Posts Tagged ‘dance floor’

Stagestep, maker of dance and theatrical flooring for four decades, has introduced Super Timestep flooring, which offers the flexibility of a marley-type floor with the enhanced durability and wear of Timestep. It’s appropriate for all styles of dance, including tap.

Available in black and gray, Super Timestep is 6.58 feet wide by up to 65 feet long. The floor, which is 2.3 mm thick, weighs 5.5 pounds per square yard.

At $28 per square yard (plus shipping and handling), Super Timestep has a low price guarantee on comparable flooring. For more information, call 800.523.0960 or visit www.stagestep.com.

Stagestep has introduced a new Tap Board with beveled edges to protect dancers and a built-in handle for easy carrying.

It comes with a 5/8^th-inch-thick laminated tap surface and a ¾-inch-thick shock layer of high-density foam. The board is cushioned underneath to protect floors and works on virtually any floor surface, the company says.

 The new Tap Board comes in two sizes: 2 feet wide by 4 feet long for $50 or 3 feet by 4 feet for $75. For details, visit www.stagestep.com or call 800.523.0960.

Sprung floors and why your school should have them

By Theodore Bale

The Willowbrook Ballroom in Willow Springs, IL, opened its doors in 1921, but to this day its original 6,000-square-foot “floating” maple dance floor still supports hundreds of eager dancers. Over the decades, musicians from Ozzie Nelson and His Orchestra to the Village People graced the Willowbrook’s stage as patrons danced the night away. First known as Oh Henry Park (after the candy bar), the ballroom is testimony to the lure of a comfortable surface upon which to waltz and swing. Those who have danced on a properly sprung floor know that it not only helps prevent many serious injuries but can significantly prolong a dancer’s career as well.

Basket-weave floors provide evenly distributed cushioning that helps prevent dancer injuries. (photo courtesy American Harlequin)

In the 1980s, when I was taking ballet class almost daily, attending Nutcracker rehearsals in the evening and then moonlighting at night as a barefoot modern dancer, I learned one of the most immediate consequences of dancing on a concrete floor covered with a thin layer of linoleum: shin splints. In the clinical setting this condition is described as inflammation of the connective tissue around the tibia. In simpler terms, it means that the muscles of the lower leg have come away slightly from the shin bone after repeated jumping or running on too hard a surface. Shin splints are painful, to say the least, and can make rehearsals and performances (or even just climbing the stairs) unbearable. Today, even the studio where I practice yoga has a sprung floor, in this case covered with plushy cork, a popular “green” material. It’s heaven just to walk across the surface.

What exactly is a sprung floor? The term is related, indirectly, to the sprung floor’s distant cousin, the spring floor, still used in gymnastics, cheerleading, and martial arts. The spring floor uses metal coil springs, often finished with plywood and/or foam blocks, with a vinyl or carpet surface on top to prevent slipping. Spring floors are generally not suitable for dancers. A common complaint is that the springs eventually become noisy, like an old bedspring, as the coils wear over the years.

The problem with a spring floor, says Siegfried Gerstung, founder and owner of Gerstung International Sport Education, Inc., in Baltimore, is that dancers require not only resilience but shock absorbency as well.  “They are two opposite phenomena,” said Gerstung. “One sends you up like a trampoline, gives you spring, and the other absorbs it, goes down and comes back up very slowly. A coil has only so many revolutions. If you hit it hard enough and the space between the wires is taken up, it bottoms out. We seem to have conquered that problem with our unique suspended floor, and that’s why a lot of our floors are called floating floors.” Gerstung designed his first sprung floor in 1942 and follows the latest research in dance and sports injury; he cited the work done by Dr. Lorna L. Francis at San Diego State University.

It appears, however, that the sprung floor might have preceded the spring floor. Claire Londress, marketing manager for American Harlequin, says that many years ago, George Balanchine came up with the idea of what is now called a “basket-weave” floor. This type of floor has two layers of 2 x 4 planks set every three feet from both sides. The cross points of the top layer are staggered 1 1/2 feet from those of the bottom layer so that each junction has air space below it. The two layers of planks are then covered with plywood and topped with either hardwood or plywood and vinyl. If this anecdote about Balanchine is true, he might have seen the basket-weave floor before he arrived in America. “I am from Germany,” said Gerstung, “and 60 years ago I learned from my father that there was such a thing as a basket-weave floor. The fancy ballet schools in Europe had these floors, but they were very expensive.”

