Look Before You Leap

INTRODUCTION

Pulling Back the Curtain on the Dance Industry

Guiding your child to their greatest success in dance relies on your vigilant research to gain accurate knowledge and information. Whether your child learns dancing as a recreational hobby or hopes to become a professional dancer, here you will find the steps that will help you guide your child on a successful, happy and safe dance journey.

You child may be on the pathway to success—or just on the goat track out to the back paddock!

You may think your child is already receiving the best, and the safest, dance training—but, armed with greater knowledge, you may need to think again.

The Upside and the Downside

Dance is an absolutely wonderful hobby for children of all ages. On the upside, they can gain enjoyment moving to music, improve fitness, make friends, experience performing onstage, and many other benefits. Parents who send their children to dance lessons must be applauded for giving them the gift of dance. They do so in good faith and trust in the studio owners and teachers. However, there is a downside. Dance training can be astonishingly damaging.

It has never been more important for parents to become as informed as they possibly can to avoid this damage.

How you guide your children in dance can make or break them.

You will be shocked to know that hidden behind an attractively alluring curtain is a world-wide epidemic of overstretching, overtraining, dangerous teaching methods, and unqualified, inexperienced teachers. This epidemic, together with the global sexualisation of young dancers, is causing damage to dance students.

It’s time to shine the spotlight on the problems in today’s world of dance tuition.

Numerous articles in dance magazines and media around the world written by dance professionals and dance medicine/science experts over recent years draw attention to these problems. One of ballet’s biggest stars—Diana Vishneva—has warned that the development of young ballerinas is being jeopardised by viral videos of hyper-elastic dancers performing incredible tricks.

Young ballet stars being ruined by Instagram, says Russian prima ballerina Diana Vishneva

Often I see young dancers more interested in their phones than what is going on in rehearsals, said the star of the Mariinsky Ballet in Saint Petersburg, the birthplace of Tchaikovsky’s The Nutcracker and The Sleeping Beauty.

[…]

They see the surface, the great bodies, but they don’t realise the work behind that, said the former star pupil of the legendary Vaganova Academy, the school that produced Nijinsky, Nureyev, Anna Pavlova and Natalia Makarova.

[…]

They don’t know about timing or have a sense of movement. It has to happen right away. They want everything now.

(The Telegraph,1 October 2018)

ABC journalists Lesley Robinson and Sarah Whyte posted this article on ABC News:

Dancers injured copying overstretching exercises from social media

Young dancers are being injured copying extreme overstretching exercises they have seen online, a trend that medical professionals say could ruin their careers.

Images of dancers overstretching their legs and hips have flooded Instagram and YouTube, in positions called the scorpion and over split leg mount, which forces the leg behind the head.

Dance physiotherapist Lisa Howell urged dancers not to copy pictures and videos shared online, after seeing a spike in hip and back injuries in dancers aged 11 to 14.

She said children were pushing their bodies beyond their physical limits.

Now we’re seeing labral tears (tear in hip joint) and issues in their back in 11 and 12-year-olds, which is very disconcerting because while they’re doing these moves to make themselves better dancers, they are often actually ruling themselves out of a professional career because they are getting injuries so young, Ms Howell said.

The trend has meant inexperienced dancers are trying to imitate complicated gymnastic moves performed by highly trained gymnasts.

‘The biggest issue we have now is that people are taking moves from rhythmic gymnasts and trying to insert them into dance and trying to do this in a very, very quick way as a one stop shop, rather than looking at all of the detailed training that has to go in before any of those tricks are actually attempted,’ she said. […]

The risk of injury is also growing as the popularity of dance surges. […]

Dancers sharing the images are often from the United States and Australia and have hundreds of thousands of followers online.

Young dancers are also publishing ‘how to’ videos on YouTube, showing how to do advanced gymnastics stretching.

Marko Panzic, who runs the prestigious Dream Dance Company, said the social media trend was leading towards a ‘dangerous side of dance’.

‘It just makes me go ouch,’ he said.

‘It’s not something that I look at and go, Wow, that’s amazing’.

Two promising Australian dancers have spoken out against the growing trend, saying their injuries could have been avoided if they did not push themselves into such extreme positions.

