By Robin Martin
BYU’s College of Health and Human Performance celebrated the new Dance Medicine Facility with a ribbon cutting ceremony and open house Friday, Oct. 10 in the Richards Building.
BYU is the first college in the nation to provide a facility of this quality intended solely for a dance department. The quality of the new Dance Medicine Facility is comparable to the Athletic Training Facility located in the Smith Fieldhouse.
“It is a great opportunity for us to be a pioneering effort,” said full-time faculty member and trainer Rob Nuttall. “I don’t know if this type of facility will catch on to this extent in other colleges because we have one of the largest dance departments in the nation.”
It is common for colleges to offer physical education clinics that cater to dancers, or for the dance department to share an athletic training facility.
Before the Dance Medicine Facility was built, dancers had to use the Athletic Training Facility to treat injuries. Only one student trainer, not educated in dance injury, was over all the dancers. Not having more student trainers meant appointments for dancers were scarce.
“The Dance Department appreciates those individuals who not only see those needs that we cannot meet without help, but are willing to come forward and assist us,” said Lee Wakefield, Dance Department chair.
Marty and Dana Rasmussen, through private donations, made the construction of the Dance Medicine Facility possible.
“Marty and Dana Rasmussen are wonderful examples because they have helped BYU Dance with little or no fanfare for themselves,” Wakefield said.
A plaque honoring the Rasmussens was unveiled during the ribbon cutting ceremony, and will be hung in the Dance Medicine Facility.
“The Dance Medicine Facility is different from the Athletic Training Facility in that we purchased equipment more specific to dance conditioning,” Nuttall said. “A lot of equipment is similar, but can’t cater to athletic strengthening.”
Nuttall is not alone in his charge of caring for one of the largest dance departments in the nation. He has students in the sports medicine program and one graduate assistant student who work under him.
As the facility continues to get busier, Nuttall said he wonders how the dancers ever did without the care they now receive. The needs of the dancers have been met through this new facility; dancers are now receiving more dance-specific care.
Dance injuries are more about the overuse of the body and pushing it to extremes, not so much impact injuries, such as a football or track athlete would receive, Nuttall said.
“Dance injuries are treated differently than an athletic injury,” he said. “Dancers who receive impact injuries are caused by, like, a flying foot in the face.”
Nuttall said he would like to see the dancers use the facility more for conditioning rather than just injuries.
Ballet major Lindsey Brown said she appreciates the extra help the new facility offers.
“I’m in there every day, never fail,” she said. “I go every day to work my body. When I am not injured then I am in there to train by doing Pilates with Kathy (Thomas),” said Brown, a junior from Helena, Mont.
Kathy Thomas is a part- time faculty member and certified Pilates trainer who overviews the use of the Pilates equipment.
Nuttall and the Department of Dance are developing a new course about conditioning and injury prevention in dance. They hope the class will be offered next fall.
