Why We Should Not Celebrate Dance Ranking Most Physically Demanding
Dance Magazine
In January 2020, Dance Magazine published an article stating that dance had been ranked #1 for the “most physically demanding job in the U.S.” by Insurance Providers, a website that offers insurance quotes for comparison. This article flew around social media between dancers, often shared in celebration and with feelings of validation. The rankings considered level of strength, stamina, flexibility, and coordination. Athletes and sports competitors took 3rd place.
I understand that this can be validating and gratifying to a dancer who endures the physical demands of the art form on a daily basis. That kind of “I told you so” feeling that stems from the innumerable times sports and other athletics are prioritized over the arts, especially in health and wellness. My dancer self feels a twinge of validation, but my physical therapist self has an overt reaction of “WHOA, this is a red flag, and not something to brag about.”
First off, I would like to see the methodology behind the data collection and how they came up with these rankings of strength, stamina, flexibility, and coordination. No one would argue that dancers excel in flexibility and coordination, but we have clear data that indicates that while dancers are ethereal, masterful athletes, their strength and stamina is significantly lacking in comparison to other healthy individuals.
But let’s move on to a much more concerning point: The data is from an insurance organization(*insert cringe face here*). The last thing dancers need is more statistics pointing out how expensive dancers can be to insure. Many years ago I was kicked off of my personal health insurance simply for being a professional dancer - my increased risk for injury made me too risky to insure. In my profession as a physical therapist specializing in dance medicine, I interact with workers compensation for a professional ballet company and I can tell you the insurance company is NOT excited about insuring an occupation that has such a high injury rate. I’m frequently fighting to get more reimbursement for dancers who need extended care in order to return to their employment as a high-level athlete. I worry about the implications of insurance companies having statistics that support dance being more physically demanding than roofers and firefighters, and what that means moving forward about health insurance coverage for dancers. I would also put money on the fact that the high injury rate in dance played a part in dance ranking #1 as most physically demanding, which is not something to brag about. Especially since dance is not a contact sport - so why are there so many injuries?
After doing a quick investigation further, the related article from insuranceproviders.com points out some other interesting information that gets me even more in a tizzy. It states “...employees in the 20 most physically demanding jobs have an average wage of $36,926, which is significantly lower than the $51,960 annual mean wage for U.S. employees as a whole.” And of those 20 occupations, only 5 make less than the mean annual wage of dancers. Athletics is an exception (of course). So not only do dancers have to be the strongest and most coordinated, they have to endure an extremely high injury rate, and get paid the least for it. How can dancers afford self-care (massage, PT, acupuncture, personal training, Pilates, etc.) in order to combat the physical demands of their job if we aren’t paying them enough? Sara Routhier of Insurance Providers writes, “The most physically demanding trades can be the hardest jobs on your body and when your job is too physically demanding it can lead to health problems down the road.” I witness these health problems in dancers on a daily basis, and it is an honor to work with these individuals. But it is also an honor to act as an advocate for these dancers who have little means to advocate for themselves, and seeing an article being used to celebrate the injustices of an art form makes me raise that red flag higher.
Let’s be real, dancers are BEASTS and some of the strongest people I know, and deserve to be recognized for it. We absolutely can celebrate this nod in our direction about how physically demanding the dance art form is (duh), and we can feel satisfied by this acknowledgment (finally somebody noticed!). I have no doubt that dancers do have one of the most physically demanding jobs in the U.S. But we can’t celebrate some of the understated implications of this article that I feel are being overlooked - including high risk for injury, low compensation rates, and the increasingly common knowledge that dancers are expensive to insure.
Elizabeth Tilstra