quality practice, controllable and effective imagery, and actively seeking and using social support. Literature stresses that these characteristics are particularly useful during periods of significant transition and challenge that require a positive coping response; experiences that are characterized by a highly negative emotional potency (e.g. performance worry; Taylor and Collins 2020). Specifically, Schlossberg (1981) defined a transition as ‘an event or non-event, which results in a change in assumptions about oneself and the world and thus requires a corresponding change in one’s behavior and relationships’ (p. 5). Indeed, it is explained that teaching, testing, and developing these characteristics can help maximize the learning and coping experience in such situations by providing a clearer and realistic sense of perspective, ability to control progress, and foster confidence in the response to any ‘trauma’ (i.e. a memorable challenge that is perceived by a performer to disrupt their development and/or performance; Collins, MacNamara, and McCarthy 2016; Savage, Collins, and Cruickshank 2022). Crucially, therefore, the proactive integration of a PCDE-curriculum alongside physical skills has been emphasized within TD environments such as sport and music (Collins, MacNamara, and Cruickshank 2019; Pecen, Collins, and MacNamara 2017). Equally, however, these skills have been identified as transferable to other domains/contexts when taught, which indicates that they are useful for those seeking elite status, those transitioning out of one pathway and onto another, and when coping with more general life stressors outside of the performance setting (Rongen et al. 2021; Williams and MacNamara 2020). Therefore, it would seem that PCDEs are good for you, whoever you are, and whatever you may want to do (Ben-Zur and Michael 2020).

Accurate investigation of these skillsets and their optimum application is difficult, especially as the variations in challenge are so diverse. Rarely across the TD pathway does a challenge present itself uniformly and synchronously for its entire population. However, the COVID-19 pandemic has inflicted significant disruption to nearly every aspect of training, practice, and performance (e.g. di Fronso et al. 2022; Hughes et al. 2020) but notably, through a single challenge. As such, this situation provides a ‘natural laboratory’ to investigate the state of performers’ abilities to cope with disruption/transition within applied settings and, therefore, the level of pathway resilience. Indeed, within the UK, one of the most significantly impacted sectors during COVID-19 has been the creative/performance industries (e.g. dance and theatre). Estimated to employ 363,700 people and worth £10.8bn a year to the UK economy (Centre for Economics and Business Research, 2019), the sector has suffered economic and social devastation as a result of social restrictions enforced by the UK government in an attempt to stop the spread of COVID-19. Reflecting the severity of impact, the UK government publicly announced that ‘musicians and others in [the] arts should retrain and find other jobs’ (Burgess 2020, para 1). In parallel, however, lockdown interventions have shown the importance of the arts and culture for peoples’ psychological well-being and health (Bradbury et al. 2021; Drake, Papazian, and Grossman 2022). It is, therefore, important to understand how COVID-19 has impacted on this TD pathway in relation to established frameworks to explain how one can make such a transition from training and performing within ‘ordinary’ to ‘extraordinary’ conditions (see Pété et al. 2022, for an example in elite sport). In short, pragmatic steps are needed to ensure that performance artists can adapt in response to any number of significant life events (Pecen, Collins, and MacNamara 2017), in a similar fashion to their response to COVID-19.

So, reflecting these concerns and the opportunity presented by a common stressor, the aim of this study was to assess the level of coping amongst dancers as perceived by key teachers/lecturers/dance masters or mistresses working in colleges and professional dance companies. As an important first step, we wanted to understand the perceived impact of the challenge created by the COVID context on dancers. Secondly, we wanted to explore mechanisms deployed amongst dancers who were perceived to have coped better than others.

Method

Research philosophy

This study was aligned with, and informed by, pragmatism and our aim to provide meaningful insights regarding experiences of TD during COVID-19 in the dance domain (Giacobbi, Poczwardowski, and Hager 2005). Indeed, pragmatism searches for effective and practical truths within specific contexts as opposed to generalizable theory for all purposes (James 1907). Pragmatism is primarily driven by the research question, the research process, and what these offer the ultimate end-user (i.e. dance organizations, practitioners, and dancers). Consequently, pragmatism is not epistemologically constrained and may utilize a range of qualitative and quantitative methodologies (Creswell 2003). Motivated to ensure the generation of useful knowledge (Giacobbi, Poczwardowski, and Hager 2005), the study employed a qualitative approach (Denzin and Lincoln 2005) to explore the perceptions of a purposeful sample of dance practitioners in Scotland (Palinkas et al. 2015). Qualitative research has its roots in phenomenology and social action (Jupp 2006) and suits work that aims to understand what people perceive, believe, and do in the world in which they operate (Strean 1998). Combining this sample with an applied focus, enabled us to tease out details pertaining to the research question. As such, data collection was approached from the interpretivist side of the epistemological continuum (Chowdhury 2014); designed to gather rich data on the subjective experiences, and practices of those supporting performers along the dance TD pathway. Importantly, we also considered ourselves as co-constructors of knowledge and all stages of this study were supported by our own professional experiences within TD pathways as both performers and practitioners (Giacobbi, Poczwardowski, and Hager 2005), as exemplified by the ‘reflexive’ approach to analyzing the data. This reflects pragmatism’s recognition that, when managed appropriately, researcher biases can support practically meaningful insights as opposed to universal truths or purely subjective constructions (Giacobbi, Poczwardowski, and Hager 2005).

