Dance sector adopts data-driven approach to dancers’ health

A research project that soon hopes to gather injury and fitness data from dancers at the UK’s major companies and schools has received the support of the Royal Ballet.

The company has become the latest organisation to partner with the National Institute of Dance Medicine and Science (NIDMS), which is behind the project that hopes to improve care for dancers’ health and wellbeing.

The Royal Ballet will share learning from its system that uses specialist digital technology to track dancers’ injuries, health and day-to-day training, which it uses to inform its injury prevention strategies.

Greg Retter, Clinical Director at The Royal Ballet, said: “This research project is an urgent and essential foundation-stone to understand better the true breadth and depth of injury across the wider dance sector.”

The move was welcomed by the founding partners of NIDMS, including One Dance UK and Birmingham Royal Ballet’s Jerwood Centre for the Prevention and Treatment of Dance Injuries, which has already begun to align its injury surveillance methods with the Royal Ballet.

NIDMS is seeking funding to help broaden its work and allow it to provide systematic data gathering in the major dance companies and schools throughout the UK.

Kevin O’Hare, Director of The Royal Ballet, said: “The partnership will strengthen the immensely valuable work already undertaken by One Dance UK and, ultimately, will support the physical and psychological health and wellbeing of dancers around the world.”

NIDMS was founded in 2012 to share dance science expertise and provide information, guidance and access to healthcare services. The other partners are the Royal National Orthopaedic Hospital, Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance, the University of Birmingham and the University of Wolverhampton.