During the Fall Semester, Natalie Klco, a percussionist, said she visited the SHAPe Clinic, which treats performing artists’ injuries, about three to four times a week to attend to the degeneration in her tendons, ligaments and elbow — problems she ignored for about a year.
Klco, a junior studying physics and music performance, said without SHAPe, she had no idea what she would have done to treat her injuries.
SHAPe, which stands for Science and Health in Artistic Performance, opened its doors at Putnam 304 at the beginning of Fall Semester and has seen a good deal of traffic since.
Jeff Russell, the director of SHAPe and assistant professor of athletic training, said the clinic sees about 20 people a day. Treatment does not require insurance and comes at no cost to the student. Last semester, there were 150 patients and 268 injuries treated.
“That’s quite a lot for our first semester as we’re just getting it going,” Russell said.
SHAPe was fully funded by the 1804 Fund, which is judged in the two categories of undergraduate learning and faculty research and graduate studies, in which it received a total of $81,083. The clinic receives that money for this year and next year.
Though there are some performing artist clinics at other universities, Russell said SHAPe is the only one treating all primary art disciplines and their niches — theater, dance, music and the Ohio University Marching 110 — while also doing research and educational programs.
The education component comes in many forms: working to create certificates for performing arts medicine, creating online courses and attending conferences. Russell said through the end of the year, he will have attended about 15 conferences.
Russell will be speaking at the Performing Arts Medicine Association’s regional meeting in Tampa, Fla on March 7. Gail Berenson, professor of piano and an advocate of musician wellness, will be attending the conference as well, speaking about the wellness course she initiated at OU in the ’90s. Berenson has been going across the country with Russell doing presentations about performing artists’ care at OU.
“It’s pioneering,” she said. “We’re taking care of our students who have contact with other students so, in turn, we are creating future generations of healthy performers.”
Russell said a goal is to do more preventive exercise education, which is more prevalent in sports than the performing arts. Russell said the more resources and attention devoted to sports care is because of the different mentalities about how people perceive the athlete’s performance compared to the artist’s performance.
Intercollegiate Athletics has two athletic training rooms that service varsity teams in the Convo and Peden Stadium, which was renovated in 2005 and expanded to include a “state-of-the-art hydrotherapy room,” according to the Ohio Bobcats website.
John Bowman, assistant athletic director for sports medicine services, said the training rooms are responsible for approximately 400 athletes. Russell said SHAPe is responsible for about 700 performing artists.
“The arts don’t get a lot of attention like sports do,” Russell said. “You don’t fill up a stadium with 100,000 people to watch a dance or play. … I don’t expect equality but I hope for greater appreciation for how important arts can be and how rigorous they are.”
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