Participants

Fifteen participants (n_females = 11, n_{males =} 4; M_age = 42.3 years, SD = 8.2; M_experience = 18.4 years, SD = 8.8) across eight organizations were purposively recruited due to their direct experience working within the performance arts TD pathway in Scotland. Participant eligibility criteria required participants to currently be either a teacher, lecturer, or dance master/mistress in a performance arts company, conservatoire, or college in receipt of funding from the Scottish Government, and, to have been employed by that organization for a minimum period of 4 years. This latter criterion was to ensure a meaningful amount of experience within the organization and working with students/dancers at that point on the pathway. Whilst recruitment was pragmatically constrained by time and availability, this sample represents over 60% of qualifying organizations in Scotland and as such we were confident that this would provide the information sought from a pathway perspective (Braun and Clarke 2021b). Prior to data collection, ethical approval was gained by the University’s Ethics Committee (Moray House School of Education and Sport, The University of Edinburgh; Ref. 2844) and all participants provided signed informed consent.

Procedure

Due to COVID-19 restrictions at the time, interviews were conducted online using Zoom (Zoom Video Communications, California, USA). An open-ended semi-structured interview guide (Supplement 1) was created and used to ensure coherence and a consistent level of response between interviews (Jones, Brown, and Holloway 2013). The semi-structured interview guide enabled participants to discuss their experience freely by offering a flexible conversation whereby prior topics of interest were covered, but participants could develop this in new ways that were unexpected by the researchers (Smith and Sparkes 2016). Interviews were conducted by two researchers, one with expertise and experience in dance (as a performer, teacher, and teacher educator) and one with expertise and experience in TD research. Using this co-operative approach required a shared understanding of terminology, key concepts within TD, and the dance context, which took place over a one and a half year period through continuous discussion prior to conducting the research. Notably, this approach exploited the strengths across the research team to ensure that the interview guide facilitated in depth interactions pertaining to all the relevant topics and that responses were understood in the same way by both the participant and interviewers. The interview also addressed in great detail many other aspects of the COVID-19 experience related to the organization(s); however, this study focuses only on the perceived impact on dancers. Probes and prompts were used to help participants further develop and/or clarify their answers. The interview guide was piloted with two participants matching the inclusion criteria. Following feedback on the structure and content of the interview, no adjustment was deemed necessary and their interviews were added to the main study. Reflecting the richness and depth of responses provided, interviews lasted between 65–80 min (M_duration = 75 min, SD = 8).

Data analysis

For the data analysis stage, the process continued to use a collaborative approach. Emphasizing the pragmatic nature of this study, we extended the six-stage thematic analysis process by using a ‘reflexive’ approach (Braun et al. 2018). Accordingly, in recognizing induction and deduction as a continuum rather than a dichotomy, data were transcribed and then coded using both inductive (i.e. new insights) and deductive (against TD concepts; i.e. PCDEs and support processes) approaches (Braun and Clarke 2021a), performed using qualitative data analysis software (NVivo 11; QSR International Pty Ltd.). Once again, this process was supported by the knowledge and applied experience of the two interviewers (36 years’ experience in dance performance and education and 12 years’ experience researching performance and TD). The contrast of expertise across these researchers helped to mediate biases in one particular view, with codes being considered against both contextual and literature-derived meaning. In this way, data were meaningfully analyzed through reflexive, transparent engagement, thus working towards a ‘richer more nuanced reading of the data’ (Braun and Clarke 2019, 594). In doing so, this supported our research aim by accurately reflecting the participants’ perceptions and therefore offer practical information for a practical problem (Denscombe 2007), whilst also offering sufficient background to understand and interpret their perspectives.

In practice, the two researchers conducting this analysis reflected upon the selected raw data codes and assessed these against their own literature-derived assumptions before creating a complete thematic structure. Consequently, minor adjustments were made to clarify the link between raw data code names and their intended meaning by the participants, thus, the coding process was internally scrutinized (Braun and Clarke 2019). In line with the reflexive thematic analysis explained by Braun et al. (2018), raw data codes were compiled based on similarities (lower-order themes), then hierarchically organized concepts formed higher-order themes. Following, the researchers reviewed this structure to confirm the collaboratively created structure (Braun et al. 2018).

