After an injury, the worst advice a dancer could get is to stop dancing; they simply don’t want to hear that, said Liz Conway, a junior studying dance.
So when news broke Spring Quarter that an athletic trainer specializing in dance medicine was hoping to implement a dance medicine and science program at Ohio University, the dancers couldn’t believe what they were hearing.
“I just remember all of us sitting there with our jaws on the floor,” Conway said. “We couldn’t wipe the smile from our faces.”
Jeffrey Russell, former assistant professor of dance science at the University of California, Irvine, and now an assistant professor of athletic training at OU, became interested in dance science in 2001.
Russell was working in a sports medicine clinic at Mississippi’s Belhaven College when a dancer came to him asking for assistance.
“If someone comes in and asks for help, you help them, so I helped her with her injury and she went on her way,” Russell said. “A few days later, another came in, and it soon became a trickle and flow of dancers because they heard that there was someone who would take care of their injuries.”
Dance is a very injury-prone field, and dancers do not receive good health care because they are rarely viewed as athletes, Russell said.
“Ultimately, what I want to do is to improve health care for dancers, and the fastest way for me to do that is teach health care workers how to do it,” he said.
Only two schools in the world offer a Ph.D. in dance medicine and science, and only a few schools in the U.S. have opportunities for students to study dance medicine in an academic environment, Russell said.
“We are trying to set up an academic study program, a certificate program, where athletic trainers can study in the area of performing arts medicine so they are better able to take care of the specialized injuries,” he said.
Once the structure of the program is in place, an injury clinic will be placed in the dance department.
The School of Dance was contacted in the spring about potential research space for Russell and although no official studio space was open, a student lounge on the third floor was seen as a possibility.
“It was quite an exciting prospect for all of us, simply because there are very few people who have expertise in dance medicine,” said Travis Gatling, interim director for the School of Dance and an associate professor of dance. “We look forward to having that kind of research for our students and faculty.”
Russell’s ideas open up an opportunity for the School of Dance and School of Applied Health Sciences and Wellness to collaborate, said Roger Gilders, director of the School of Applied Health Sciences and Wellness.
“He’s bringing a new direction to our athletic program,” Gilders said. “Performing artists and dancers are athletes, yet we wouldn’t say that they are traditional athletes, but that doesn’t mean they don’t need similar care.”
It all comes down to compassion in health care, Russell said.
“What changed my career is that I could not let someone who needed help go without help,” he said. “Performing artists are not being properly cared for, and that doesn’t sit well with my heart.”
ao007510@ohiou.edu