Today the basket-weave floor is a wise investment for any dance studio owner, and various designs, such as the clip-and-lock system, allow the floors to be moved from one studio to another. The industry has changed over the years as more and more studio owners lease or rent their space instead of buying. “For obvious reasons, a sprung floor should be a number-one priority for a new studio,” says Londress, “but cost is definitely a factor. If [studio owners] don’t have enough money to come up with a professional-type sprung floor from a company that knows how to do it properly, at times they go with a homemade raised floor made with plywood over 1 x 4 boards. There are going to be lots of hard spots under the plywood, however, if the floor isn’t basket-weave. One layer of planks is better than just concrete and linoleum, but it isn’t perfect. If they can’t put in anything like that, they should at the least install a slip-resistant vinyl floor,” she adds.

Those who have danced on a properly sprung floor know that it not only helps prevent many serious injuries but can significantly prolong a dancer’s career as well.

Teachers of tap, flamenco, or Irish dancing, beware. Using only a padded slip-resistant floor will eliminate the important percussive aspects of those forms. The foam backing deadens the sound. Hardwood surfaces are not ideal for ballet and pointe, but hip-hop dancers, who wear sneakers or soft shoes, often prefer the stability of a hardwood floor.

How much does a sprung floor cost? Londress said that American Harlequin doesn’t advertise its floors at a per-square-foot cost because it prefers to do what she calls “ ‘consultative selling.’ If you were going to open a 20 x 40–foot studio in a strip mall, right there two of our floors would be eliminated, because they are permanent,” says Londress. “The only way to remove them is to destroy them. If you’re going to be in a rental or short-term lease situation, you need something like our sprung panels. They are 4 x 8 or 4 x 4 feet, and they interlock. We also have clip systems for places like houses of worship, where you can’t screw anything into the floor. It’s one unit, self-standing. You can pick those up and take them with you to another studio and add on to them.”

To give you an idea of American Harlequin’s prices for this article, however, Londress provided a quote using their Liberty sprung panels and Cascade performance surface. Each large panel (4 x 8 feet) is $250 and each small panel (4 x 4 feet) is $130. For an area that’s 20 x 40 feet, a studio owner would need 20 large panels and 10 small panels. Including the cost of enough Harlequin Cascade roll-out vinyl floor to cover the area, the cost without shipping is about $9,300. Londress adds that the Liberty panels are easily installed, needing only basic carpentry knowledge, and that most customers install the panels themselves.

Gerstung provides quotes by the square foot at his website, and says his product has two basic categories. First is what he calls the “air base.” As he explains, “If 50 people jump up and down on our air base simultaneously, it’s sort of like a basketball with a tiny hole in it—the air escapes only very slowly. Foam blocks support the floor, but the air that’s under the foam supports the people. You are literally jumping on air.” The second category is what goes on top of the air base: carpet, wood, or vinyl.

Some of Gerstung’s new products include inexpensive vinyl planks that are glued down like wood. Bamboo, a popular “green” choice, can be ordered in various grades of strength. He cautions studio owners to determine carefully all of the uses for the floor, however. Once he installed a surface where basketball would be played on occasion. The floor was so shock absorbent that the ball couldn’t bounce on it. “I realized it wasn’t the right design for those customers,” he says, “but I was also proud because it proved just how shock absorbent our flooring could be! We gave the customers another floor with heavier planking.”

Randy Swartz, president of Stagestep, Inc., says his company is offering more and more flooring to customers who lease facilities. “Back in the day, you had to just leave your $20,000 investment when you moved to a new studio,” he says. “Now we make floors that can be removed and recycled for use in another facility.” He describes Stagestep’s philosophy as threefold: safety first and foremost, performance, and value, which he defines as cost vs. use.

Swartz is particularly proud of a floor he installed at the Prince Music Theater in Philadelphia, also one of his international company’s bases. “We had to create a floating wood subfloor in a black-box theater,” he explained. “It had to isolate the sound to that room, allow the audience and performers to be arranged anywhere in the space, and it had to have weight-bearing capabilities but also be sprung.” The result is grand, if you’ve had the opportunity to experience it: multi-leveled and made of multi-tiered foam. It seems destined to last as long as the grand floor installed nearly a century ago at the Willowbrook Ballroom. 

Cross-training, body awareness, and old-fashioned common sense mean fewer injuries among students

By Darrah Carr

“Break a leg!” The theatrical well wish for actors and dancers has an irony that often escapes young performers. Indeed, for most young, healthy dancers, the possibility of injury feels remote and doesn’t factor greatly into their daily routine. For their older, more experienced teachers, however, the reality of injury and the desire to prevent it create a serious responsibility.

