Grace as promised I am here to 'review' the Julia Buckroyd book "The Student Dancer".<BR>Please excuse any grammatical errors as I do not have the time to put this into a piece of academic writing. It is being written in a hurry.<P>The eating disorder issue is a very minor issue in the book. Dealing with mainly London Contemporary Dance centre, Elmhurst and Central School, from where most of the research was performed, I found the writings to be written from an objective viewpoint.<P>This book is an excellent resource for all dance teachers. I must admit I thought many times 'that does not apply to me' as the ideas and conclusions have in my opnion been outdated for many years by 'good' teachers. She makes some very good points - issues which are often swept under the carpet.<P>Artistic,emotional, expressive qualities over the technical come through very strongly - but doesn't the artistic or expressive 'make' the dancer. "Attention to technique at the expenses of expression will produce gymnasts" . MOst of us already know that and hasn't that been the hobby - horse of Richard Glasstone and Frank Freeman for some years.<P>Yes there is a chapter on eating Disorders - but 13 pages out of the 241. <P>I actually enjoyed the book. This was a reading for study read and not a skim read. It is a must for all dance teachers who are in the habit of evaluating there own progress as teachers.

great tip_toes: thanks. a copy of this book is on its way to me, which i look forward to. <P>glad to see your server problem seems to have been solved, too - we missed you. if any further problems, please write to azlan@criticaldance.com directly, OK?<P>glad to see where the research was performed also - the context helps one's understanding of the conclusions. i think that was a problem with one's receptivity to marian mcdermott's paper - that, without knowing where these conclusions were drawn from - but knowing it was NOT oneself - or anyone one knows!!!!! - they were hard to accept (not impossible, but very hard....)

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Grace and gavin - my aplogies there are not 13 pages in the chapter but 20 1/4 pages. I apologise for the error - did not have the book in front of me when I posted.<P>However I still stand by my point the eating disorder issue is not the main focus of the book. Ill informed prejudices or not we can all draw our own conclusions. Being the mother of 4 children , all either in or beyond the teenage/adolescent years, I can see exactly where Buckroyd is coming from.<P>Page 19 " Research suggests, rates of injury, smoking and substance abuse, eating disorders alarmingly high among trainees and prof. dancers suggesting dance training is not preparing professionals in a way that they can care for themselves appropriately"<P>I stand firm in my above comments - except for the typing error of 19 pages.<P>How often do people look at the hole in the donut rather than the donut itself ?. Or a small black speck on a large white wall, rather than the white wall itself which has a very very small black speck on it.<P>The psychological problems or thought patterns behind the eating disorder, or any other behavioural patterns for that matter, is what we should be looking at and I believe this is what Buckroyd does.<p>[This message has been edited by Tip_toes (edited November 10, 2000).]

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