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1. Core Strength, Balance, and Alignment

 

Pilates is a method of body conditioning with exercises that focus on the deep, intrinsic muscles of the "core".  The core are the muscle groups that include the abdominals, the back, the gluteals and the hamstrings. These muscle groups are important in all styles of dance; the more the deep muscles work to stabilize the body, the more freedom the limbs have for expressivity. ​

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A strong core also leads to better balance, which is important for ballet dancers who want to do more turns, tap dancers who want to be more stable or more swiftly switch their weight or breakers who want to balance on their arms!

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Mary Carpenter, Master Pointe Shoe Fitter, Ballet Educator and Pilates Instructor, taught beginning ballet at the college level for two decades. She shared with me that when she was able to incorporate Pilates work before bringing her students to the ballet barre, the students had more accurate alignment, were physically stronger and progressed more quickly.

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She specifically mentioned that her students were able to find their hip rotator muscles and activate turnout in an anatomically correct and safe way. 

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2. Injury Recovery and Prevention

 

Pilates is an excellent way for dancers to cross-train and take care of their bodies.

 

Seattle-based Pilates and Ballet teacher Suzanne Singla found Pilates when she was recovering from a dance-related back injury. Even after recovering from her injury, she says, “I can’t imagine not having Pilates in my life. It has supported me while having my children, working as a ballet and creative movement teacher, and most recently, training to run the New York City Marathon.” Carpenter was also introduced to Pilates through a physical therapist when recovering from an injury early in her dance career, and contends that her Pilates apparatus training prevented her from needing to have knee surgery. 

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I also have a tale of Pilates helping me through injury; I was doing less of it and dancing more, and ended up with a lot of hip pain that neither doctors nor physical therapists were very helpful with. But I returned to Pilates and was eventually able to dance without pain again. 

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While Pilates is great for helping dancers rehabilitate after injuries, it is also an excellent tool in the dancer’s toolbox to prevent injuries from happening.

 

Beyond the increased strength, focused Pilates practice improves dancers’ proprioception, or body awareness, which helps them to be even more precise in their dancing.

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Practicing Pilates also builds an understanding of anatomy and how the muscles work together, creating a more refined use of one’s instrument.

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3. Cross-Training

 

Still in the realm of injury prevention, Pilates offers dancers an opportunity to utilize their muscles in ways that are complementary to, yet, different from dancing.

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Imagine a dancer learning a new ballet, where they do the same step numerous times on the right side, but none on the left. Rehearsing the piece dozens of times, followed by an extended run of performances can lead to differences in strength on both sides. Pilates offers a dancer the opportunity to re-center and balance out their body.

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Additionally, ballet dancers work mostly from a turned-out position. Constant strengthening in a turned-out position strains and tightens the muscles that do that job while leaving the muscles that work in parallel, or turned in, unattended and weak. Pilates addresses the hips’ full range of motion, so the joint can be supported by all of the muscles that surround it. Most [people] do not naturally have the dramatic rotation in the hips that ballet calls for. The external rotation exercises in Pilates also help dancers to maintain strength in whatever turn-out they [may] have. 

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4. Mind-Body Connection and Muscular Isolation

 

Dance is, without a doubt, a mind-body activity.

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Dance training is also multi-layered. In a single exercise, a dancer is considering where every individual part of their body is, what steps they are doing, how they are connecting to the music, where they are in the space, and what emotive quality they are projecting. Technical training builds much of the physical to a level of automatic, but just typing this I am in awe of what we as dancers do! Pilates helps a dancer to have their musculature working in an efficient way, in addition to having the opportunity to focus on specific muscle groups one at a time. 

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An added bonus... A Great Second Career

For dancers who practice Pilates regularly and fall in love with the method, Instructor Certification Programs can lead to a great survival job that can offer flexible scheduling to support a dance career. When I was pursuing performing in NYC, it was great that I could teach a Mat Class at a gym or a few private sessions before even starting the day of auditions or dance classes.

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By Danielle Pierce-Master, MA Dance

Edited by Samantha Bellerose, B.Ed, Dip.Dance (Performing Arts)

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