The Intelligent Dancer™ : Know what you are doing and why you are doing it

The Intelligent Dancer™ is an approach to dance teaching developed by Rhianna King which aims to help students to understand why they are holding a particular pose or focusing on a particular muscle during an exercise, to be able to see the “bigger picture” and progress with a solid understanding of dance as a craft, to understand their anatomy and appreciate what their muscles need to do to achieve a particular movement.

So instead of simply being told to hold a particular pose or make a particular movement, the student will understand what they are doing and why, how this movement or pose will provide a good foundation for more advanced work later in their dance journey, or how a focus on the sensation of tension or contraction in a particular muscle means that they are holding their pelvis, say, or their hips, in a particular position and why that is important.

An important part of a dancer’s progression is to develop their proprioception or “body awareness”, that ability to know, to feel, precisely where your limbs and torso are in space without needing to see your reflection, and this special “sixth sense” will be encouraged and nurtured throughout a dancer’s journey at ADTA.