Dancing up hill: insights into performing on raked (inclined) stages

Lewton-Brain, Peter DO, MA, Association Danse Médecine Recherche, Monaco, Monte Carlo

Common in European theatres, raked or inclined stages are used more and more in Broadway productions and dancers are frequently unprepared to adapt to them. Recent investigations on the affects of raked stages have only begun to appreciate the variety of parameters involved and what influence they have on dancers? health. This practitioner wisdom presentation offers insights on the positive and negative aspects of this traditional element in stage dancing and proposes useful tools to diminish the risk of injury and enhance performance when working on a rake.

Confronting a raked stage for the first time can be highly destabilizing for a dancer. Beyond changes in visual perception, which are increased by stage lighting, the strategies for maintaining postural balance in even the simplest movements can be radically different. Turning, partnering or jumping, especially up stage can make a challenging art form become a nightmare. 

Demonstrating how the rake puts additional stress on muscle chains (increasing injury potential) this presentation also explains techniques to diminish the rakes negative effects on dancing; from adjusting ones focal point in pirouettes, to avoiding stress in partnering, to readapting the intention of movement. Integrating the rake as an asset and not a constraint will equally be discussed, showing how it can occasionally increase technical ability, stabilize certain movements or give the illusion of bravura when the choreography is used in conjuncture with the rake.

The relevance of this presentation is in giving dancers, dance teachers and health professional?s concrete tools to increase dancers adaptability to the artistic constraints imposed upon them that subsequently influence injury prevention and performance enhancement.