‘Those pictures on Instagram, they physically make me ill because I know that that’s not what your body should be able to do,’ 18-year-old Aaron Matheson said.

Aaron was practicing a scorpion, or a back mount, at home when he first injured himself seven years ago.

‘I just kept trying every day I got home after dancing and eventually I finally got it, but I also felt my back twinge when I did it and I just had to collapse to the ground and just wait until the pain was gone,’ Aaron said.

He is now being treated for a stress fracture.

Charlotte Connors, 17, from Newcastle, injured herself trying to copy a YouTube video at home. […]

Both dancers wish they had known what kind of long-term damage could be ahead of them, before attempting extreme overstretching.

‘It can either make you or break you as a dancer,’ Aaron said.

‘If you’re going to push yourself so far while you’re young, you’re not going to have a future when you’re older.

‘And kids need to learn that now, sooner than later.’

‘If you feel pain stop, because the pain is the brain’s message; please stop what you’re doing because it’s wrong,’ she said.

(12 October 2015, updated 22 January 2016)

Safeguarding your child against the unethical, dangerous training methods that are causing physical damage to students worldwide nowadays means your child will not be subjected to physical injury and psychological abuse. Without information and guidance at your fingertips, the job of finding a safe dance studio that employs genuinely qualified and trained teachers is like finding a needle in a haystack. Your child deserves more than just ‘potluck’.

Children enrolled in dance classes should be learning to dance—not to be contortionists.

Alarm bells ring when we read articles like this:

Making all the wrong moves? Australia’s dance industry under scrutiny:

Dance is among the most popular activities for young Australians, but is their wellbeing in danger?

[…] ‘tricks’ from an increasingly Americanised dance scene, which borrows heavily from pageant culture and advanced gymnastics, and is fuelled by television shows Dance Moms and So You Think You Can Dance, have prompted dance medicine experts to warn of high injury risks.

‘I know kids who are pushing and pushing every day to hyperextend,’ Tina says. Training for hyperextension can involve a young dancer doing the splits on the floor with her feet lifted on brick-sized blocks. ‘How will this affect her when she is 30 or carrying a baby?’

Paul Malek, a prominent dance school owner in Melbourne, worked as a choreographer on So You Think You Can Dance Australia and says young girls are ‘training like 18- to 20-year-old gymnasts, risking injury to their hips and lower spine and risking not being able to walk when they are 30 […]’

(Chris Johnston, Sydney Morning Herald, 8 July 2015)

It’s unbelievable that in this day and age, with so much scientific/ medical knowledge in dance and exercise science, that there are teachers who are teaching dangerous stretching to young dance students.

With over forty years’ experience as a dance professional, I have seen dance from many angles—as a dance teacher, adjudicator, professional dancer/performer in many genres, choreographer, director, mentor, student and parent of a professional ballet dancer. Together with fellow dance professionals I have been increasingly concerned, and sometimes shocked and horrified, over the way in which many vulnerable parents and their children are being misled, injured and exploited as dance studios and various competitions and conventions profit. I am not a professor or an academic. I don’t hold myself up on a pedestal professing to know everything about dance. I don’t. But I’ve been ‘boots on the ground’ in dance tuition, performing, teaching, adjudicating etc., since the age of sixteen. I have written this book as a guide for all dance parents and students, out of a sense of responsibility and to urge you all to become better informed about the dance world and what you are subjecting your children to. Together with my colleagues and dance experts, I want you to be able to find the best teachers and the best (which also means the safest) studios for your children.

Confused and sometimes distraught parents by the dozens have contacted me searching for advice and answers. I have written this book to address the problems facing dance parents and students today, bringing together information from many sources and from my own extensive experience, in an endeavour to provide some guidance for parents, who are often sailing through the rough seas of the dance world without a compass.

After reading this book you will be armed with the knowledge to lead your child’s greatest opportunities for success. Knowing what to look for and what to look out for, you and particularly your child will be less likely to fall prey to unsatisfactory situations. You will be able to carefully guide your child’s dance education journey, whether they enjoy recreational classes or aspire to a professional dance career.

