Technique as a Consideration in Modern Dance Injuries

In brief: Modern dance encompasses many different techniques, each of which makes unique demands on the dancer's body. When these demands are amplified by the repetition required to learn and use any technique, overuse injuries sometimes result. To provide a data base for studying injuries in a significant sample of the modern dance community, we surveyed 164 modern dancers, who reported a total of 229 injuries over the past five years. Injury sites and frequency varied with the dance technique. For example, the rate of knee injuries was higher among dancers using the Graham technique than among those using the Horton technique (25% and 10.8%, respectively), whereas lower back injuries occurred more frequently in Horton than in Graham dancers (21.6% and 16.7%, respectively). Hence, technique is a factor to consider when studying modern dance injuries.