Thoughts on injured dancers in Schools

Something that I remember from when I was in training was that when a dancer was injured, yes they did get support from the physio and the option to use the gym and remedial facilities within the building however there was no regard to their psychological well being. Injured dancers would be required to watch all dance classes (unless excused with a physio appointment or rehabilitation classes). I understand this can be very educational and can keep them up to date with what their classmates are learning but often long days having to sit and watch daily classes left the injured dancer feeling sidelined, bored and dejected. I think this came about due to a lack of understanding for the psychological well being of injured dancers.

Although it is good for the dancer to watch things and learn from their peers I think that classes like daily technique class is not so vital. Often it can be very repetitive (some teachers may teach the same class for up to a week to help dancers feel an improvement every day they do it) and I think watching all your peers up and doing a full day of dancing will make the injured dancer want to dance or cause them to feel depressed that they are unable to. This can lead to dancers pushing through their injury before it has fully recovered or even if they have experienced it before it can prevent someone reporting an injury because they do not want to be taken off dance be the physiotherapist.

This shows that people do not really know how to support an injured dancer and people seem to not know what to do with them so they just make them watch classes. Personally I think there should be other things set up for injured dancers for example, maybe they could spend some time in the costume department or technical department. This would allow the dancer to learn abouts new things that interest them and are still related to dance, it would also keep their minds off their injury and the fact they are currently unable to dance. In my inquiry I want to study this and find ways that dancers can do this for themselves in order to help themselves feel psychologically better.