Trustworthiness

Peer-debriefing, critical friends, thick direct quotes (Jones, Brown, and Holloway 2013), and member reflection (Smith and McGannon 2018) were the methods used to increase the trustworthiness of the current findings. Peer-debriefing was, for instance, used in order to help guide the analysis and interpretation. It occurred mainly during the analysis and mapping stages of the study (Jones, Brown, and Holloway 2013) and involved a third researcher not present during the interviewing process, to review the structure, the containing codes, and exemplar quotes. This researcher has clinical experience in psychological health and research experience within TD. During this process, the grouping of raw codes into themes, and overall interpretation of the dataset, were openly discussed, challenged, and revised until a consensus was reached. The peer-debriefing process enabled the researchers to establish, and then critically share, an understanding of the codes and themes generated (Jones, Brown, and Holloway 2013). The final codes were then reviewed by two further members of the research team acting as additional critical friends (Jones, Brown, and Holloway 2013; Smith and McGannon 2018), both with extensive experience in coaching and TD.

Member reflection is the process of sharing ideas and findings with participants, not for verification of results, but to explore the topic of interest more fully (Smith and McGannon 2018). Instead of aiming to remove contradictions in the data, as is the aim of member-checking, this process aims to highlight and understand these contradictions to inform data interpretation. Drawing upon Harvey (2015) and Smith and McGannon (2018), the findings (i.e. themes and interpretations) were shared with participants for their comments in an attempt to co-construct and broaden our understanding of the results. To ensure accurate recall, member reflection took place no more than 2 weeks post-interview with 12 available participants in the form of online meetings lasting between 5–15 min. Participants agreed with the analysis in terms of accurately representing their views, a few offered some enriching reflections in the form of discussion with the researchers. Following member-reflection, discussions between the research team continued until a final agreement on the hierarchical structure and themes was reached (Jones, Brown, and Holloway 2013).

Results

Thematic overviews are provided based on the results that are aligned to each objective, with the number of participants reporting each code shown in Table 1. These express the commonality of a response and should not be interpreted as an indicator of their significance. Indeed, as the quotes will show, even when there is a high prevalence for a theme or code, inconsistencies in response were apparent.

Table 1. Thematic structure of perceived personal responses, characteristics, and determinants.

Higher-Order Theme	Lower-Order Theme	Data Codes
Negative Impacts of COVID-19 on psychological and physical health and wellbeing (n = 15)	Psychological health impacted (n = 15)	Psychological health concerns (n = 15) Psychological challenges (n = 9)
	Physical health impacted (n = 7)	Loss of regular physical condition (n = 7) Postponed surgery (n = 1)
Staff surprised by who coped well and who did not (n = 11)	Positive surprises (n = 8)	People coping better than expected (n = 8)
	Negative surprises (n = 8)	People coping worse than expected (n = 8)
Response to COVID-19 – Coped well – characteristics (n = 15)	Developmental opportunities (n = 15)	Learning new or improving existing skills – taking advantage of the lockdown (n = 15) Learning from the first lockdown to cope with second lockdown (n = 7)
	Psychobehavioral characteristics (n = 15)	Having and using social support (n = 12) Adaptability (n = 4) Autonomy/independence (n = 4) Empathetic (being understanding, appreciative, and compassionate) (n = 3) Commitment and engagement (n = 12) Creativity (n = 1) Perseverance (n = 4) Problem-focused mindset (n = 1) Realistic expectations (n = 7) Resilience (n = 6)
	Environmental factors (n = 5)	Space availability for training and working (n = 5)
Response to COVID-19 – Did not cope well – characteristics (n = 15)	Difficulties to cope with (n = 15)	Aggravation of pre-existing difficulties (n = 9) Interpersonal challenges (n = 15) Intrapersonal challenges (n = 11) Physical health challenges (n = 5) Teaching-related changes (n = 15)
	Impact of not coping well (n = 11)	Disengagement (n = 11) Potential pathway derailment (n = 3)
	Social and environmental factors (n = 11)	Social/family situation (n = 10) Cultural differences (n = 1) Constraints in terms of training space (n = 11)

Negative impacts of COVID-19 on psychological and physical health and wellbeing

When assessing the response to COVID-19 amongst performers, participants discussed a variety of responses, as one participant exemplified in the following way:

