Analysis of the relationship between trait anxiety and professional experience in dance

Abstract

This study investigates the relationship between the TA levels of professional dancers and their level of experience in the world of dance. We have worked with dancers from three international dance companies: the National Dance Company in Spain (CND), the Ballet Nice Méditerranée of the Opéra de Nice in France (BON) and the Béjart Ballet Lausanne in Switzerland (BBL). The STAI from Spielberger was applied to 44 dancers in order to determine their level of anxiety trait and the possible correlations between the TA variables and years of professional experience. The results show that 56.8% of the subjects presented a TA located in the 10 percentile. The average of the variable related to the experience as professionals in the dance sector of the subjects was 9.34 years, and the results of the analysis of the correlation between TA and professional experience are not significant. We can conclude that the consecrated dancer presents very low levels of TA that would not be significantly related to a greater or lesser experience in the professional field. The TA seems to be a feature of great stability, either really characteristic of the professional dancers, or not influenced by their degree of stage experience.