Professional Dancers Describe Their Imagery: Where, When, What, Why, and How

Abstract

In-depth semistructured interviews were conducted with 14 male and female professional dancers from several dance forms. Interviews were primarily based in the 4 Ws framework (Munroe, Giacobbi, Jr., Hall, & Weinberg, 2000), which meant exploring Where, When, Why, and What dancers image. A dimension describing How the dancers employed imagery also emerged. What refers to imagery content, and emerged from two categories: Imagery Types and Imagery Characteristics. Why represents the reason an image is employed and emerged from five categories: Cognitive Reasons, Motivational Reasons, Artistic Reasons, Healing Reasons, and No reason - Triggered Imagery. There were also large individual differences reported regarding What images were used and Why. Many new insights were gained, including several imagery types and reasons not commonly discussed in sport and exercise.