‘Dance for Sports’ book to be released in 2017

Margo K. Apostolos, a faculty member at the University of Southern California’s Glorya Kaufman School of Dance, is on schedule to release a book entitled “Dance for Sports: A Practical Guide.” Currently working on the last chapter, the finished product will be published next year by Oxford University Press.

The book pulls from more than 30 years of Dr. Apostolos’ professional experience and research, which she started in Chicago back in the 1970’s when she was a young dancer. It will serve as a useful resource to coaches, athletes and dance teachers alike, presenting pictures, charts and real life stories to illustrate how dance training enhances athletic performance.

With dance becoming more “trendy” as a form of exercise (more on this here), it’s no wonder athletes are starting to pay more and more attention. (For example, another video just went viral about New England Patriots Tight-End Rob Gronkowski cutely taking ballet lessons with Miami City Ballet’s Principal Soloist Nathalia Arja.) The National Museum of Dance is capitalizing on this now with its current exhibit “The Dancing Athlete,” which explores “the inherent connections between dance and sports, and dancers and athletes, and the influence and confluence of these forms throughout history.”

For Apostolos’ book, she’ll draw on decades of discoveries garnered from her work with athletes at various universities, including USC and Stanford University. Many of these athletes later became NFL players and Olympic gold medalists.

Her book will offer an up-close view of her in-classroom work. At USC Kaufman she teaches “Dance as an Art Form” and “Dance Conditioning.”

“My classes bring together the real art and science of training the body because the work I’ve done in dance for sport is not just theoretical,” said Apostolos. “The actual application of my work is done with athletes, so I bring that to the studio.”

Learn more about Apostolos and her career at https://kaufman.usc.edu/faculty/margo-apostolos. This fall, she’ll join other USC Kaufman faculty members in teaching in the brand-new, state-of-the-art Glorya Kaufman International Dance Center. Read more about the center and its grand opening here.

Photo: Margo Apostolos (center) and Dr. Glenn Pfeffer (left) with USC student Kasia Wasilewska. Photo courtesy of Cedars-Sinai/USC Glorya Kaufman Dance Medicine Center.