I think I could split the students into three categories, so the first one, which fortunately is the majority of our students, is the one where they already have the appropriate mindset to cope with any sort of difficulty that comes their way. So the resilient ones … who during this whole experience have become even more resilient and also they have become even more self-confident. . . . Then the second category would be … the students are kind of in the middle, so … when they are in the studio they are quite good in terms of their mindset but when you take them away from what is comfortable they start to labour a little bit. And these are the ones who needed a bit more support and a bit of encouragement. . . . Then the third category would be the ones that are beyond help. So … they are the ones that had issues in the studio before everything started. Self-esteem issues, anxiety issues, mental health issues and then taking them from that environment it was kind of a downwards spiral and even though we tried to support them and encourage them and tell them that they are able to cope with this, they are just not able to process the situation. (Participant 14)

Overall, this higher-order theme addresses the impact on psychological and physical health, with all raising concerns about the state of psychological health and almost half describing physical health issues. Specifically, there were a variety of psychological health concerns (e.g. aggravation of pre-existing problems, apathy, increased anxiety, symptoms of depression) and challenges (e.g. perceived self-image, loss of social contact, loss of identity) raised by participants. The following quote emphasizes the issue of apathy and self-image experienced as a result of the change in lifestyle induced by the lockdown:

because they have not been able to travel, they have not been able to jump … so a dancer that hasn’t jumped for a year is not going to feel ready for the profession. Em … but it is also that self-image as well. Of going ‘I am fatter, I am not as fit, my stamina is not quite there’ and then not having the motivation of knowing exactly what to do about it … So I think that has been quite difficult for them. And their diet has changed as well. Some of them are like ‘I am just eating rubbish cause I am at home’, ‘I watch Netflix and then I go to an online class and it is just two worlds are blurred in a way that I can’t kind of cope with’. . . . Yesterday I was talking to a learner who was ‘I have lost my sense of identity as a dancer. I don’t know what kind of a dancer I am anymore’.

(Participant 6)

Another participant highlighted the challenge of having no social interaction during lockdown(s): ‘It feels like everything for some of them, has come crashing in on their heads because that opportunity to be with people, to move with people is denied to them. It is really quite shocking to watch’ (Participant 11). Similarly, the following quote reports concern for performers’ levels of anxiety that could be linked to a loss of social contact. Importantly, the participant comments on the individualized response from performers and the need to understand the new context when interpreting behaviors demonstrated in classes:

I think it just depends because we are really aware of everybody’s mental health and everybody has dealt with the situation very differently and some people’s levels of anxiety are really high. So if people aren’t able to work as hard in classes, it might be nothing to do with the fact that they can’t be bothered, it is just that they are really struggling. . . . And a lot of them aren’t allowed to socialize with each other if they are not in their bubble. And so I think all of those restrictions, and they are young people and they want to be social and I think that has been a real struggle. . . . So I think emotionally that has been quite difficult for them and has heightened anxieties, so I think we are seeing that manifest in classes sometimes. (Participant 4)

Regarding physical health, while only one participant discussed surgery postponement, just less than half of participants reported physical de-conditioning as a negative consequence of the lockdowns, constituting ‘a recipe for disaster’ (Participant 9). Consequently, some thought that this impacted negatively on technical performance:

There is no condition there. The technique has gone down the Swannee. . . . They will look unfit, out of condition, technically weak. Em … just not ready. They have already said to me they don’t feel ready to graduate. . . . So all that work that you did 3 years to get this fantastic instrument, to hone this wonderful instrument, your body … which is what is for sale in our profession … all that time spent honing, working, perfecting … its gone. Absolutely gone. It is profoundly depressing. (Participant 11)

The following two quotes reinforce this view that dancers did not feel as in-tune with their bodies:

that was part of what made it really fragile, they felt that they had lost definitely … significant loss in their physical … not so much, or to a degree their physical capabilities, you know. I get tired more easily. For example. Or I can’t jump as high. For example. It wasn’t so much that … they would say things like ‘my body is not responding’ or ‘I am not in my body’. (Participant 5)

there was quite a few comments from different people that they didn’t feel they were in their own skin. They didn’t feel like their body. It wasn’t doing what it was meant to do. It was very rusty. (Participant 15)

Staff surprised by who coped well and who did not

Irrespective of the coping response, just over half of the participants said they were surprised that some performers maintained or improved their technical skills during lockdown:

What surprised me was … maybe say about five students who improved online and really flourished … I would assume it was away from the pressure of other people in the class, so they could just work themselves. Maybe they feel that other people watch them or they feel self-conscious and there was a handful of students who really coped well in that environment and actually improved. Actually the boy that I was talking about, … he was a late starter to ballet. So he is a very talented boy, he had auditioned for jobs, he was just starting to audition when the pandemic started. But that term online … because all the work we did was very static, you couldn’t move round the room, he really improved because we were able to do basics, that being a late starter, we feel that he missed out on … funnily enough it gave him the bit that he missed and when he came back he got a job. (Participant 8)

However, this was not always the case and some also reported negative surprises:

There were a few examples of people that actually we did expect a bit more and … we were surprised that they … sort of disappeared almost. They didn’t engage with anything we were offering. Didn’t give us any feedback (Participant 1).

