US Open 2015 Update #8 - Help For Injured Dancers

Well the Open is over, another year come and gone.

Here in the United States we're full into the holiday season which is overshadowing everything else. Even overshadowing Donald Trump.

Well, almost.

But .. I'm not finished telling about the Open!

Because ...

To use Donald Trump's words ...

The Open was REALLY BIG! It was YUGE!

I wanted to tell you about the Competitors' Meeting. Of all the things to tell about the Open, that may seem strange. But I love the Competitors' Meeting. And if you're not a competitor you might wonder what goes on in there.

It's held in the main ballroom, empty and silent, the lights are off so it's dark, deep indigo dark like a moonless night; the stage glowing a faint blue; spotlights casting extreme shadows on the front of the floor. Chairs are arranged in a wide arc facing the house with the podium at the center; judges, board members, shareholders, other governors of the community are sitting there. The boxes and risers above are in complete darkness but you feel the presence of people, you hear them murmuring to each other in short sentences, you smell their coffee. The room feels like it's vibrating with tension, excitement, restlessness, lack of sleep.

I love the Competitors meeting because it feels like the final director's meeting on Opening Night. Full cast and company gathered in a dark house for last words before the lights go up, the music begins to play, and the audience pours in for the weekend.

Robert starts it off by introducing the Judges. So many US Open titles on the panel!

Next he asks for a drum roll and as everyone bangs their feet, Star Wars music begins to play and on the corner jumbotron the Star Wars opening crawl scrolls up the screen, re-written by John Bianchi to tell the "Story of Scores" ....

As Star Wars theme music plays Storm Troopers emerge from behind the curtains, standing silently on the dimly lit stage then marching solemnly down the edge of the room onto the floor. Funny. The Enforcers of ... SCORES! And other US Open THINGS!

Jim:

"Please get to the Green Room at least five minutes before start ... We're starting on time and will do it without you ... Everybody has a different way of preparing to compete. We don't want people to be disturbed as they're preparing to put on their best performance, doing their warmups. Please do them a favor and don't break their concentration."

Phil:

"I want to repeat this to be absolutely clear. Yesterday we delayed a Jack and Jill contest because a few people had not checked into the Green Room. That will not happen tonight or tomorrow. We are going to start on time, and we're not going to chase you. If we're running late that's to your advantage I guess. But if you're running late, you're scratched. Fair warning."

Jim:

"Dress appropriately for a live broadcast around the world. Teams, please come in costume. There are flags from every state, and every country. If you see a flag from your state or country, pick it up and be the flag carrier. Floor coordinators will be there to show you how to carry them.

"As you approach the cameras stand so that pictures can be taken ... floor coordinators will direct you to peel off right or left and circle back."

A cameraman, from the darkness:

"People want to come up and stick their face right into the camera. If you get really close all we see is your nose."

Jim:

"A word about where to dance, to be seen on camera. Right here - where I'm standing - this is where your feet will be seen, your whole body. Any closer to the judges than this and you start losing body parts, and won't be seen on live feed."

Yvonne:

"We have 46 couples who signed up last minute for the Open Strictly, much larger this year than last. So we're going to schedule a semi. Prelim today at 4, a Semi Sunday at 12 and then we'll go to finals.

"I want to make something very clear, from our rules: Jeans are not allowed in any Jack and Jill or Strictly. If Jeans are worn in a routine division, it must connect to the music. So, for our Strictly dancers: Take note! In the past we have allowed jeans in this division. The rules have changed. If you wear jeans you will be disqualified! Those are the rules. You should have read them, and now you have also been warned ahead of time.

"There's another thing. A couple of years ago we rewrote the rules to be very strict on Restarts. We've now loosened up those rules, and I'd like to read them to you."

Yvonne begins reading but interrupts herself:

"Tatiana will appreciate this. You can get a restart if your shoe breaks."

The darkness suddenly springs to life, with a clamor of laughter and applause. Tatiana's familiar, squeaky voice floats down from the left box seats; the whole room comes alive with voices, everyone clapping and cheering at once - for Tatiana's shoe, for Yvonne, the rules, the Open, friends, dancing, being awake ...

Yvonne continues:

"Also for other costume malfunctions."

[MORE APPLAUSE AND LAUGHTER]

"There was one year where a woman's entire dress, her entire costume, began to fall down."

