'Being inside the story': a phenomenology of onstage experience and the implications of flow

Abstract

Performing arts health is a collaborative field, specializing in care of a unique population who have been described as a distinctive combination of artist and athlete (Ambegoankar and Caswell 2011). The field has historically been dominated by a medical focus on injury prevention and management, particularly in music and dance, due to their parallels with sports medicine (Guptill 2011). This dominance of dance and music is also evident in psychology, with solid evidence growing around performance anxiety in musicians (Graetz Simmonds and Southcott 2012, Kirchner 2011, Kirchner, Bloom and Skutnick-Henley 2008, Studer et al. 2012) and body image in dancers (Penniment and Egan 2012, Nasciemento, Luna and Fontenelle 2012, Swami and Harris 2012). Alice Brandfonbrener (1992) commented on this, describing actors as "forgotten patients"; an inspection of the journal Medical Problems of Performing Artists for the last five years (2009-2014) reveals that of 164 listed research articles and editorials, only one is related to actors (Anderson 2011).