Question: How does science benifit dance?

Alison Whitaker answered on 16 Jun 2015:

In so many ways!
Firstly, dance can find ways of pushing bodies to an extreme. In this state, bodies can become injured. Science can help prevent injuries, psychological or physical and improve performance. What people can forget is that dance is quite specific, so in order to prevent dance injuries, you need to do this in a way that is relevant to the movement they do. Athletes have expensive teams of doctors and scientists to help them. I think that dancers should too – professionals are just as much as athletes as those who work in sport.
Secondly, data science can help us understand audiences who watch dance. This might not seem very important, but it can help companies get funding and continue creating dance and employing dancers. Without funding, lots of professional dance companies wouldn’t exist.