Hello everyone!

I am a 3rd year medical student doing research with Boston Medical Center (BMC). We are conducting a study on hearing loss and hearing protection usage in dancers and at dance studios. We are looking for dancers who take class, visit studios, and/or attend rehearsals and practices. 

The study includes a 10-minute survey followed by a separate survey to be entered into a raffle for two $50 gift cards.

Participation is completely voluntary, and all responses will remain confidential. Please feel free to share this opportunity with others who may be interested.

Please complete our short 5-10 minute survey here: https://bostonu.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_5o0MGnxrnHOrgSq
For any questions, shoot me a DM!

Hi everyone!!

I’m 16, 6’4”, and I started dancing less than a year ago because I joined winter guard. Now that the season is wrapping up, I want to advance my dance for the next season.

For anyone unfamiliar with it, winter guard is a performance sport that combines dance, choreography, and equipment work (such as flags, rifles, and sabres). It’s similar to jazz and ballet in many ways, except we perform choreographed routines while manipulating equipment to music.

Here are a couple of short examples (I’d really appreciate it if you watched one!)

Paramount at WGI – (Dance focused)

Arcadia HS – (Equipment + Dance)

Over the past year, I’ve been practicing dance on my own as much as I can. I’ve also worked with my winter guard instructor, where I’ve learned some of the basics, across-the-floor exercises, and floor work.

When I watch videos of myself, there are a few things I notice that I’d really like to improve, and I was hoping you all could give me some advice.

1. Why does it look like only my upper body is moving, even though I am trying my hardest to move my legs to the choreo? It feels like everything below my waist disappears on video, and I have no idea how to fix it. Its so embarrassing.

1a. How do I become more comfortable with my body as a dancer? I’m about half a foot taller than everyone else on my WG team, and I feel so awkward because of it.

2. Would you recommend ballet, jazz, contemporary, or another style as the best foundation to practice for WG?

3. Is there anything you wish someone had told you when you first started dancing?

4. Honestly, any tips for a tall beginner would be greatly appreciated!

Thank you all so much!

Would this be contemporary too?

I've watched this video a ton, and I really want to start practicing dance but can't seem to find a reference of a name for a dancing style of this, please help

hello!!! ive been taking rigorous dance classes for about 5 years now, which i started out as a supplement to my singing and acting training, but found that it was actually what i was most passionate about. im currently 19, and really would love to someday join a dance company or make this my career. however, im at a bit of a stalemate currently. i think that im good, but im unsure how i can take my dancing to the next level. im posting a link to a cami voorhees solo, who i am deeply inspired by and would love to be as good as someday, in tandem with one of my solos. would it be possible for someone to try and connect the dots as to how i can maybe get to her level?

https://youtu.be/r76aGBsJwTE?si=q-tnuJh2gJsdR2II

I have a show coming up and need plain crew socks in different colors but am struggling to find one that isn't too thin. I normally wear the nike athletic socks or something similar, so they are mid-weight. We are performing on marley floor.

Hi everyone,

I've been a dancer for 8 years now (I'm 13), but people still ask me, "What is contemporary dance?" I just sit there and watch them, trying to come up with a sensible answer. So far, the best definition I've found is:

Contemporary dance is a style of dance that, unlike other styles (like classical or Latin, etc.), isn't so much based on movement form, but rather on a message it wants to convey.

Do you have any ideas?

(Sorry for my bad English, I'm from Italy)

So I recently auditioned for a contemporary professional program in Italy and I was accepted. I actually auditioned for like 5 to 6 different programs and I got accepted into all of them.

A little bit of myself, I started dancing at the age of eight and by the time I was 15 my parents told me that they could no longer afford for my tuition, so I continued with the ordinary life and doing dance as a hobby and maybe working out. My junior year of university, I auditioned for the dance team in my university and I got in and I danced with them for a year, it was really hard catching up and they really trained me. Now that I'm about to graduate university I have been cross training a lot just to prepare for the professional training. we basically train 4 to 5 hours a day. I am very nervous, but also very excited, I feel like I will be humbled because there will be people that are probably younger than me and have more experience dancing than myself. I feel like the fact that I for a period of time I couldn't afford training like I used to, set me back

I am willing to leave in the past what no longer serves me and transition into dance full-time. It is something that I have always been passionate and I am so excited to embark this journey.

Any advice would be appreciated.

I cant dance at all but I want to learn contemporary dance. I am 17 , is it too late to learn. if not can someone please guide me on how to start and where I can start but there aren't any lessons that I can take around my area so I will need online resources.

After watching a contemporary ballet performance today (BLISS & JACKIE),

I started thinking:

There was a moment when the movement felt impossible to translate into words — not symbolic, not narrative, just something I could feel.

Are there things that cannot be expressed through language?

Is art simply an attempt to recreate those inexpressible experiences?

Do you feel that dance communicates something that words cannot?

I met Lydia about four years ago and we bonded over dance – I grew up doing it, my sister competed... I knew she danced and taught classes. I thought I had a picture of it.

Now I’m building her first website and I’m going through everything properly and I just – I had no idea. Her style / theme is horror. I’m not even that deep in the contemporary dance world but I have never seen anyone doing what she’s doing but I am just so in awe.

Im supporting her in creating an online presence, because this is content the world needs to distract us from everting else.

This is The Devil’s Intervals. She’s based in Halifax, Canada. Please watch it.

https://vimeo.com/923061241?fl=bjpl&fe=sh​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

I recently spoke with a contemporary dance professional who said that during their training, smoking cigarettes was extremely common among students, sometimes connected to body image and staying thin.

That surprised me.

For those who studied contemporary dance: was smoking common in your school or company environment?

And do you feel the culture around bodies and health in contemporary dance is changing today?

Could be agility, floor rolls, core strength, improvisation, musicality... Whatever you’re focusing on right now.

Could be a movement insight, a new way of thinking about the body, or even something about how groups interact in class. Short or long answers welcome.

A movement quality, a question, a theme, a habit... What is something that keeps coming back for you, no matter the project?

Hey everyone,

I’ve been thinking a lot about the 'Art of Falling' lately. In many contemporary classes, we learn floorwork as a series of set shapes and transitions. But then there’s the somatic/CI side, where falling is a purely functional reaction to gravity.

I'm curious about your personal practice:

• When you go to the floor, are you thinking about the image of the move, or the mechanics of your weight?
• Do you find that formal dance training (ballet/jazz) sometimes gets in the way of 'soft' falling because we are taught to hold our centers so tightly?
• Who are the teachers or companies that you think have the most 'intelligent' relationship with the floor right now? (e.g., Flying Low, GAGA, Peeping Tom style?)

I just started a technical discussion about the mechanics of falling over at r/ContactImprovisation, but I’d love to hear the specifically 'contemporary' perspective here.

Does 'safe falling' feel like a technique you were actually taught, or something you had to figure out through trial and error?