[RIOTOUS APPLAUSE]

"Also. The Chief Judge can call for a Restart any time the Chief Judge feels it is fair, and in the best interests of the contestants, and the competition. And this is very important: Should the competitors complete their routine, but believe they should be allowed to have a restart due to special circumstances, they must make their request to the Chief Judge PRIOR to leaving the floor. At that time the CJ may -- or may not -- approve their request. If approved, the competitors may dance again. If denied, the version just danced will count in competition."

Ben Morris:

"So if somebody in a routine division has a restart, is that restart going to happen right then? So hypothetically, let's say somebody makes two minutes into their routine, which may or may not be an extremely strenuous routine. The lights go out and the sound system goes out. We're going to make them restart right then without giving them some time to recuperate? And that's supposed to be in their best interest?"

Yvonne:

"Well, we can review this.

"Your Event Director is here so we can go over it with him."

(Phil whispers in Yvonne's ear)

"And he has considered it, and agrees with you. So we are rescinding that."

[APPLAUSE]

Question from the dark:

"In the unlikely event of a computer glitch, music, lights ... should the competitor stop? And say "there's an issue with my music?"

Royston:

"This is important because it's happened to me as a competitor, and I've seen it happen to other people. So you've danced through the routine to some point and you feel that it's fast, you know that it's too fast.

"*If you feel something's wrong and your music is too fast, STOP. And say something. Don't wait till afterwards."

Phil:

"So this is obviously a very sensitive subject. We of course don't want this to be used as an excuse if you simply feel you're dancing badly; and this is something very difficult for Yvonne to make a quick judgement on. But computers do sometimes have glitches, and make errors with tempo and other things. This happened just this year at Tampa, with Hugo and Stacy. We've only heard their music once, but they've heard their music hundreds of times, so they knew immediately, as soon as the music started, that the tempo was wrong. They stopped, talked to the judges, and were allowed a restart.

"If this happens to you do NOT finish your dance, go to the Green Room, and then return to the floor to talk to the judges. You must discuss this with the judges before you leave the floor. Yvonne will make a decision and if she feels it necessary will allow you to dance again at the end of the heat, and a Review Panel will then review both versions of your performance to make a judgment as to whether there was in fact a problem with the music."

Robert:

"By now you should have been out on the floor to know what it's like. It's a great, fast floor, and consistent. If you do find any spots that are a problem in any way, it's critical that we know this. Do NOT put anything on your shoes to speed up or slow down your traction. This will leave a residue, spots that are slicker or stickier than other spots. You will put other competitors at risk. Do not put anything on your shoes. Get out on the floor, get to know the feel of the floor before you dance."

Yvonne:

"Classic is very large again this year, 27 couples. [cheers] So we will break Classic Prelims into two halves, to give the Judges and audience a chance to get up and move around. We will follow Lance Shermoen's practice of ranking the top 15 couples, and taking 12 Classic couples to finals. Everyone else will be ranked at 16th place.

"None of this is new, but I'm mentioning it anyway because transparency is very important to this Event Director, transparency of scoring and judging. Phil wants everyone to be aware of how all decisions are made."

[APPLAUSE]

Phil:

"We have 21 couples in Rising Star."

[CHEERING AND APPLAUSE]

"Rising Star just blew up this year! It's very exciting. We're working all around the country to figure out the rules for this division, working to make it fair and competitive. Last year we had seven couples in this division, this year 21. We had no idea we'd get that kind of response so we didn't plan for finals, we didn't know we'd have a division of this size. So no prelims for Rising Star, and no break. We won't have time in the schedule."

Robert:

"Some of you don't have registration passes yet. You need to go to the registration desk and take care of that." (he reads a short list of names, stopping at "Parker Dearborn" because the whole ballroom has erupted in laughing and cheering. Robert: "Why, when Parker's name is mentioned, is everyone laughing?")

"Also, if you remove your band to dance, take the cut band to the registration desk and they'll give you a replacement. But you need to have the old one. You need a band to enter the ballroom, for both accounting and security reasons.

"And after you dance - and this includes spotlighted strictlys - after the final bow, exit stage left to be interviewed on camera. Your interview will be included on your DVD, so it's very cool.

"Now we're going to turn on the competition lights. This is important. If you've never competed before with a running bar, you need to get familiar with the new side lighting. They are very, very bright. We'll turn these lights on now so you can stand out here to see what it's like. It's a different experience dancing with side lights."