The worldwide dance industry is huge with a massive and growing number of privately-run performing arts studios that offer almost every dance style. This book is not about the highly esteemed establishments, which are often attached to ballet or dance companies (or the schools that feed into them). It’s not about any particular type of studio or training. It is about the worldwide global issues in the dance industry that are affecting children who learn dancing (and their families)—many of whom, I’m afraid, are being led up the garden path and ripped off.

CHAPTER 1

Problem One – Anyone Can Open a Dance Studio and Teach Dancing

Alarmingly, anyone can open a dance studio and teach dancing, without a licence or qualification or registration. The dance industry is not regulated. There is no regulator. Experts agree that dance is probably the largest unregulated industry involving children.

Dance teachers and dance studio owners do not have to answer to a governing body, or licensing organisation. If a studio is doing the wrong thing, there is nowhere for parents to make a complaint. No one is held accountable.

You will be surprised to know there is no ‘consumer watchdog’ for the booming dance industry.

No mandatory qualifications are required. No one needs a licence to teach dance or to set up a dance studio. Dance studios operate in isolation and there are no national or international standards. Attempts by several organisations to create governing bodies for dance over the years have all been unsuccessful.

In Australia there are organisations such as Ausdance. New Zealand has DANZ. In the UK there is One Dance UK, and in the USA there is the National Dance Education Organization (NDEO). Such organisations as these provide online resources for teachers, parents and studios, but they have no licensing, governing authority or regulatory power over dance teachers or studios. Many parents are not even aware of these organisations. It would be helpful if dance studios included information about them on their websites.

Teachers do not need qualifications or experience to teach dance. There are no certificates required and no standardised procedures that need to be followed. ‘Joe Bloggs’, the plumber from down the road, could open a dance studio if he wanted to. He could also teach dance!

Almost all industries are regulated, except dance.

In netball all coaches are accredited and registered with their state and national governing bodies. All calisthenics clubs are registered with a state body. Gymnastics Australia coaches must be accredited and registered. The fitness industry is regulated, as is after-school care. Tertiary institutions offer degree courses and certificates for those wishing to teach in the public sector (high schools and colleges), but no courses or certificates are required for private studios. There appear to be many unqualified, inexperienced teachers operating and much damage can be done to young dance students if these unqualified teachers are not supervised by fully qualified teachers.

As you read on you will realise why it’s so important that you find teachers who teach an international or nationally recognised syllabus, as this will ensure that they are qualified and certified and registered in that particular syllabus.

The only requirement is that all staff and visiting teachers who work in a dance studio must have a Blue Card (working with children clearance), as does anyone at all coming into the studio to do maintenance and repairs etc. However, these are not enforced and often not checked.

We all know that, as in any field, there are good businesses, bad businesses, and everything in between. Dance is no exception.

Dance is big business and the big question is: Do some studios/ teachers place more importance on profits than they do on the overall care and wellbeing of the students? In my experience, the answer is an unequivocal yes.

You would be amazed to find that more children are learning to dance now than ever before, which is great news, especially for dance studio owners. There are around 6,000 dance studios in Australia, and around 53,000 in the USA.

According to the Bureau of Statistics, dance is the second most popular activity for young people, after swimming, with more than half a million children and young people taking part in some sort of dance education in Australia.

This number is increasing by tens of thousands each year and swells with the inclusion of children under five years of age and over fourteen years of age. In the USA, the Dance Studies Industry has experienced growth of 3.5 per cent over the five years to 2018 with revenue of up to US$3.6 billion (source www.ibisworld.com).

Until quite recently, dance teachers never expected to really ‘make’ any money from teaching and were lucky to make ends meet. They taught because they loved the art of dance and loved helping children learn. Now it’s big business, with large-scale studios sometimes seeming to be super-focused on profits.

Dance tuition and competitions appear to be getting quite a tarnished reputation in the community nowadays.

Look before You Leap—or Gamble on a Blind Leap of Faith?

As parents we drop our children off at dance classes and we like to think that all is well, but we must ask these questions:

•Do I really know what’s going on in my child’s dance classes?

•Is my child being taught properly and safely?

•Who is teaching my child and are they qualified?

There are top-quality dance studios that offer highly qualified, extremely knowledgeable, dedicated, genuinely professional and experienced teachers. There is also the opposite. Unqualified, unknowledgeable, unprofessional people may appear to be qualified and professional to naïve parents who may