Attention and Focus in Dance… a mindful approach to give dancers the edge in performance

Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder and Dance

The Challenges, Surprise Benefits and Tools to Cope

Sophie Bress of Pointe Magazine and Clare Guss-West

Despite what it looks like onstage, anyone who’s ever taken a ballet class can tell you the art form is far from effortless. Not only is it physically taxing, it’s full of emotional and mental difficulties, too. According to Clare Guss-West, MA, a researcher specializing in attention and dance who works with artists and teachers at companies like The Royal Ballet and the Finnish National Ballet, these difficulties are made even more challenging by the sheer amount of information dancers try to focus on and process at one time.

“Dancers are trying to hold on to information from health care professionals, training and artistic feedback, musical information and choreographic memorization [all at once],” she explains.

Guss-West adds that individuals with ADHD can also have more trouble with movement skills, learning and coordination than other dancers not suffering from this condition.

Guss-West, citing a 2017 study by Dr. Aharon Shulimson and Julie Terry on dancers at Ballet West, adds that, in fact, ballet dancers may actually be more likely to display ADHD traits. The study found that over two-thirds of the dancers in the Salt Lake City–based company had a “highly-overactive brain.”

“If I list the things that you need [in order] to focus when you have ADHD, it’s almost the definition of ballet or dance,” Guss-West says. “You need to be passionate about [the activity] and it needs to be high-intensity. It needs to be ultra-structured, discipline-wise, fast, hands-on, creative, and you need some sort of independence.”

This fact, Guss-West says, unveils what might be seen as a sort of “chicken and egg” scenario, suggesting that perhaps the multitude of foci involved in dance might provoke a performer to become “overloaded and distracted.” Or, perhaps, those with ADHD are drawn to the field because their neural functioning is particularly equipped to handle multiple demands.  

In the studio, Guss-West recommends that dancers in general and particularly those with ADHD choose one to three elements of the choreography or desired movement quality to focus on. She adds that, often, it’s more helpful for dancers with ADHD to home in on what she calls an “external focus of attention,” like the intention of the movement, the shape, the quality or the musicality, and stay away from “internal foci”—i.e., conscious control of individual parts of the body, like how how high your leg is extended or how well the foot is pointed.

“Let’s say I asked you to focus on something very simple, like [the fact that] this movement makes a spiral. That’s all you’re going to focus on, and it works as an anchor for your mind and brain,” she explains. “All the other potential distractions and foci are kept away from the movement.”

Read the full Pointe Magazine article Here:

https://pointemagazine.com/dancing-with-adhd/#gsc.tab=0

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