The following participant was pleasantly encouraged by unexpected progress of some students who, under normal in-person environments, were less proactive within a class:

it was very interesting to see who made the most progress in this online setting, and it was often the ones who were less ego centred learners. Who were more timid in the studio who … less likely to show off, because they were worried about looking silly or making a mistake or whatever, who really thrived in their own environments without people around them judging them and seemed to sort of challenge themselves more. They often felt safer and less judged by their peer group. (Participant 12)

Response to COVID-19 – coped well-characteristics

Participants discussed the perceived characteristics demonstrated by performers that apparently coped well. Specifically, these were subdivided into developmental opportunities presented, important psychobehavioral characteristics and environmental factors that underpinned coping. All participants reported that taking advantage of the time and opportunities available during lockdown(s) to learn, return to or improve existing skills was common to those that coped well. Accordingly, nearly half of the participants referred to re-addressing technique as contributing to success upon returning to the dance studio. As the following quote describes in the college context:

So one of our male students, he actually arrived in second year, so he missed a year and he was a late starter. So em … when we went into lockdown, he was in his third year but going ‘back to basics’, and I think for some of them actually, going back to basics again, that you would learn when you were a lot younger, was actually useful. I think it took the pressure off having to keep pushing for learning new steps or … you know doing really difficult things and having anyone else in the room looking at you. I think it was beneficial for some of those students just to take a moment to work on really specific things for them and for their bodies. (Participant 4)

Within the professional context, some dancers reportedly demonstrated improvements in strength and conditioning that could be undertaken during lockdown as a consequence of having the time and space to reconnect with their body. As the following participant reports a dancer explaining:

‘Prior to the lockdown everything was happening all the time and my body was never able to recover. I was never able to go home and put some effort in terms of strength and conditioning outwith of my 8 hr day because I felt I had a poor relationship with my body ‘cause my body was my tool. And when it stopped being my tool because my workload had dropped I was able then to go and do the S&C’. (Participant 9)

Nearly half of the participants thought that those who coped well demonstrated positive development between the first (March 2020) and second (December 2020) lockdown in Scotland. Of these, most felt that this was underpinned by performers being more prepared for the second lockdown, with one participant referring to a change in attitude and another citing an increase in self-confidence gained by their perceived ability to cope well in the first lockdown, as the following quote and first quote by Participant 14 suggests:

Most of them have had strategies to be able to cope with that because they’ve kind of been through it, so at least they know … ‘actually I have to get out of the house every day’ or ‘I have to … ’, ‘I have to set myself a to-do list’ … so I do think … Whilst they have emotionally felt the toll more, they’ve been able to keep up with their studies much better. . . . I just think they are better equipped. . . . I do feel like there has not been the same panic as the first lockdown. . . . And yeah, I think there has been more an attitude of steeliness and ‘like, lets get through this’. They have definitely adapted, really it is quite impressive how well and how quickly they have been able to go ‘right, this is a new situation, how are we going to deal with it?’(Participant 7)

All participants perceived psychobehavioral characteristics as being a hallmark of those that coped well, with the most common as offering benefit being commitment and engagement, having and using social support, having realistic expectations and resilience. The following quotes provide examples of some of these:

Students that email teachers and say ‘I am really struggling with this’ or ‘can you go through that’. I think those ones … faired better. Because I guess they could vocalize how they were feeling. Whether it was with faculty, whether it was with their peers, family members, friends, whatever. The students that didn’t have the emotional maturity or the conversational skills to … or the support previous to come to college, to communicate, feelings and thoughts … I could see them kind of withdrawing more into themselves. So it had a knock on effect on their training. (Participant 3)

A participant from one of the dance companies explained the need to have similar and realistic expectations such as when returning from injury in this context:

There was quite a few comments from different people that didn’t feel they were in their own skin. They didn’t feel like their body. It wasn’t doing what it was meant to do. It was very rusty. . . . We had lots of one-to-ones with everybody at this stage … You have got to completely change em … your expectations. . . . You have got to give yourself a timeline and you have got to not put too much pressure on yourself. So there has to be structure, and you have to acutely have patience that your body has been to a certain place, it can absolutely go there again, but you need to give it time and you need to give it the right tools to get there … but yes, there was quite a lot of em … impatient dancers wanting to go back to the standard that they were at before lockdown and a year of not training, you are just a bit soft. (Participant 15)

