Dancers and Water | This Dancing Life

(image copyright: Jeremy Leslie-Spinks)

It’s hot; everyone’s uncomfortable, sweaty and thirsty. This seems a good moment to write about water. It’s not going to be one of those “science-nag-blogs”, though — we ‘ve done all that stuff already, a few weeks ago, so if you want to check the details, have a look at “Dance and the Body, Part One”, here.

This is about dancers’ relationship with water. Dancers drink water of course, but they also

• eat it,
• wash in it,
• swim in it,
• chill out in it, and even…
• dance it.

Water is important stuff [1, 2]. It transports oxygen and nutrients through the bloodstream – over 90% of our blood consists of water. Water dissolves nutrients to permeate cell membranes for fuel distribution throughout the body, and it’s a vital component of the metabolic energy-supply processes. It flushes out toxins and waste, keeps your arteries uncluttered and supple, lubricates joints, facilitates flexibility, helps maintain memory and cognitive function and keeps your skin healthy. It is in hormones like melatonin and serotonin, it lets you regulate body temperature, it keeps your intestinal tract working; it’s even useful for controlling weight. One of its jobs is to filter through the kidneys, removing waste products as urine. It supplies fluid for your lymphatic, digestive, excretory, nervous, endocrine, reproductive, cardiovascular, respiratory and pretty well all your other systems. In fact, it’s essential to life, and without enough of it, unpleasant things happen. With no water you would probably die within 3 – 4 days.

When dancing, you might need 3 or 4 litres of water each day, to replace fluids and electrolytes lost in sweat and other processes. Maybe you also have tea, coffee, milk, juice, yoghurts, smoothies or fizzy drinks, all full of water. There’s water in fruit and vegetables, some of the “wettest” being citrus fruits like grapefruit or orange, but also watermelon, apricots, peaches, berries, tomatoes, celery, lettuce, cress etc.

What with food and drink, you put a lot of water into your system every day [3]. Once you’ve poured it in, it passes from the stomach into your small intestine. Most of it goes into the bloodstream here; much of what’s left moves into the capillary blood vessels of the large intestine. It then sets off via the circulatory system for the functions we’ve just discussed (among them, the job of keeping you cool enough to function).

“Dance is a sweat job“.
— Fred Astaire

Dancers are mainly interested in water as a drink, with or without electrolytes. Of course, your electrolytes and carbohydrates must be topped up; however a balanced diet should give you pretty much what you need. Please don’t substitute fruit juice for water – it just gives you fructose without fibre, leading to a sugar spike followed by fatigue. (You’re better off eating the fruit – slower to digest, and better for your teeth).

Some people prefer sports drinks after dancing. These come in 3 basic varieties:

• Hypotonic drinks are about rapidly replacing fluids. They offer low carb levels, but higher concentrations of sugar and salt than your system.
• Isotonic drinks hold sugar and salt concentrations roughly equal to those in your body, but higher levels of carbs.
• Hypertonic drinks contain higher carb levels, to boost your energy uptake.

If you use commercial energy drinks (not the same thing as sports drinks), you need to know that they pack a big caffeine load and lots of sugar. Caffeine is actually diuretic, and will dehydrate you, like tea and alcohol, so these pleasures are best enjoyed in moderation.

This also applies to water. Enough water is essential – too much can leave you in a state of hyponatraemia, when the salt level in your body is too low in relation to the amount of water. That’s not good — it can leave you nauseous, dizzy, lethargic and confused, with headaches, impaired memory, mood swings, fatigue, weakness, cramps, even potential seizures and coma. Definitely not for dancers…

People often discuss the relative merits of still versus carbonated mineral water. Tap water is the cheapest option, but if you’re drinking mineral water, there’s little real difference in their effects on your health. Sparkling water is carbonated, and fractionally more acidic — some people prefer the tingle that comes with it. This acidity doesn’t affect bone health, and harms your tooth enamel less than coffee. Sparkling water may make you feel slightly fuller, which is useful if you don’t want to be hungry just then. Both types of water are pleasanter to drink when cool — sparkling is said to be slightly easier to swallow. It’s really a question of which type you prefer.

