Injuries flow fast, deep for Riverdance troupe
Published Tuesday, September 14, 1999, in the Herald-Leader
Reprinted with PermissionBy Megan Rosenfeld
THE WASHINGTON POST WASHINGTON --
Cacketacacketacacketa. With each tap and stomp, a small muscle is tearing in some dancer's calf. With every head flip, someone's neck is going out of alignment.
Cacketacacketa, a little tibialis anterior stress; thunketa thunk, and your quadratus lumborum is lumbering.
Which is why, way beyond the dry-ice, misty-moisty, Celtic twilight hoo-ha of the touring Riverdance -- The Show are three small dressing rooms offstage devoted to body repair.
With 51 dancers tapping, spinning and jumping for eight shows a week, the company staff must include a chiropractor and two massage therapists.
Starting about three hours before curtain time, they see nine to 15 ``patients'' daily. Martin Brennan winces as chiropractor Sue Thompson pulls off the sticky disks anchoring electrodes to his shin. Brennan, 23, has a tendency toward shinsplints -- tiny muscle tears that produce a distinct but not unbearable pain. He wears support socks and sees Thompson for ice and electric stimulation.
``It won't hurt while you're dancing -- the buzz carries you through,'' he says. ``But then it hurts later.''
Irish dancing, particularly the tricked-up version in Riverdance, was never meant to be done for 21/2 hours a night, seven or eight times a week.
Around the corner from Thompson, Rodney Squires bends over Gary Healy, who lies face-down on the massage table.
``I'm trying to loosen the erector spinae,'' Squires says, pressing down Healy's back. ``Then I'll be flushing it with long strokes to get oxygen in.''
Most major dance companies travel with a physical therapist or chiropractor. The field is notorious for its casualties.
Unlike sports medicine, however, performance-related injuries aren't much of a medical specialty, and few studies have been done.
Thompson and Squires say the young, quickly healing dancers of Riverdance might have long-term problems if they dance too long or don't take care of themselves.
``I'm already seeing some arthritic feet,'' Thompson says.
``Stiffness in the back,'' Squires predicts.
``The number of injuries is related to how hard the stage is,'' says Thompson. ``Chicago is bad. Toronto. Radio City is very rigid.'' --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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