Regarding ‘resilience’, participants spoke of its importance, but without clearly defining what it actually was, as the following exemplifies:

I suppose ‘resilience’ is one word which always applies to a dance student in general. A dance student is always kind of required to have some level of resilience. Normally it is kind of … I suppose self-motivational, that kind of stuff, being able to come to college and do the kind of really hard work that they normally do physically and combine it with all the academic stuff they are supposed to do as well. But on top of that now they had to show resilience in terms of getting through a really difficult period of … you know getting out of bed in the morning, staying at home but trying to create some kind of work spare for themselves. (Participant 1)

The participants’ perceptions of the performance artists’ ability to cope well also incorporated the impact of the environment:

We have students whose fathers have converted their garages into dance studios … they have put ballet barres in the studio. They’ve put mirrors up. Some people have had terrific support from their family. Other people are struggling to even find a quiet square metre in which to participate in classes. (Participant 11)

Response to COVID-19 – did not cope well-characteristics

In contrast to reporting positive responses, and reflecting the quote by Participant 14 at the start of the Results, participants also highlighted the perceived difficulties, impact and factors associated with those performance artists that struggled to cope. Difficulties were multifaceted, including within personal, social, pedagogical and physical domains, some of which manifested as an aggravation of pre-existing difficulties. For example, the following exemplifies some of those difficulties experienced:

Lots of them stayed in their student accommodation, so they didn’t have any support whatsoever. . . . It quickly became apparent that there were different challenges with that because … we know now, we didn’t realize at the time, how much they rely on each other for learning material … because they work as a group they are not just watching you in front of them. They are also aware of what is going on around them so if they turn to face the side, during a particular movement, and they have got other students to copy then they feed off each other. If you are teaching them something and you know, you teach a movement that makes them turn in space, and suddenly they haven’t got the visual reference. (Participant 1)

The ones that didn’t do as well, in hindsight now displayed similar characteristics, similar traits and behaviors when they were injured. ’Cause when you are injured, on a much smaller scale … we try not to, but you are removed from the group. You are no longer part of the in-group, you are part of the out-group. . . . We try not to do that, we try to get them involved as much as possible in stuff but that is what happens. And those that didn’t cope as well when they have been injured, be it 2 weeks, 2 months whatever … historically … they have been challenging for my team and my department to deal with on a personal level, not on a clinical level … you know … late for appointments, disruptive … you know … traits like that that are a bit red, yellow flaggy … It is the ones with the negative traits that stick in your mind. (Participant 9)

Consequently, participants explained two potential outcomes for those performers who did not cope well. The following quotes reflect a derailment from the pathway, a disruption to their pre-COVID approach:

We’ve had students that have said ‘actually I have come back … I have tried, working in this way is not for me, I am going to withdraw and I’ll reapply at a time when I know I can be back in the studio’ and then some students have really thrived I suppose. Or certainly taken the opportunity to develop skills. . . . There are some that have really struggled with that. Or they have taken a back seat and they have seen where other students have taken the lead and they have allowed them to take the lead. And in that respect they have maybe … they have just sat back a little bit more. (Participant 7)

Engagement … they are always there. They are always there. That is that discipline, that dancers discipline kicking in. Right? You don’t miss class, you come to class. No matter how you are feeling, you come to class. Em … but … you can see the apathy and the lethargy in their movement. You can see when people are not really trying. And that is not them. I mean I look at them and I think ‘that is just now who they are’. This is … it is almost like another virus on top of the virus that they have been infected by. You know … its … I don’t recognize some of them. Some of them have … gone so far down the … you know the slippery slope, that I don’t actually know if they will get back. They have allowed themselves to get so engulfed … I say ‘allowed themselves’, I am not saying they are doing it deliberately but they are really engulfed with a kind of bleakness about their whole future, that they cannot shake themselves out of. (Participant 11)

Disengagement was also reported by participants as outcomes of those performers who did not cope well.