“First comes the sweat. Then comes the beauty, if you’re very lucky and have said your prayers“.
— George Balanchine

So, let’s get back to this hydrated, sweaty dancer. After dancing, you’re probably all sticky. One of the first things you want is a shower. That’s going to make you feel better, immediately. But… here’s something to consider. You’ll want to wash off the sweat, of course. That’s only the outer bit, though – underneath that grime is a layer of natural oil, and it serves a purpose. If you remove it, your skin will suffer, and may dry and crack.

How many showers do you take each day? One when you get up, perhaps, one after the morning rehearsal, maybe another after the evening call or the show, maybe again before going to bed. In our job, it’s possible to find yourself taking three or even four hot showers every working day. Each shower strips protective oils from your skin.

Fortunately, you can help this long-suffering skin, the largest organ in your body. Showering cooler for a shorter time would be sensible. Not using abrasive, heavily-scented body-scrub would also help. It’s good to slap on some skin cream after getting out of the shower, before you’re completely dry. And it’s best not to flay yourself with that towel. Your skin will be less distressed if you pat yourself dry, rather than scrubbing.

“When you do dance, I wish you a wave o’ th’ sea, that you might ever do nothing but that“.
— William Shakespeare, The Winter’s Tale

A swim, of course, feels great, especially in summer. A cool dip in the sea is one of the delights of holidays; if that’s not available, a lake or river will do, and there are always swimming-pools. Sensible people take precautions when they’re swimming (and dancers are sensible, aren’t they?). We all know the dangers, but just bear with me for a second, while we look at a couple of things.

• Beaches ought to signpost whether it’s safe to swim there. The water may be polluted, or full of sharks, or sharp objects, man-eating eels, rusting wrecks, jellyfish, mines, underwater jungles of weed, or allergenic microorganisms. There might be concealed currents, a rip-tide, a water-skiing championship, shipping lanes or other dangerous stuff. Please find out about these things before going in. This also applies to lakes, rivers and other wet, wild places.
• Sensible people don’t swim alone, or out of sight. You’d be surprised how easily you can drown – you can actually do it in a teacup. It can happen terrifyingly fast.
• Pools tend to be safer, although it’s good not to swim under a diving-board, or where you risk being jumped on by some maniac hurtling in from the side.
• Obviously, no sensible person drinks seawater, lakes, rivers, or swimming pools. Biochemical analyses of swimming pool water make alarming reading … And of course, sensible people don’t swim for a good couple of hours after eating, or with lots of alcohol on board.

“Dance is a song of the body. Either of joy or of pain“.
— Martha Graham

Several major dance companies [4] use water therapeutically, to treat injuries or avoid Delayed-Onset Muscle Soreness (DOMS). One theory holds that immersing the whole body in iced water after a performance, sometimes for up to 20 minutes, helps avoid sore muscles in the following couple of days. This is still being researched, but the consensus seems to be that it works for muscle pain.

Water is everywhere throughout this dancing life, and a lot of dance pieces have been created around the subject. The list of water-themed choreographies is surprisingly long, ranging from Le Ballet Comique de la Royne, (performed in 1581 for Henri III, lasting 6 hours, complete with fountains and waterspouts) through to Roberto Campanella’s Dream Dance sequence for “The Shape of Water” in 2018. Petipa, Saint-Léon, Bausch, MacMillan, Ashton, Fokine, Nijinska, Perrot, Lopukhov, Cranko and many others have choreographed on, in, or about water. Some pieces require dancers to work on a flooded stage – if you’ve ever had to do that, you probably have a rich fund of anecdotes about it (I certainly do).

There is actually a special dance genre known as “water ballet” (aka “synchronized swimming”). Its biggest star was Esther Williams, with her dozen hit films during the mid-20th century. Since 1984, synchronized swimming is even an Olympic sport.

“Dancers are athletes of God“.
— Albert Einstein

There – I hope all these watery thoughts will have helped to make you feel a little cooler on this hot summer’s day…

(https://pixabay.com/de/schwan-vogel-tier-wasser-see-wei%C3%9F-sch%C3%B6ne-173675/)

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