The Dance Rants Podcast

A few weeks ago I had the pleasure to talk to Hayden Idrus and Dylan Holly. Two professional dancers with various backgrounds but long time friends. During these Covid-19 times they took the opportunity to start their podcast: The Dance Rants Podcast. What a great idea! I’m a huge fan of listening to podcasts and not only I, but many people. The growth of podcasts seems limitless. But to find one that is related to or about professional dancers or dance scene; almost none. In The Dance Rants Podcast Dylan and Hayden aim to gain more insight into dance’s place in the world. If you are curious and want to hear more, you can listen to all episodes here! Follow them on Instagram as well to stay updated on new episodes.

Link to our Nutrition Dance Rants

It was an absolute honour to be invited to the show. My first podcast! I felt slightly nervous… So much to share about food and nutrition. How to share it in such a way that it will make sense to their listeners? Will I have all the answers to their food questions? Nutrition is an ever ongoing transforming field, impossible to know all the details of course. Plus everyone seems te be a food expert these days… On the other side, with my background as a pro dancer, education, experience and current job for Team Jumbo-Visma I was truly looking forward to share whatever I could so dancers can gain more nutritional knowledge and incorporate nutrition in their daily dancer lives, fuelling their body, brain, moves, health and overall performance.

Dancers are immersed in a body-focused world. This creates a vulnerable environment to the pre-occupation with body weight. Dancers, from my point of view, are both top athletes and artists. I think it’s important to realize that as a dancer. Their body is their instrument, a unique tool to express themselves and translate (choreographers’) stories, ideas, emotions into dance. If dancers could benefit from all the insights that were gained from for example sports nutritional research and would learn how to incorporate this knowledge into their daily life so that it fits their body, schedule, taste and needs, nutrition would support their health and performance much better. Without proper nutrition, performance suffers! A dancer’s body relies on nutritious meals to fuel movement and to sharpen technique. By fuelling up the right way dancers will also suffer from less injuries and/or recover faster and feel better mentally as well. Which all leeds to a fully conscious, fierce, passionate, engaged, enjoyable dancing career.

Because we spoke about so many things, here in this blogpost I wish to share with you some ‘show-notes’ of my talk with Hayden & Dylan. Simple tips like: “A nutrient-dense diet as a key component to performance” and “The 5 Nutri Moves”. Scroll down to find all downloads for free. Please don’t copy, publish, distribute (etc.) them, use them for yourself and with respect. Thanks!

As a performance artist, your work is to reach the audience, not a weight goal

Basic nutritional info and tips

• HOW TO: make your own performance meal-plan – This is to help you estimate how much energy you need to perform at your best while staying healthy and feeling energetic. Being in energy balance is important because it makes sure you give your body what it needs to recover, build, refuel, replenish. Not too much, but not to little neither. It is never a goal to count calories day in day out or to be busy with food constantly. These sheets are just to give you a kickstart on how to estimate your personal energy needs. It should transforme into an intuitive eating pattern once you learn more about food and nutrition and how it suits you best as a dancer and performance athlete. Intuitive eating is a non-diet approach that teaches us how to have a healthy relationship with both food and body.⁠ A process during which we learn how to make choices surrounding food (and exercise) based on every body’s personal signals, rather than on body weight goals, food/health rules, or caloric goals.
• Factsheet Timing Performance Nutrition information sheet
• Factsheet IADMS Fueling the Dancer
• Factsheet Collagen Supplementation for Dancers + recipes
• Factsheet creatine Supplementation for Dancers + recipes
• RECIPE: Pizza for Performance Athletes
• RECIPE: SPORTABLES Protein pancakes
• RECIPE: Breakfast cake for athletes

Real dancers eat and train, they don’t diet and exercise

If you are interested in my cookbook SPORTables (Dutch only, sorry!) – Send me an email!

More on Hayden & Dylan

Hayden Idrus was raised and educated in Perth, Australia. He trained classically while completing his high school education and then came over to study in HNB academy when he was 17. Hayden spent a year in the HBO program but then joined Introdans as a stagiair in 2015, where he’s been dancing until now. His experiences with modern repertoire has expanded his curiosity to different ways of moving. It made him wonder about how knowledge from other fields and industries can impact his own performance and creativity.

Dylan Holly, from Dublin-Ireland, is a trained Urban Contemporary dancer who specialises in Tutting. He is a Graduate of Fontys BA ‘Theatre Dance – Contemporary Urban’ in Tilburg, Netherlands. Being interested in the structures of academic learning Dylan is developing his own teaching practices while currently working at Fontys, as well as freelancing as a dance artist.

Who to follow?

Because so many people nowadays seem to be food experts, I can imagine it is hard to tell wrong from right in the food business. Many dancers find themselves wondering which information is based on no-nonsense evidence and which strategies are worth implementing. Therefor I’d like to share my favourite informative nutrition experts. So you don’t have to waste your time wandering about certain supplements or magical diets/-foods: if it sounds too good to be true, it usually is…

1. Asker Jeukendrup – My Sportscience
2. Dance Nutrition
3. Australian Institute of Sport – Nutrition
4. Dansdietetiek Nederland – soon online
5. Short video’s about Sports Nutrition

Fuel your passion, fuel your moves!

Thank you for reading! I hope you enjoyed listening to our Nutrition rants and other episodes of the DRPodcast. If you have any comments, thoughts about this food and nutrition subject send me an email or follow me on Instagram and send me a PM. I will answer you asap.

Love, Karin