This free healthy practice workshop will give practical advice on how to warm up and cool down for Western and South Asian musicians.
Warming up and cooling down is an essential skill for all musicians to prevent injury. Three-quarters of musicians have health problems that can impact their creative work, ranging from minor inconveniences to career-limiting conditions (Ackermann, Kenny 2014). Many of these conditions could be prevented by healthy practice, including an appropriate warm up and cool down routine.
This session will cover common physical health problems and their relationship to warming up and cooling down. We will have a special focus on South Asian musicians and their practice but is open to and relevant to all musicians.
BAPAM delivers expert health and wellbeing services in the performing arts. Our events give artists, creators, technicians, teachers, and organisers the knowledge they need to improve health and enjoy sustainable careers.
All our training and expert clinics for people in the performing arts are available for free because of the support of our community.Help us create a healthier world for performing arts professionals. Give £10 today.
Hannah D’Souza Physiotherapist
Hannah Dsouza is a First Contact Practitioner/Physiotherapist experienced in working with musicians, vocalists, musical theatre, dance and circus artists. She helps performing artists with issues relating to sprains, strains, ligament injuries, fractures, dystonia, soft tissue injuries and vocal tension. She also offers services in strength & conditioning, injury prevention, injury rehabilitation, soft tissue mobilisation, manual therapy, vocal massage and instrument/dance specific rehabilitation. She is based in Hemel Hempstead and is able to arrange home visits/onsite physiotherapy. In her NHS work she is a first contact practitioner, providing specialist physio assessments for patients attending their GP surgery with musculoskeletal conditions.
Hannah is a singer and instrumentalist playing keyboard, guitar and ukulele and is also a freestyle, Bollywood and Kathak dancer. “Being a musician and a member of a musical band, I can very well empathise with fellow performers who perform despite being in pain. I realised that I want to work with performers at a very early stage while studying physiotherapy. I strongly believe in the biopsychosocial framework of management while dealing with any patient, especially performers“.
Research looking at health issues within the performing arts workforce consistently finds that 70-75% of our population report both mental and physical health problems, which is much higher than the national average. We are lucky to be working with a number of health and wellbeing experts who can offer training to performers across the UK, with the aim of reducing the levels of poor health and supporting performers to have a sustainable career. Working with our partners in Equity, Musicians’ Union, Help Musicians UK and Performing Arts Education Providers – who are very kindly giving us free use of training venues – we are expanding our national training programme supporting healthy performance in the UK.