Introducing Helsinki as the next IADMS host city in October 2018!

Author: Jarmo Ahonen, DHF - IADMS 2018 Host Committee Member 

This blog is to give you some insight on Finland as a country and Helsinki as the capital. Join us in Helsinki for IADMS Annual Conference. REGISTRATION IS NOW OPEN! Register at www.iadms.org/2018 

I stand corrected! From correction to constructive feedback

Author: Karine Rathle on behalf of the IADMS Dance Educators' Committee 

Feedback is a process used by teachers, rehearsal directors and choreographers to provide information and guide dancers in skill acquisition, technique and movement quality. It is a powerful and necessary tool. Typically, teachers and choreographers have their own individual style of providing feedback. Their approach may come from their experience as dancers, their previous teachers and training, or their ingrained habits from working in dance.

Optimal Focus – from research to dance practice

Author: Clare Guss-West on behalf of the IADMS Dance Educators' Committee 

This blog post provides a brief introduction to attentional focus and its potential impact on dance training and performance. Attentional focus study is relatively new to dance, whereas the research is now integrated into elite sports coaching – notably football, skiing, golf and swimming. Companies such as The Royal Ballet, Houston Ballet, and Finnish National Ballet are becoming aware of the benefits of these complementary techniques and we have started to introduce them into the dancers’ professional practice.

Measuring Creativity

Author: Lucie Clements on behalf of the IADMS Dance Educators' Committee 

‘Creativity’ is a word used worldwide by dance institutions in their mission statements, aims and student feedback, and yet it is relatively unexplored within dance science from a quantitative perspective. Much research within dance psychology has focussed on the role of psychological wellbeing in relation to optimal technique in class, rehearsal or performance, but are dance scientists perhaps neglecting the dancer as a creative artist?

IADMS Seeks Nominations for the 2018 Dance Educators’ Award

The Dance Educators’ Committee of IADMS seeks to recognize teachers who integrate principles of dance science in their teaching and is seeking nominations for the 2018 IADMS Dance Educators’ Award from around the world. 

5 Questions With... Jill Descoteaux

Author: IADMS Student Committee 

Student representative Jill Descoteaux tells us a bit about herself and her role in IADMS. Jill was previously a member of the IADMS student committee and is currently a doctoral candidate in the Interdisciplinary Program at Ohio University, combining professional counseling with athletic training. 

Can creativity be measured? A Duel

This post derives from a duel held at the symposium for the In the Dancers’ Mind project at Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance on December 7, 2017. Here, speakers Dr Kerry Chappell and Professor Jon May, recreate their discussion with the aim of provoking your thoughts. Tell us what you think in the comments below or on social media. Can and should creativity in dance be measured?

Mental Imagery and Creativity

Authors: Klara Łucznik and Rebecca Weber on behalf of the IADMS Dance Educators' Committee 

Just like dancers practice physical skills in their technique classes, so too can we practice mental skills. Though we often think of imagery as creating a ‘picture’ in our mind’s eye, imagery is the ability to create mental constructions of any sort--including visual imagery, sounds, movement, emotional content, spatial concepts, or language. These constructions are all forms of mental imagery...

Imagery, Research, and Practice

Author: Katie Pavlik on behalf of the IADMS Dance Educators’ Commitee 

We start our new year with a series of posts by leading experts in the world of dance imagery and creativity. This first post by Katie Pavlik introduces simple and immediately usable ways for us to embed the use of imagery in our classes from both teaching and dancing perspectives, a great way to invigorate our practice.

One Dance UK Conference 2017

Author: Janine Bryant on behalf of the IADMS Dance Educators' Committee 

The beginning of the academic year brought an exciting announcement from One Dance UK with the programme for its first-ever Conference Season to be held at Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance. The conference, held in November, spread three separate programmes over two days and combined the best of the UK's dance sector knowledge and delivered an outstanding weekend of insights and conversations. One Dance UK presents an incredibly wide range of expertise and this conference was demonstrative of all the organisation has to offer. There were three conferences on the programme – the Dance Teaching and Participation Conference, a Choreographers' Conference, and a Healthier Dance Progamme Conference.