Yeah. I think … yeah, there has been some students that have previously been really high performing … em … that you really see as very reliable students. Students who support other students, whose mental health has really been affected by COVID. Not necessarily affected their … their perform … well I suppose it has affected their performance but because of their mental health struggles they have maybe not been able to engage in the same way. Em … not … there is still a willingness there, but they have just not been able to have that same energy I suppose. (Participant 7)

There were a few examples of people that actually we did expect a bit more and eh … we were surprised that they … sort of disappeared almost. They didn’t engage with anything we were offering. Didn’t give us any feedback. But like I say, with those people we made sure that we reached out to them to check why it was happening. That we weren’t just going ‘oh they are not interested so they are not going to get a place’. Because we knew that there could be all sorts of reasons why that was happening so … there was a good sort of exercise in feedback and checking before we made decisions. (Participant 1)

Finally, most participants commented on the influence of social and environmental factors that did not help those specific performers. Several participants reported that students were approached about ‘nuisance’ behavior when living in flats, but even when in a house there were also implications regarding the lack of space for big dance moves:

we have had complaints. One of the … one student flat in particular has been threatened with legal action because they were tap dancing in their living room and singing and they have had complaints from their neighbours. I think all of that kind of … the logistics of working from home, it just doesn’t work. . . . Students didn’t have the space in their house to be doing grand jetes across the floor and triple pirouettes around their living room. It just didn’t work. (Participant 2)

The following two quotes refer to challenges of training at home, both with respect to space demands and other family priorities:

we never used to train at home, we train in the studio, the right temperature, the right floor and a fantastic guest teacher from Norway just to teach for an hour and a half. Suddenly all of that wasn’t available. We were having to dance in our own bedrooms, living rooms, with carpet, with whatever … you know objects around. With a teacher that is on a screen. (Participant 5)

People have got family members that might not be well or people that they live with that are vulnerable or they are worried about somebody at home and they are far away. (Participant 4)

Discussion

The purpose of this study was to assess the likely maintenance, development or transition-out of a pathway (or enhanced performance within it) through the lens of the PCDEs and their environmental derivatives. Specifically, we sought the views of key teachers/lecturers/dance masters or mistresses working at colleges and professional dance companies to understand the perceived nature of performers’ responses, characteristics and determinants against a specific and ubiquitous challenge, the COVID pandemic.

First of all, there was a clear acknowledgement that psychological factors impacted on the volume and quality of proactive coping and engagement in performers. This is consistent with other forms of transition within the literature, and that the specific PCDEs are age and stage specific. In this case, it was reported that having and using social support, commitment and engagement, realistic expectations, resilience and autonomy/independence were particularly important to coping well during COVID-19.

With regard to the specific behaviors reported, it is worth considering the extent to which these were specific PCDEs or the outcome consequences of their use (Collins, MacNamara, and Cruickshank 2019). In short, the PCDEs as a ‘hand of cards’ can be used to achieve various outcome goals, of which resilient behavior is one. As Collins et al. suggest, this is an important factor so that performers may be proactively equipped to handle a wide variety of challenges, rather than retroactively assisted to learn from one particular incident. Of course, in the present study we examined perceived coping behavior around one specific issue which represented a challenge for all. It should be noted, however, that this is an (fortunately) extremely rare occurrence and developing performers will usually face a wide variety of challenges with differential impacts.

This distinction notwithstanding, literature tells us that it is what a person brings to a transition that will predict their ability to grow from it (Savage, Collins, and Cruickshank 2017, 2022; Taylor and Collins 2020) rather than just how they might benefit from post hoc debriefs and reflection. In this regard, negative experiences are often more powerful in generating change. They drive performers to actively reflect on change whilst also offering strong motivation to do so. This seems to have been the perception of our participants towards many of their students. Interestingly, despite recognising many of the PCDEs as being influential, most participants reported being surprised by some performers’ ability to cope. This suggests that these participants were perhaps not aware of the psychobehavioral skills that should have been indicators in the first place. In simple terms, the methods work but seem to have been acquired informally from life experiences, parents and others rather than developed as part of the pathway. This is not surprising since Pecen, Collins, and MacNamara (2017) found that PCDEs were not taught within the music context (conservatoire setting) to help equip musicians with skills to deal with future transition, even though the skills were reported as useful by these performers. Importantly, however, and as per the work of Savage and colleagues, these skills seem to have been already established.

Clearly there is a need to consider the wider social environment beyond the organisation for these dancers, as well as what they might have developed personally. COVID or otherwise, participants recognized that support or demands from family and/or friends play a part in progression. We hope that the ‘pleasantly surprising positives’ of some students will have convinced our teacher participants that a more formal development of PCDEs may prove a useful addition to the pathway curricula. There is certainly an increasing evidence base for these skills in parallel performance settings (i.e. music), whether taught formally (e.g. MacNamara, Holmes, and Collins 2006) or acquired from experience and social support (e.g. Kamin, Richards, and Collins 2007). MacNamara, Holmes, and Collins (2006) extended previous work by looking at how skillsets such as the PCDEs might be developed through academy-like (vocational) settings. Interestingly, Kamin, Richards, and Collins (2007) showed how a parallel set of skills were developed completely informally, based on experience and reflection in an entirely unstructured popular music setting. In short, there is a growing evidence base for the utility of PCDE-like skillsets, together with examples of different ways in which these can be acquired.

