Comparison of the dynamic balance performances and the effect of the trial repetition between ballet and contemporary pre-professional dancers

Abstract

Work on equilibrium begins early in dance training, and becomes more complex when the students start the high school course. The balance strategies linked to the use of mirrors, which implies an exaggerated dependence on vision to stabilize balance. But, the use of the mirror in the learning is more frequent in ballet dance than other style dance. Thus, the aim of this study was to compare the dynamical balance of ballet and contemporary pre-professional dances, and the effect of trial repetition on the performance. Twenty-three high level voluntary dancers participated in this study at CNSMD Lyon. Two groups were constituted: contemporary (13 subjects) and classic ballet (10 subjects) according to their section. Initially, the dominance was tested. The Y balance test consists of an assessment of dynamical balance. While maintaining single leg stance, the subject reached with the free lower limb in the anterior, posteromedial and posterolateral directions. The 3 distances of foot displacement have been recorded (cm) for three trials. Then, the dancers realized 10 times the same movement for training. After 5 minutes of rest, the same test has been recorded. For statistics, we used the U Mann Withney test or Wilcoxon and a threshold value of P < 0.05 was adopted for ruling out the null hypothesis. The contemporary dancers have distance values increased compared with the classic dancers, especially for the forward displacement ( P < 0.05). For both group, the comparison between initial test and after training test, showed an increase of displacement. But for contemporary dancers, only posterolateral displacement increase ( P < 0.01) while the three directions increased for classic dancers ( P < 0.05). The contemporary dancers are more performant for the Y balance test than the classic dancers, especially when the free limb was in forward movement. But, the classic ballet dancers showed an increase of short learning capacities.