Dancing on safe ground. An Interview with Wolfgang Heuer on the influence of dance floors

Zum Forschungsprojekt des Instituts für Arbeits-, Sozial- und Umweltmedizin der Goethe-Universität Frankfurt unter der Leitung von Prof. Dr. Dr. Eileen Wanke

The right floor plays a decisive role in rehearsals and performances in professional dance: it not only influences the feeling of movement, but also the physical strain and the risk of injury.

Wolfgang Heuer, Deputy Head of the ‘Stages and Studios’ department at Unfallkasse NRW (DGUV), is contributing his expertise to the dance medicine research project under the direction of Prof Dr Dr Eileen Wanke. The focus is on the question of how different floor coverings affect the joints and the entire musculoskeletal system of dancers.

For the statutory accident insurance, such findings are of great importance: they provide an important basis for recommendations to theatres and training centres in order to make rehearsal and performance conditions as safe as possible.