Sarita Zuniga of Sarita’s Dance Studio leads students in a prerehearsal yoga session, in which she encourages the integration of mind and movement. (Photo by Marina Zuniga-Johnson)

Fortunately, for as many potential problems that dancers can face, there exists an equal number of precautions that teachers can take. To begin with, teachers must establish a healthy working environment within the studio, taking into consideration the need for safe physical facilities as well as for strong emotional support.

As Richard d’Alton, director of International Ballet of Houston, notes, “the artistic director is responsible for having good flooring. Dancing on concrete or wood with no marley is an archaic thing of the past. Thank goodness our standards have come a long way since then!” Having a well-stocked first-aid cabinet with plenty of ice on hand is another must for studio owners, as are operating hours that reflect a balanced, realistic schedule. “Overwork, multiple private lessons, and late night rehearsals are not necessary,” d’Alton says. “Dancers must be considered as human beings. And, as human beings, we all shut down at some point during the day. There is no need to go until 10 p.m. I believe in quality rather than quantity of instruction.”

Balancing the studio schedule by offering a wide variety of classes can also reduce injuries related to overuse. Sarita Zuniga, owner of Sarita’s Dance Studio in San Antonio, TX, explains, “We aim to have a well-rounded, balanced program and encourage the students to try different disciplines of dance. On Mondays we offer ballet and jazz; on Tuesdays it is folklorico; on Wednesday nights we have flamenco, and so on. If the students can do different movements every day, then they are not constantly relying on the same muscle groups and they don’t run as high a risk of injury from overuse.”

Studios with a more singular focus can also promote balanced musculature by encouraging their students to cross train. Zola Dishong, who runs Contra Costa Ballet in Walnut Creek, CA, along with her partner, Richard Cammack, advocates Pilates for her population of serious classical ballet students. “Bringing Pilates into the studio has been great because the philosophy of the class is all about injury prevention,” Dishong says. “You can strengthen any weaknesses and even work through an injury with Pilates.”

D’Alton encourages his ballet dancers to seek additional Pilates training outside of the studio and to spend time lifting weights as well. “Boys especially need weight training,” he says. “I don’t want them to be the size of champion prize fighters, of course. But they must be strong enough to partner the girls correctly. It is another means of injury prevention.”

Zuniga enhances her dancers’ training with yoga. “We always do 30 to 40 minutes of yoga before beginning rehearsal. We play soothing music, lower the lights, and meditate a bit so that the dancers can start listening to their bodies. I try to inspire them to integrate their whole mind into the movement,” she explains. “I’ve seen a big change in the dancers. Yoga strengthens their core and balances their muscles. In dance, many problems stem from overuse injuries. If dancers are straining their quads, for example, then yoga can balance that by lengthening their hamstrings.”

A studio owner’s efforts to create a healthy working environment must be maintained by the entire teaching staff. Diane Pippen, who co-owns Diamond Dance Center in Forrest Hill, MD, along with her sister, Barbara Peterson, believes that faculty education is of primary importance for injury prevention. “If you have a big faculty, you must sit down with them and review teaching expectations in terms of the physical developmental stages that children go through and the anatomical principles that apply. Teachers have to be on the lookout for things like pronation and hyperextension, and they must know what the proper anatomy is,” Pippen says. “Teachers also have to be aware of growth-spurt injuries such as problems with ligaments and tendons. As girls hit puberty and their hips widen, for example, we start to see problems with pronation, especially in the knees. Teachers can’t force a perfect fifth position on those kids.”

 ‘Bringing Pilates into the studio has been great because the philosophy of the class is all about injury prevention. You can strengthen any weaknesses and even work through an injury with Pilates.’ —Zola Dishong

Pippen cites a number of anatomical variances among students that can lead to injury if not properly monitored, including tibial torsion, hyperextended knees, shin splints, hip popping, pelvic tipping, and ankle issues involving the peroneal and posterior tibialis tendons. She believes that students must be made aware of the unique, individual structures of their own bodies. “Children need to be educated about their own bodies and made to understand that ‘My body does this, but not this,’ ” Pippen explains. “The culture at the studio needs to be supportive enough that students feel comfortable speaking up [about physical concerns] and modifying certain movements if need be.”

Whatever the style of dance, certain movements tend to lead to injury more than others. Teachers must be aware of potential pitfalls within the given vocabulary and take precautions to demonstrate those steps safely. Dishong recommends introducing new petit allegro jumps at the barre so that students become familiar with the intricacies of the steps before moving to the center. D’Alton suggests that teachers set a goal for the day and then build the structure of the class accordingly. “You can’t do big jumps before small jumps. You can’t make dancers go up on pointe or do anything in the center until they are properly warmed up,” he notes. “We don’t do grand pliés until the middle of the barre. They are bad for you in the very beginning of class. And, I never encourage grand plié in fourth. It is a position we don’t use very often in ballet anyway, and it causes unnecessary strain.”

