a woman in a grey tank top swinging ropes in both hands

What Dancers Can Learn From Sports Performance Training

dvances in sports science over the last several decades have revolutionized the way most athletes train. By contrast, dance training has remained relatively unchanged. For many years, the same was true for other “artistic athletes,” like gymnasts and figure skaters. But, recently, they’ve leapt far ahead of dancers when it comes to incorporating science-backed methods into their training programs.

Medium group of teenage girls practicing ballet moves

Get the Nitty Gritty: Build Personal Grit to Propel Your Goals

Grit is more than a grain of sand—it’s a powerful state of mind that can help propel your dance career. In psychological terms, grit is “the combination of passion and persistence towards long-term goals that are personally meaningful,” says Dr. Imogen Aujla, a dance psychology researcher, coach and lecturer. Building your own wellspring of grit […]

Begin Again: Figuring Out How to Train on a Budget

At 18 years old, when illness dragged me kicking and screaming off of the stage and into my bed, I felt as though I’d lost myself entirely. The physical pain was stunning, sure, but it was the loss of dance, of what I saw as my identity, that I struggled to cope with. Now, with […]

Is It Time to Rethink How We Use Mirrors in Dance?

You walk in the studio and the first thing you do is check out your outfit in the mirror. As you work on a new piece of choreography, you use your reflection to get a sense of how it looks. When the choreographer gives you a correction, you peek at yourself again to correct it. […]

5 Training Tips To Help You Nail Your Balances

Finding your balance can sometimes feel like making a new discovery every day. “Emotions play a huge part in balance,” says Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater dancer Belén Indhira Pereyra. “Where is your state of mind that day? Something could be happening in the family world or in the friendship world—or internally. Maybe you ate […]

What Makes It So Difficult to Diversify Ballet Faculties?

The lack of Black ballet teachers in professional training programs has long been known to be a weakness holding the field back from true inclusivity. The common refrain of “We can’t find them” might have been plausible before, given the scarcity of professional Black ballet dancers. Yet suddenly, qualified candidates are springing up. (Perhaps the […]