The hypersexualization of children’s dance is now a well-recognized issue. Yet as these issues are beginning to be addressed, the trauma incurred by victims often goes unnoticed. Adult costumes, hypersexual choreography, and music can all be sources of trauma for young dancers. This trauma is stored in the body and continues to affect these individuals physically and psychologically for years to come, resulting in excessive tension. The Alexander Technique is a process utilized by many disciplines to release excess tension and applies to dance-related trauma.
Many ballet, contemporary, and modern dancers have expressed incurring trauma during their training and professional dance experiences; in a 2020 survey, 41% of professional dancers and 30% of ballet students reported experiencing or witnessing sexually inappropriate behavior in their respective workplaces and schools (DDP). This is just one example of a potential source of trauma for dancers. Dance psychologist Jo-Anne La Flèche identifies four main sources of dancers’ trauma:
- Self-abuse: Normalization of discomfort, pain and injury.
- Director/teachers’ verbal abuse.
- Sexual abuse: The dancing body as an object.
- Secondhand trauma: Portraying roles that involve extreme violence, sexuality and/or emotional distress.
Experiencing trauma at any age negatively impacts a dancer, but child dancers in particular are at risk as their identities and worldviews have not fully developed. The consequences of hypersexualization at a young age may follow a dancer into their adolescence and beyond. In her 2023 article “’ In the Land of Dance’: Unpacking Sexualization and the Wellbeing of Girls in Competitive Dance”, Lisa Sandlos discusses the prevalence of sexualized choreography in competition dance across North America. Scanty costumes, sexual poses, and flirtatious expressions have become synonymous with competition dance, including genres like hip-hop, jazz, acro, lyrical, and even tap. During her participant observation fieldwork, she found that if dances in these genres are not sexually provocative, they will often suffer in the competition circuit. According to Sandlos these learned behaviors can negatively affect young dancers for the rest of their lives. Through her fieldwork and interviews with several concerned mothers, she concluded that:
Early and prolonged reiterations of sexualized movements may, over time, become ingrained in girl dancers’ bodies, psyches, and self-identities so that self-objectification can also begin to occur and be perpetuated from within. In this sense, girl dancers who are sexualized may be in danger of bearing the burden of a long-term struggle to know, express, and assert themselves as full subjects. (239)
Though many dance educators and parents are pushing back against the hypersexualization of child dancers, Sandlos’ article is a testament to the work still needed to end the hypersexualization of young girls in competition dance.
The topic of dance-related trauma is an ongoing discourse, concerned parents, teachers, and other advocates have been diligently working to change the status quo. There are wonderful advocacy groups like Youth Protection Advocates in Dance (YPAD) and Dance Awareness: No Child Exploited (DA:NCE) who strive to protect child dancers from exploitation and trauma. However, young adult dancers may still be negatively affected by the trauma they incurred in their training 5-10 years ago (La Flèche). Therefore, an understanding of dancers’ main sources of trauma and how it may continue to affect dancers negatively even years later, is valuable despite the positive changes that have been made.
Even mental trauma has a physical effect on a dancer’s body. Unresolved trauma triggers a near-perpetual state of fight or flight, which signals the nervous system to send out inflammation-causing chemicals, resulting in body discomfort. In other words, trauma creates tension in the body. Muscular tension can restrict movement inhibiting a dancer’s effectiveness in communicating emotion through their movement. Tension limits the range of physical expression, meaning using movement to express emotion by giving it a physical form. Because dance is a visual art form a dancer’s ability to effectively communicate with their audience is reliant on their ability to express emotion physically.
When a dancer (or parent) has identified their trauma and has taken the step to address the psychological consequences of their trauma, they have only found one component necessary to heal from dance-related trauma. The physical consequences of psychological trauma must be addressed as well. Though my research centered on The Alexander Technique as a means of releasing trauma-based tension; I encourage dancers and parents to explore many avenues of releasing unnecessary tension in the body and begin with an approach most accessible to them.
