La santé en danse contemporaine : un itinéraire en zone trouble

A large majority of dancers must manage health problems affecting the course of their professional activities, to the point of ending their career prematurely. While dance medicine has contributed greatly to the development of knowledge on the functionality of dancers’ bodies, the present article rather focuses on the socio-cultural issues at stake in the contemporary dance milieu and that can potentially influence health discourses and practices in dance. Our study thus uncovers the contradictory demands negotiated daily by dancers; the latter having to reconcile the requirements of a healthy, balanced and functional body to those of a poetic body capable of invention, freedom and release all this without the presence of an adequate safety net in terms of working conditions.