Pedagogy   [back to the Category]

What Is Kinesiologically Wrong Yet Kinesthetically Right In Dance Training?   [read the french version]

Author :   Pamela Geber

Introduction: Student dancers integrate information from a variety of sources in order to improve their technique. Sources include internal proprioceptive sensations, visual cues and directions or feedback from teachers. Teachers’ directions and feedback are often given in the form of images that the teacher has found to be effective in producing technical accuracy. These images may be kinesiologically/anatomically incorrect even though they are kinesthetically correct. It is not unusual for student dancers who attend university programs to have studied dance science more intensively than their technique teachers. Teachers depend on their own kinesthetic sensation of accurate technique to design learning opportunities and give directions and feedback on student performance. The danger is such that if the image is kinesiologically/anatomically wrong, a student may prematurely disregard the entire image.

Example #1: Biomechanically in a battement to the front, the hip flexors concentrically contract, yet a dancer who focuses on the action of the hip flexion may “hike” the gesturing leg’s hip. This occurs because muscles pull equally on both ends. Dancers need to stabilize the front rim of the pelvis, contracting the psoas minor and possibly the pyramidalis and rectus abdominus, allowing the power of the hip flexors to translate into the moving lever. Additionally, the hip extensors need to stretch and teachers who understand this kinesthetically describe battement coming from the back of the leg. When one stabilizes the front rim of the pelvis, the sensation of a correct battement involves a feeling of “downward and through” on the posterior side of the gesturing leg.

Example #2: In the performance of a passe, the hip flexors of the gesture leg concentrically contract along with the hip’s external rotators which assist in opening the knee to the side. Traditionally, the more a dancer’s knee can open to the side, the better. Student dancers who focus on getting their knee further out to the side often hike the gesture leg’s hip. Teachers who understand the feeling of passe without hiking the gesture leg’s hip might describe an “open passe” as one which is felt as a width across the sacrum. With this directive, the spinal extensors and the quadratus lumborum (on the same side of the gesture leg) which may all be contracting and “hiking” the hip, can lengthen. An “open passe” felt across the sacrum along with stabilization of the front rim of the pelvis allows for effective hip flexion and efficient usage of the deep six rotators. Ultimately this directive, applied to the posterior side of the body, gives the illusion of opening the knee laterally to the side.

Example #3: Traditionally when performing movements of the lower limbs, the pelvis should be somewhat stable, promoting more effective articulations at the hip joint. Teachers often talk about this as “core stability.” Kinesiologically, it is the spinal extensors rather than the spinal flexors that contract isometrically in order to keep dancers upright. Kinesthetically however, many teachers understand and talk about “pulling up” in the front of the body while releasing down in the back. This directive is one component of core stability from which easeful hip action radiates. Some teachers may describe “pulling up” in a more three-dimensional way such that it is more of a “pulling up and back.” In terms of stabilizing the front rim of the pelvis, the path of action for this new directive goes from the pubic bone up and back to the front of the lumbar vertebrae, essentially in the same line as the psoas minor. For the rest of the body’s core, the other paths of action go from the zyphoid process up and back to the front of the thoracic vertebrae and from the manubrium of the sternum up and back to the occipital bone of the skull. Kinesthetically, these directives help dancers find dynamic core stability without excess tension.

Example #4: In a port de bras in which the traditional expression of this design asks dancers to elevate the elbow somewhat without elevating the shoulders, there is a long, sloping line in the arms. Kinesthetically, this design feels open across the sternum and chest and in response that sensation, the shoulder joint seems to be externally rotating. Kinesiologically however, the shoulder joint internally rotates in order to elevate the elbow. The radio-ulnar joint supinates, bringing the palm of the hand to face anteriorly and thus, there is a two-way twist in the arm which promotes this long, sloping line.

Conclusion: Dancers are both athletes and artists and their bodies’ expressive clarity relies upon a blending of both quantifiable and qualitative findings. If the directive given is both anatomically correct and kinesthetically clear, will student dancers achieve the ideal more effectively and with less effort? It seems increasingly important therefore, to continue bridging the gap between kinesiological and kinesthetic truths.

This is an abstract from the Helsinki Symposium ( 3-4 June 2001). All rights reserved by the authors.