What makes a good Dancer

Being a good dancer isn’t easy to be, as it is made up of lots of areas, the first is dance styles. In dance you need to be versatile. This means not just perform one style of dance, but commit to different styles. Even if you don’t particularly enjoy that style it may help you get work in the future and improve you technique on other styles. For example you might not enjoy ballet as much as Jazz, but you may get offered a ballet job, so being versatile helps you get more work and have more opportunities. Also, the extra ballet will improve your overall technique.

                            

 

You need to be a committed dancer in and outside the stage/studio, as you have to be thinking about diet, nutrition and hydration. You should think about what foods give you energy to be able to do a 3 hour rehearsal, for example a bagel has a lot of fibre in it to give you energy. As well as limiting yourself to how much chocolate you have and not be eating it all the time. Instead of chocolate, dancers should try and eat fruit, oatcakes, cereal bars and dried fruit. Drinking water will also help you stay hydrated to be able to sweat while dancing to cool you down. It is suggested that at least 50% of a dancer's energy should come from carbohydrates, around 15% from protein and about 30% from fat. How much energy you need depends on your size, age and activity.

 

Dancers should take into account how to safely practice warm up and cool down. If you know you can’t do a certain move like the splits, you shouldn’t jump down into them, you should use your common sense and work on making them better (having warmed up first, as that will make your muscles easier to stretch). Dancers always need to warm up to increase their breathing and heart rate. By doing a warm up it will increase blood flow to the muscles, which enhances the delivery of oxygen and nutrients. This warms your muscles, and you will be able to attempt harder dance moves. When warming up, you need to start off at an easy level then get gradually harder. If you were to start exercising at a strenuous level without a warm-up, your body would be not be prepared for the high demands being made of it, which may cause injury. Cooling down after exercise means slowing down your level of activity gradually. Overall it helps your heart rate and breathing return to normal. Cooling down helps you avoid fainting or dizziness, which can result from your blood staying in the large muscles in the legs when vigorous activity is stopped suddenly. It also helps to remove waste products from your muscles, such as lactic acid, which can build up during vigorous activity.

 

Challenging yourself is something dancers have to do all the time. Dancers will need determination to improve strength and to carry on going when it gets hard. For example, they should work on improving their core by doing crutches, improve their quads by doing a pile in second and holding it, and press ups to improve biceps and triceps. Dancers need to be physically fit and have strong muscles to sustain movements and hold posture and correct position when dancing. You also need strength to be able to support your own weight and a partner’s during lifts.

  

 

Dancers need to have good flexibility to increase the range of movement to perform. Even if you are not flexible you should be able to use your facility to the full of your potential. Some ways of improving flexibility are simply just to stretch and limber. You could do this by sitting in splits or doing bridges to improve back flexibility. Thera bands are a good way to improve strength and flexibility in feet and you can use them in a number of other ways to help increase the stretch. For example, laying on the Thera band and pulling the band from behind your head while doing crutches as it will increase your core strength and give your head a rest so you can crunch with the correct position.

 

 

Performance skills are vital to get any performing jobs. Like being on stage or doing flash mobs. You need to transmit emotion through your eyes, and change your mood to the style of dancing and the song. For example if it was an upbeat song, you would smile and project happiness to your audience. Or if it was an emotional lyrical you would project emotional through your eyes and not have a big smile on your face. You need high levels or energy to make the audience want to watch you. Dancers should already have enthusiasm and love what there are doing to make it interesting; they should have the same amount of energy even if there is only one person watching.

To be a great dancer you have to want to work hard and be the best that you can be. This means being motivated to go to lessons or rehearsals, and working hard. Even if you’re not dancing you should keep your fitness levels up just by doing other activities like running, or going out for a fast walk. You need to have high levels of fitness to be able to keep going through a routine, and not to fall short half way through.

 

All those skills are important as well as dancers needing to continuously re-assess themselves in order to become better. Dancing is also about watching other dancers, to either find new moves or to help you improve yourself by seeing what other people are good/bad at and thinking if you can improve on that yourself. You can also see why they are good/bad at that particular move, which you then can use to help your own dancing. Also, dancers should keep practising regularly to maintain skills and add new ones. Lastly, dancers need to have realistic expectations of their bodies and get a good night sleep to be able to progress.