Research Continued

I have been researching different types of support there is for dancers who are struggling mentally with the pressures of the Industry, the thing that keeps popping up is how dancing is a great form of therapy. I find it ironic that this keeps popping up when I am searching for different therapies for dancers, who have a great deal of stress and self doubt from the dancing industry. This made me question is it the pressure of dancing that causes the problems or is it mainly the pressures the Industry or both? I have found this piece of literature below, it tries to answer the question, ‘does dancing change a person’s self-esteem?’ 


Understanding Dancers  Performance psychology
Richard Butler’s Sports Psychology in Action (1996) or Taylor and Taylor’s Psychology of Dance (1995)

Does dancing change a person’s self-esteem? I think dancing had a positive effect on my self-esteem. It made me feel confident, I was reasonably good at it when I was younger and I defined myself as a “dancer”, I was proud of that. When I talk about dance and self-esteem people always say the same, that dancing increased their sense of self-worth. But the scientific literature tells us a different story. Some of the scientific studies have found no evidence that dancing increases a person’s self-esteem and other studies have concluded that dancing can actually have a negative impact a person’s self esteem. The jury is, therefore, still out. We are undertaking a very large study into the relationship between dance and self-esteem in people of all ages and across all dance styles. 


I have found this very interesting and is definitely something to think about when carrying out my inquiry. Considering scientific evidence and looking more into the psychology views of pressures of the industry. A lot of dancers feel that when they are dancing it is their 'safe place' and boost there self-esteem after they have done a good performance, but it seems we have to injure a lot of self doubt and pressure to get to this point. 


 On March 9th 2014 I came across this really interesting article online,  'Teenage dancers endure pressure from all angles'  the link is below:

http://www.shsoutherner.net/a-e/2011/12/01/teenage-dancers-endure-pressure-from-all-angles/  

This article made me realise that for my inquiry to be successful when talking about in what ways do  professional performers/dancers cope with the pressures, as well as highlighting and discovering what the pressures are i need to look at where the pressures have come from. This article highlights that the main pressures can come from: 

• Instructors 

• Parents

• Friends/Peers 

• Self Pressure 

Self pressure seems to be the most dangerous, however you could argue that self pressure is created because of all the pressure that has been put on you by others.
This article again is very interesting as it points out the issues and the pressures, but it does not say how the dancers cope or what support or help there is out there for dancers with psychology issues triggered from the pressures of the professional dancing world. This makes me even more passionate about my inquiry in researching ways to help dancers become away of the support there is for them.


"Ballet is, as Hartnett puts it, “trying to succeed,” and part of succeeding is earning respect and reward from their instructors for losing weight. “Teachers will reward them for a while, but then when they see that they’re really sick, they have to stop,” explains Hartnett." 


This section of the article stood out to me as i do feel that Instructors do need to be careful when the teach as students all interpret things differently and continuous 'one off 'comments could trigger self doubt and lead to problems such as eating disorders. From my own personal experience i know that some teachers of dance do reward people for loosing a bit of weight or only pick the 'smallest' girls to be in the show numbers. This does make me question, 'is this necessary/fair' and what support is then given to the girls who are not picked? Are they told why this is the case or are they left wondering, 'it's because i'm not small enough' 'maybe i need to loose some weight' this then can become dangerous if the necessary support is not given. As dancers could begin to over think and this just becomes an added pressure.

Below is a section from a very interesting article, ' Behind the Curtain: The Body, Control and Ballet' http://www.siue.edu/sociology/EJS/v32kelso.htm

One director told one of his dancers to “drop the weight in three weeks. I don’t care how you do it”(Benn & Walters, 2001, p.145).  When she did in fact drop the weight by basically not eating, she was rewarded with a role in the performance that the company was rehearsing.  Dancers learn at an early age that rewards and punishments are based upon weight.  If a dancer loses weight, she is praised and rewarded with a role in a ballet.  If she does not, she is punished by not being cast at all (Gordon, 1983). 

Although this article is just from a Ballet point of view and i want to have a more generally performers overview for my Inquiry, I think this sums up this blog post that its is not only the pressure that you put on yourself that is dangerous, the pressures of others is equally as bad.

There needs to be more coping solutions for when this pressure gets too much.