Author: Sarah Beck

This past weekend, from April 9th to 12th, Dance UK hosted their first ever Industry Wide Conference titled The Future: New Ideas, New Inspirations. With the future of the dance sector at the heart of this conference, it seemed only right that dance medicine and science featured within discussions. 

The program on Saturday 11th included 12 ‘healthier dancer’ sessions on a wide range of dance medicine and science topics including: ‘Protein for dancers’ from Professor Kevin Tipton, ‘The hypermobile student in dance class’ from Nicky Ellis, and ‘Psychology of injury: the impact of what we say and do’ from Dr Natalie Walker. Dance UK were also extremely honoured to be able to feature four presentations that were previously presented during the IADMS 24th Annual Meeting in Basel and extend thanks to IADMS for their partnership in this. IADMS also had a promotional stand at the conference, which delegates engaged with. Sessions were filled to capacity and attended by dancers, teachers, choreographers, and directors of schools and companies, as well as medical doctors, students, physiotherapists and dance scientists. This mixture led to interesting discussion on the application of principles discussed into practice, something I know we all strive for in this field. Many of the sessions were filmed and video clips will be available over the next few weeks. 

The final day of the conference focused on education and training the dance artists of the future and although no specific dance medicine and science content was scheduled in this day, it certainly featured in discussion in a way that any dance medicine and science enthusiast would be proud of. One topic in particular kept resurfacing: periodization. It seems imaginations had been sparked by the presentation on the previous day from Professor Matthew Wyon and Joost Van Megan on the work in periodization currently underway at ArtEz in the Netherlands (also presented at the IADMS 24th Annual Meeting). I urge you all to follow the link and watch Dr Christopher Bannerman’s keynote speech, in particular from around 36 minutes 30 seconds in, to hear him enthusiastically discussing this presentation.  

This conference provided fabulous exposure of dance medicine and science into the wider dance sector in the UK, which we hope continues to inspire debate, collaboration, and practical implementation of and around ideas presented. 

[The IADMS blog would like to feature further write ups of events and conferences so please do let us know about those happening in your local area so that they can be included.]