So, however they are developed, our study has provided further evidence for the applicability of psychobehavioral skills, such as the PCDEs, in supporting developing performers cope with a variety of pressures; in this case, the worldwide pandemic of COVID. Our future research will look to provide further evidence for this utility in coping with the more diverse challenges which dancers will encounter on their pathway. Specifically, with a focus on the contribution made to both dance-specific and wider life challenges.

Despite the value that these findings offer, there are several limitations that need to be acknowledged. Firstly, is the extent to which participants are able to assess and express the experiences of the dancers. However, we specifically recruited participants that would be able to comment on the experiences of dancers due to their role within the organization. Specifically, either because they normally have day-to-day contact as a member of support staff within the professional context and/or because the dancers engaged within a learning and development process. Secondly, data collection relied on retrospective recall that has been recognized as a limitation across many talent development research studies (Taylor, Carson, and Collins 2018). In this instance, however, it was important for participants to be able to reflect on the developments over a longitudinal period that could not be foreseen (i.e. the number and timing of lockdowns). Data were collected under national COVID restrictions and within 1 month of the second national lockdown being lifted. As such, this represents a realistically close opportunity for participants to reflect and realize any meaningful contrasts.

Conclusion

At present, assessment of the TD pathway through COVID-19 within the Scottish dance sector would suggest that provision for dancers to either successfully transition up or out of the pathway is yet to be firmly established. Importantly, the use of PCDEs are yet to be exploited in practice. Despite this, there is unanimous awareness that psychological factors play a key part in the challenges presented to dancers, but the concerns raised in this study need further understanding in order to support practitioners to develop their approaches both within and outwith the dance setting to enhance their outcomes, whether that be performance-based or when transferring out.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Data availability statement

Due to the nature of this research, participants of this study did not agree for their data to be shared publicly, so supporting data is not available. https://doi.org/10.7488/1bb0aafc-97c2-4ffa-bf20-ba06b1772ab8

Supplemental data

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed online at https://doi.org/10.1080/14647893.2023.2199199.

Additional information

Funding

Funded by the Data-Driven Innovation Initiative as part of their ‘Building Back Better’ open funding call supported by the Scottish Funding Council, to help transform the Edinburgh and South East Scotland City Region into the data capital of Europe. Also with support of The University of Edinburgh's Regional Skills Program.

Notes on contributors

Howie J. Carson

Dr Howie J. Carson is a Lecturer in Motor Learning and Control and leads the Human Performance Science Research Group at The University of Edinburgh. Across a range of applied topics, including, skill acquisition/refinement, coach decision-making, motor control and talent development, he has published over 50 articles/book chapters. Professionally, Howie is a BASES Accredited Interdisciplinary Sport and Exercise Scientist, Chartered Scientist and PGA Professional golf coach (Fellowship status). Reflecting these roles, he has worked with performers/organisations across a variety of contexts.

Wendy M. Timmons

Dr Wendy M. Timmons With 40 years of dance practice and several nominations as a dance educator, Dr Timmons is a Lecturer in Dance Science & Education, University of Edinburgh. She directs the MSc in Dance Science and Education programme and supervises PhD students in this area. Wendy publishes and presents her research internationally; her interests focus on applying scientific and pedagogical approaches to dance practice. This includes ‘health and dance’ and in particular joint hypermobility in dance from a biopsychosocial perspective. Wendy is the convenor for the Traditional Dance Forum Scotland and health and wellbeing trustee for Dance Base, national centre for dance in Scotland.

Florence Lebrun

Dr Florence Lebrun's research interests include mental health, elite performers and talent development. As a practitioner, she has a theoretical and practical background in clinical psychology as well as an awareness of the performance psychology context. Professionally, she has worked with individuals and performers across a variety of domains and contexts and is a chartered member of the British Psychological Society.

Christine Nash

Dr Christine Nash currently leads the Applied Coaching Research Group at the University of Edinburgh, researching in coaching expertise and has over 100 peer-reviewed publications, book chapters and conference presentations. She has worked within a number of Higher Education institutions worldwide, most recently as a Visiting Professor at Technische Universität München (TUM), Germany. She has worked in multiple countries as a coach within the sport of swimming.

Dave Collins

Prof Dave Collins As an academic, Prof Collins has over 450 peer review publications and 90 books/chapters, including a book on performance psychology for dancers. As a practitioner, he has worked with over 80 World or Olympic medallists plus professional teams and performers. This has also encompassed work with dance companies and individual performers. Dave has coached to national level in three sports, is a 5th Dan Karate, Fellow of the Society of Martial Arts and BASES, Associate Fellow of the BPS and an ex Royal Marine.