I'll add that it's different for us, too, watching from the audience. Side lighting changes the whole feel of the room. I hadn't realized that in west coast swing we're used to floors where the edges are "vignetted" in shadow, an effect making action on the edges less "important," a "way over there in the corner" kind of thing. Side lighting brings those corners out of the shadows and into focus, changing the whole story being told out there.

So with that, the lights came on, Louis struck up "We Are The Champions," and the meeting was over.

That was the Competitors' Meeting. Just a meeting, really. Last-minute logistics and announcements, nothing more than that.

But I love the Competitors' Meeting. I love that everyone is there at once. The presence of all that talent! The passion! The fever! The mass of work, drama, emotion! All in one room!

It's like a meeting of an exclusive club where every member is unhinged in the same way. It's one of the only places where I feel normal. And don't need to explain what seems to anyone outside that room like a clinically unbalanced life that revolves around a worrisome, freakish obsession with an obscure dance no one's ever heard of.

I could just sit there in that room and let the energy permeate my bones, like soaking up spring sun after a cold gray winter.

I love the friendships, the messy hair, the sweats, the pajamas with coats on top, no makeup, friends hunched up and huddled together, the real people behind the public personas.

I love the "collective backstory" that hovers like a gigantic shimmering, holographic elephant in the middle of that room - the backstory that is the real life of these real people. Ronnie rushing back and forth from the hospital to see his new baby daughter born, Courtney losing her father, little Nathan rushed to the ER with food poisoning, Royston juggling Showcase AND emceeing AND two young children upstairs; dancers fighting flu, jet lag, air travel with global security alerts, sleep deprivation ...

And injuries. Always the injuries.

Did you know that Benji choreographed that astonishing, gorgeous piece; PRACTICED the piece - in the studio morning to night driving it and his body to perfection in his ferocious, relentless way; and PERFORMED the piece - communicating nothing but sheer breathless joy and celebration - did you know that he did all of this with a full meniscus tear in his knee? An extremely painful injury. You know this if you've ever suffered a meniscus tear. Pain that is unbearable to anyone who's not Benji. He had surgery the day after the Open.

This is not Benji's first injury - that's an understatement - and Benji is not uniquely susceptible.

Injury is the occupational hazard of our dance, our sport.

Our pros live with the continual specter of sustaining new injuries whilst managing old ones.

This week's news about the New England Patriots was nothing more than a list of injuries. There are sportswriters whose only job is to cover "injury updates." We could do the same in the west coast swing community.

But we have an additional problem that the Patriots do not: our non-pros sustain injuries, too.

In some ways we non-pros have it worse than the pros, because, like Robert often jokes, we don't stretch. And like Wee Tze said at the Open, we aren't conditioned. We don't have time to get conditioned because, unlike those happy-go-lucky pros, we have annoying intrusions constantly making every effort to misappropriate our attention. Family members, jobs, and other nuisances those pros don't have to put up with.

I remember a stunning moment at ESS several years ago, 60+ people in Teacher Training, and Sarah asked this question:

"Who here has an injury right now? Who is protecting and managing an injury at this moment?"

Every single hand went up. Every person in the room.

A light-bulb moment for me as I realized the reality and extent of the problem.

Sarah said,

"Listen. This is important. Every person you dance with has some injury, some physical issue they're dealing with. I have arthritis in my shoulders from outside turns. Every person has injuries.

"So dance with this in mind.

"Teach your students their connection must be like helium, not like lead.

"Teach them to assume that their partner has an injury. Because he or she probably does."

So, with injuries in mind ...

Here are 18 articles, organizations, resources, and advocacy groups for Dancer Health, Injury Prevention, and Treatment:

Ten Top Dance Injuries, Prevention Tips

Janine Bryant's Blog on Dancer Injuries and Health

Common Dance Injuries

Find A Dance Health-Practitioner (Worldwide)

For Travelling Dancers: Staying Healthy on Trips

Alexander Technique Online Articles (various languages)

The Franklin Method

Conditioning With Imagery

Journal of Dance Medicine and Science (Rudolf Nureyev Foundation IADMS)

Services for Dancers with Injuries

International Association for Dance Medicine

Australian Society for Performing Arts Healthcare

British Association for Performing Arts Medicine

Association Danse Médecine Recherche

Dance Injuries: Tang Tok Hospital, Singapore

British Association for Performing Arts Medicine

Harkness Center for Dance Injuries

Dancing Through Pregnancy