The Agony of Dancing : Rigorous schedule demands mean pain and injuries are a way of life, but the show must and often does go on

The injury to Joffrey Ballet dancer Glenn Edgerton during a performance of “Petrushka,” Tuesday in the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, reminds us that dance is a high-risk profession, with pain a constant condition of the art.

Despite fatigue and injury, professional dancers follow a relentless schedule of daily class, rehearsal and performance. The audience expects to see dancing that looks effortless. No matter what, the audience mustn’t know that dancers dance in pain. But they do.

David Howard, international ballet master and coach, recalls working on Mikhail Baryshnikov’s foot for 45 minutes before a performance of “Coppelia.” Despite advice to the contrary, Baryshnikov insisted on taping the swollen and inflamed foot and going through with the performance.

And then there is the example of Robert Weiss, former principal dancer with New York City Ballet (NYCB), who snapped his Achilles tendon during a performance. He tried to dance through it--until the pain became intolerable.

Recently, at Royce Hall, UCLA, modern dancer Danny Shapiro executed barrel turns, his legs fully extended--and yet virtually every joint in his lower body is inflamed. The show must go on.

Dancers are injured all the time, but they don’t stop. They can’t. As ballet master and choreographer Oleg Briansky says, “in (my) time, people used to dance ignoring the symptoms of injuries. Dancers are (still) impatient to return to dancing.”

Although rarely injured, NYCB principal Patricia McBride would agree, “I’ve always tried to dance through an injury.” And Don Redlich, artistic director and dancer of his own company, suggests that “almost all dancers do it one time or another--dance with some kind of pain.”

When the pain is intense, some may even develop a dependency on medication. According to Howard, it is not unusual to see dancers taking potent anti-inflammatory drugs for extended periods of time. Howard claims that there are many dancers who “live on Advil, some of (them) take four or five tablets in one dose.”

Dr. Bert Mandelbaum, assistant professor of orthopedic surgery at UCLA, argues that the medication that dancers take are mostly non-steroid anti-inflammatory drugs. “It is difficult for dancers to compete and perform without them . . . dancers, like any other athlete, would do anything to keep performing.”

Allegra Kent, formerly of NYCB and currently with the Ballet of Los Angeles, feels that dancers are under pressure to return to work after they have been injured. She adds, “The company is depending on you; your career seems to depend on it. Your friends tell you you can do it . . . there are a lot of ruthless (professional dance) schools that pressure (dancers) in invisible ways . . . but what (the dancer) really has to do is listen to (his/her) body--listen to the pain.”

The pressures to perform are intense. Dancers who are “sidelined” know that they will not be considered for any important roles. And yet Gelsey Kirkland (former principal dancer with NYCB and ABT) maintains in the Suzanne Gordon book “Off Balance,” that someone from the company should tell the dancer “It’s not wise for (them) to dance.”

Balletomanes long for the adagios danced by ballerinas where the dancers display their control in sustained, unfolding movements. Few realize that many adagio ballerinas have worn down their hip joint to the point where hip replacement surgery is needed (Suzanne Farrell is a case in point).

These maladies are not unique to dance. Gymnasts suffer from compression of their lower spine. Baseball pitchers frequently suffer injury to their shoulder joint. But dance is different. Few sports can compare with dance in terms of the time and technical demands placed on the mind and body.

“Dancers are ranked with the highest athletes in terms of their need to compete and perform regardless of injury and pain. The psychological and physiological demands placed on dancers are extreme,” says Dr. Mandelbaum. Further, the dancer must seek optimal responses from the body, to meet aesthetic demands.

According to podiatrist Dr. Richard Braver, who works extensively with ballet and modern dancers from professional companies, the standards in dance are very difficult. The dancers try and achieve the impossible. Day in and day out, they work on the impossible jump (bigger, higher, faster), 180-degree hip rotation (for classical ballet turnout), the perfect landing, dazzling turns.

Injuries are caused by dancers forcing their bodies beyond their limitations to meet an external ideal, in class or in rehearsal. Sarah Elgart admits “that as a choreographer (one) takes many risks in the studio searching for the ideal movement or phrase . . . (one) lose(s) concern for what is healthy.” The aesthetic and creative ideals demand a high price.

The dancers sprain ligaments in their backs, rupture spinal discs, tear the cartilage on their shoulders, suffer from stress. They pull their groin muscles, strain their calves. They are especially fearful of muscle spasms--related to stress and fatigue--but they nevertheless try to dance through them. Danny Wilams Grossman, who described himself as “in trouble from the waist down,” danced for Paul Taylor for 10 years without missing one performance.

Often, the dancers have little choice. There may be no understudies (as was the case with Twyla Tharp Dance). Or the artistic directors may be slow to sympathize with their injured dancers.

One company director jokingly advised his company, “if you rip (the muscles), they grow back longer.” A dancer from that same company believed that “it is really important not to focus on the injury . . . better to just dismiss it . . . the show must go on.” Another ex-company member agreed, “(one) needs a particular mind set about injuries and (cannot be too) precious with the body.”

Many dancers are reluctant to talk about their injuries. According to Howard, there is a fear among the dancers that they will be labeled “accident prone.” The dancers may lose their company’s respect if they experience too many physical problems.

Artistic directors believe that for some dancers the injuries are self-serving--fulfilling a hidden agenda of sorts. Murray Louis states that “there are some dancers who, like soldiers, want to die on the field of battle and they will push themselves until their injuries incapacitate them . . . there is a perversity in human nature to seek glory (no matter how) desperately it might be achieved.”

For many dancers, injuries result because, Briansky says, “dancers work too much--eight performances in a week. You don’t allow horses to run eight times in one week. Injuries come from wear and tear (due to) the frequency of performing.”

At one time, NYCB principal Merrill Ashley was dancing 12 ballets each week. Eventually, she began to dance in fewer ballets. Other principal dancers (especially males at NYCB) are not in such comfortable positions, and for dancers in the corps who perform in most ballets every night, the injury rate is higher. Still, they continue to dance.

The dance environment is also to blame for injuries--hard floors with little resiliency, cold theatres. For some, technique is the culprit. So much of what dancers do in technique class is rooted in tradition, for example. Information on correct technique and developing what artistic director Bella Lewitzky calls “body intelligence” does not come easily to the young dancer.

As Murray Louis says, “When kids come to dance . . . they’re dumb because they’re immature and part of the definition of maturity is survival.”

The young dancers have to prove themselves to themselves, to their family, to the dance world. Yet what they really have to do is use common sense. They must, according to Lewitzky, “ . . . treat the body honorably . . . do not abuse it, train carefully (and) sensitize (themselves) to the body’s messages.”

But Lewitzky is quick to add, “the nature of the work is that you push . . . you don’t stop and say ‘is it safe?’ ?” As one former Broadway dancer says, “the body has to be battered around . . . you can’t just float through dance.”

The audience demands virtuosity. If virtuosity is indeed a metaphor for human courage, as veteran dancer Daniel Nagrin suggests, then most professional dancers aspire to nothing less.

The dancer’s desire to dance is strong. As long as the pain can be controlled and some sort of “euphoric feeling” (in the words of one artistic director) can be maintained, everything will be beautiful at the ballet, despite those tired tendons, pulled muscles and exhausting performance schedules.