This may look like a number of Somatic therapy practices and mind-body techniques, but it is imperative when exploring these techniques to work with a licensed mental health professional.
A key difference between Somatic therapies and The Alexander Technique is the intention; while Somatic therapies seek to release tension stored through negative experiences and emotions, The Alexander Technique goes a step further and offers a re-education physically, mentally, and emotionally, in freeing the body of tension and maladaptive habits, in pursuit of natural balance and movement. When applied to dance it is a tool that can be used to free a dancer’s body from trauma-based tension and improve their range of physical expression. If adopted by more dance educators, it has the potential to revolutionize dance education. I believe introducing children to body awareness in a non-sexual way is crucial to healthy dance practices and I view The Alexander Technique as an excellent tool to do so. Unfortunately, it is a subject far too nuanced to dive into in this article. For more information, you can read my full thesis “The Alexander
Technique Applied to Dance and the Choreographic Process: Freeing Physical Expression from Trauma-Based Tension” on Liberty University’s Scholars Crossing website. I also highly recommend reading, Dance and the Alexander Technique: Exploring the Missing Link by
Rebecca Nettl-Fiol and Luc Vanier. It is a thorough guide to applying the principles of The Alexander Technique to ballet, modern, and contemporary dance both as a student and an educator and it was a primary source in my research.
Though the hypersexualization of children’s dance is harmful, the damage it inflicts can be managed through a psycho-somatic approach, utilizing the Alexander Technique. The journey to release unnecessary tension created by trauma reconnects dancers with their bodies and rehabilitates their spectrum of physical expression. This approach, when paired with psychological care not only addresses an individual’s trauma, but the physical ramifications of their trauma as well.
Sources:
“Dance Data Project® Finds 29% of Ballet Companies around the World Have Female Artistic Directors, a 4% Decrease from Previous Report.” Dance Data Project, Dance Data Project, 13 Apr. 2023, www.dancedataproject.com/dance-data-project-finds-29-of-balletcompanies-around-the-world-have-female-artistic-directors-a-4-decrease-from-previousreport/#:~:text=Of%20the%20198%20artistic%20directors,whom%20were%20women%20(33%25).
“DANCE DATA PROJECT® RELEASES RESOURCES AIMED AT HIGHLIGHTING BEST PRACTICES FOR KEEPING DANCERS SAFE FROM SEXUAL ASSAULT AND HARASSMENT.” Dance Data Project, Dance Data Project , 6 May 2021,
www.dancedataproject.com/dance-data-project-releases-resouces-aimed-at-highlightingbest-practices-for-keeping-dancers-safe-from-sexual-assault-and-harassment/.
Johnston, Julia, “The Alexander Technique Applied to Dance and the Choreographic Process: Freeing Physical Expression from Trauma-Based Tension” (2024). Senior Honors Theses. 1431. https://digitalcommons.liberty.edu/honors/1431
La Flèche, J.-A. (2019). “Big Little Secrets: Traumatic Experiences in the Dance World”. Dance/USA Task Force on Dancer Health.
Lisa Sandlos (2023) “In the Land of Dance”: Unpacking Sexualization and the Wellbeing of Girls in Competitive Dance, Journal of Dance Education, 23:3, 234-242, DOI: 10.1080/15290824.2023.2234897
Nettl-Fiol, R., & Vanier, L. (2011). Dance and the Alexander Technique: Exploring the missing link. University of Illinois Press.
Bio: Julia Johnston is a Dancer, Actor, and Writer from coastal Virginia. She is a recent graduate from Liberty University, where she studied Acting and minored in Dance and Cinematic Arts. As a graduating Honors student, she completed her thesis “The Alexander Technique Applied to Dance and the Choreographic Process: Freeing Physical Expression from Trauma-Based Tension” in April 2024. It was through her research for this thesis that she became informed about the consequences of child exploitation and unhealthy dance practices.
Instagram: @juliajohnstonofficial
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