Heightened body awareness and a thorough education can extend to the waiting room, where pamphlets and articles on injury prevention can be made available to students and their parents. The International Association of Dance Medicine, the American Council on Exercise, and Deborah Vogel’s “The Body Series” are just a few invaluable resources for teachers to draw upon.

“Many times parents don’t know how to help a child who is complaining of pain,” Zuniga notes. “We educate both dancers and their parents on the RICE method (rest, ice, compress, and elevate), and we encourage Epsom salt soaks for minor aches and pains. We also explain that if the body is tired and not getting proper nutrition, then the chances of injury increase. Rest, nutrition, and injury prevention are all connected. Many parents don’t understand this.”

When addressing both parents and students, d’Alton stresses the importance of allowing time to warm up even before class begins. “It is not OK for a student to sit in the car for 40 minutes, or even 15 minutes, and then run into class,” he says. “Students shouldn’t arrive 2 minutes before class time, or, even worse, 5 minutes after class begins.”

Many teachers also advise families about the risk of injury from non-dance–related activities. Dishong notes, “Nine times out of ten, when a dancer comes to me with an injury it is from gym class, running track, or some other kind of sports activity.”

Zuniga too recognizes the prevalence of sports injuries. “Coaches tend to be more abusive to the body than instructors in the fields of dance or fitness,” she says. “They can have a mentality of ‘No pain, no gain,’ which really is the philosophy of the past.”

Even when students get injured outside of the studio, dance teachers are often sought out for advice. “Parents tend to think that you know everything about the body, so they’ll call and ask your opinion even if the child got injured in school,” Zuniga says. “I’ll say, ‘Call a doctor; I’m not qualified.’ Then I’ll always refer them to a medical professional.”

Often dance teachers act as important facilitators among an injured dancer, a concerned parent, and a doctor. “I’m not qualified to diagnose a dancer. No teacher should attempt to do that,” d’Alton states. “It is my job to ensure that an ache or pain doesn’t turn into something more serious. I have to make sure that if something is hurting, dancers are being honest with themselves and are also letting us know. Dancers are very motivated people. We know that they always want to be in the studio. But if they are in pain, then the first thing they need to do is to take a few days off.” If the pain is severe or persistent, d’Alton insists that the dancer see a doctor in order to determine whether an X-ray or MRI is needed. He’ll also serve as the dancer’s advocate. “If I don’t agree with the doctor’s diagnosis, then I’ll encourage them to seek a second or even third opinion,” he says.

Many studios develop relationships with local medical professionals who specialize in dance medicine, sports medicine, or physical therapy. These specialists are often more helpful in treating an injured dancer than pediatricians or other general practitioners. Pippen, whose own background as a nurse comes in handy when addressing her students’ injuries, says, “We do have to counsel our parents to see a sports medicine doctor or one who has a dance background. We find that ‘regular’ doctors frequently do not understand the needs of dancers; their first inclination is to put them on crutches, in huge braces, or completely off dance when ‘relative rest’ and other treatments are warranted. We also find that some doctors do not always explain the diagnosis to the parent or the child, which I do not agree with at all. I want them to understand what is going on and how to fix it.”

An injury often leads to a greater understanding of the body and can have a lasting impact on a dancer. “I’ve seen very positive results when girls return after an injury,” Dishong says. “They are forced to be more intelligent about their work, to work more slowly, and to make better choices. They are often better off for it.”

While guiding dancers along the road to recovery, d’Alton requires them to watch classes and rehearsals. “The dancers usually want to watch anyway. They always hate being away from the studio. They can learn so much by watching their teacher teach and by watching both the good and bad examples of their fellow students,” he says.

Easing into classes after an injury is important in preventing reinjury. D’Alton does not believe in putting recovering dancers back into their regular class schedule right away. For one, the other dancers in the class need to continue to be challenged and shouldn’t be held up by a recovering dancer’s slower pace. “Working with a recovering dancer requires a good deal of one-on-one time. I don’t mind going in early or staying late to help a dancer with specific exercises until they can be incorporated back into their regular class,” d’Alton says. “It is a slow process. As their teacher, you have to put all expectations aside. Let them know that they don’t need to prove anything; they just need to get better.”

The recovery process requires patience from the dancers, of course, but also from their parents. “Often parents are very driven for their child to succeed in dance,” d’Alton says. “But you can’t get a quick fix in this business. And there is nothing more important than the long-term health and safety of the dancer.”