Journaling...(10th of September 2022)

Dance Injury Management 

Coming back from holidays, one realizes that many dancers didn't train...(in a way rightfully...holidays shouldn't be about work...) but the risk of injuries is high...

What to do about that?

Despite what they think, and tell one another, dancers don't really feel comfortable sharing their predicament with their teachers and directors...

As a result of this, teachers and directors navigate the studio virtually 'blind'...

For fear, guilt, or embarrassment, dancers don't share if they are struggling with something...so basically, all minor and major injuries are hidden. 

Little tears start to happen. Doctor visits are hidden, and there is an unspoken fear, amongst dancers, that if they talk, they'll be left behind...

The weirdest thing is that I've also seen directors do the same thing...hiding their injuries from their dancers...

The same with teachers...

It seems that, no matter the point of the ladder you are at, you are not truly free of pain culture. 

Company doctors could probably say a lot about that...

Do dancers trust company doctors? Or are they scared that if they speak they could get fired?

I know a dancer that hid a herniated disk for four years... They were afraid not only to get fired but also to never get a job again.

They danced silently until the day they struggled to get out of bed.

They eventually had to come out and take care of themselves.

They fully recovered, did not get fired, were given a lead role, and two years later moved to another company without any problem.

Luckily pain culture, and the fear it carries along, did not lead to tragic events in their case...but unfortunately, not all dancers can say the same...

My personal fear of being fired led me to not trust the company doctor...

I know now that my fear was unfounded...but pain culture was there, hindering my recovery journey.

I didn't talk to them, dancers often do not talk to who could actually help... 

A rhetorical question I keep hearing from dancers is: "If they (directors) were once dancers, and knew what dancers were going through...how come the minute they become directors they just don't seem to know what to do?"

I heard more than a dancer say that they could probably run a company better than most directors do...

Why?

It never really stood out to me before, but I now realize that dancers talk a lot to one another, but not to their directors...

I don't think that the fact that dancers believe they could run a company better than their directors do is based on the fact that they actually do have a better skill set... 

I think this belief is probably based on the fact that at the moment they are making that statement, they know better than their directors what is actually going on in their company, hence, they could possibly make more informed decisions...

Teachers and directors should not shy away from feedback...and dancers should not shy away from talking...

Together, through communication, we could probably give dance companies a better shot at being run in the most informed way possible.