Dance Medicine – To keep everyone dancing, and smiling

Dancers are the perfect combination of artists and athletes. Therefore, just like all types of athletes, dancers, especially professional ones, are injury-prone with high-intensity rehearsals. In general, up to 70% of dancers are suffering from injuries inflicted during dance training or performance, be they mild or major, acute or chronic.

This would, in turn, impair a dancer’s performance on stage, and worst of it all, putting an end to one’s dance career. In order to prevent such tragedy, dance medicine was developed back in 1970-80s as an Orthopedic subspecialty initially to treat dance-related injuries. Throughout the years, dance medicine has experienced exponential growth with more and more professionals being involved, such as dance coaches, choreographers, physiotherapists, occupational therapists, psychologists, nutritionists, etc. To top that, the field of study has evolved from solely treating dance injuries to a much wider perspective, including injury prevention, performance enhancement, psychological preparation, to name just a few. Dance medicine is now considered a subdivision of performing arts medicine, which brings more holistic care for dancers.

Dance Science – To exploring the science behind the art

It is well known to us that dance is an art which manifests through body movement, but the science of it – what is that?

Just like any other scientific discipline, dance science is the study of dance and dancer, in a quantitative and systemic manner.

Similar to modern dance medicine, it consists of a wide variety of topics, covering scientific aspects like anatomy, biomechanics, and physiology; performance-related aspects such as choreography, conditioning, scheduling; and training-related like coaching, nutrition, psychology, etc.

Currently, there are a number of bachelor, diploma and even master courses available for enthusiastic dancers to pursue this field of study. Locally, there is Hong Kong Academy of Performing Arts; Internationally, there are institutes in the UK (University of Bedfordshire, Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance, Royal Academy of Dance), US (UCLA, Cornish College of the Arts, Ohio University) and Europe (University of Bern from Switzerland, Universidad Europea de Madrid from Spain, Utrecht university from Netherlands).

舞蹈醫學 － 令所有人都能夠愉快的起舞

舞者是藝術家和運動員的結合。因此，就像所有類型的運動員一樣，舞者，尤其是專業舞者，在高強度的排練中會容易受傷。多達70%的舞者或多或少會在舞蹈排練或表演過程中受到輕度或重度、急性或慢性的傷患 。

這會繼而損害舞者在舞台上的表演，而最糟糕的是 ── 終結他／她的舞蹈生涯。為了預防這悲劇發生，舞蹈醫學早在1970-80年代就被開發，最初是專門治療與舞蹈相關傷患的骨科專科。多年來，舞蹈醫學經歷了指數級的增長，越來越多的專業人士參與其中，包括舞蹈老師、編舞家、物理治療師、職業治療師、心理學家、營養師等。最重要的是，舞蹈醫學的研究領域已經從單單傷患治療擴闊至傷患預防、性能提升、心理調整等。現在，舞蹈醫學被認為是表演藝術醫學的一個分支，為舞者帶來了更全面的護理。

舞蹈科學 － 探索藝術背後的科學

眾所周知，舞蹈是一門通過肢體動作表現出來的藝術。但究竟什麼是舞蹈科學？

就像任何其他科學學科一樣，舞蹈科學是以定量和有系統的方式研究舞蹈和舞者。與現代舞蹈醫學類似，它包含各種各樣的主題，例如解剖學、生物力學及生理學等的科學領域；編舞、調節、排程等與表演性能相關的課題；及教練輔導、營養學、心理學等與培訓相關的課題。

現在，有許多與舞蹈科學領域相關的學士學位、文憑、甚至碩士課程可供熱心的舞者修讀。提供相關課程的本地學院有香港演藝學院；在國際上有英國（貝德福德郡大學、三一拉班音樂舞蹈學院、皇家舞蹈學院）、美國（加利福尼亞大學洛杉磯分校、康沃爾藝術大學，俄亥俄州大學）和歐洲（瑞士伯爾尼大學、西班牙馬德里歐洲大學、荷蘭烏得勒支大學）。