Emancipatory pedagogy?: Women's bodies and the creative process in dance (original) (raw)
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This article explores body, power and pedagogical issues related to a study in dance education. The study investigated the body perceptions of participant student teachers in a somatics and creativity project within a university level instructional setting. During this project somatic (body-mind) practices were used to explore body perceptions and image. The students then created what they called an 'interactive movement performance', which explored the issues raised in class. It explored how these body perceptions are influenced by society and the dance world. During the project the participants were asked questions about previous experiences in dance education, and how they have learned to perceive their bodies in reference to a model weight and body ideal. The initial qualitative/postpositivist analysis, from class discussion, interviews, observation and document analysis, indicated that the participants' previous experiences in dance did reflect an emphasis on 'ideal body' myths in the dance world. Students also expressed the value of somatic practice as a tool for body awareness and consciousness of these socio-political issues in traditional dance education. The students tended to tie somatics to an inner authority that resists technologies of normalisation and dominant meaning systems in dance and society. Somatic practice facilitated a dialogue through which they realised and expressed the pressures to meet an imposed bodily standard. Further, it allowed them the space to explore a connection to their bodies rather than the disconnection that comes from attempting to meet standards of bodily ideals. This article focuses on the themes of pedagogy and power that emerged from the study. body image | dance education | dance pedagogy | body perceptions Keywords: Article: Recently, a number of educational theorists have problematised1 the term 'empowerment'. They have suggested that although teachers sometimes claim to help students learn, in actuality they may silence them or train them to act docilely (Ellsworth, 1992; Green, 1999; Lather, 1991; McWilliam, 1994). For example, in her often cited scholarly piece, 'Why doesn't this feel empowering? Working through the repressive myths of critical pedagogy', Elizabeth Ellsworth
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Research in Dance Education, 2016
This paper investigates the evolution of feminist consciousness in dance technique class as related to body image, the myth of the perfect body, and the development of feminist pedagogy. Western concert dance forms have often been taught in a manner where imitating the teacher is primary in the learning process. In this traditional scenario, teachers serve as role models and students strive to emulate their teacher's performance as closely as possible. The authors provide possibilities for broadening such an approach through examining characteristics of feminist pedagogy. The reframing of teaching through a feminist lens reveals options for technique class teachinglearning paradigms to better support student learning in a fully engaged manner.
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This paper examines specific pedagogical themes, findings, and implications for dance education. The focus is on the topic of educating the student body in dance. The paper draws on a preliminary introduction and analysis from a previous study and accompanying course which pointed out a common dominant focus in dance education (an externalized view of the body). That view tends to objectify the dancer's body and requires students to strive to achieve a specific look while being corrected so that the students perform proper dance technique. The term somatic authority as used in the paper is defined as a focus on and affirmation of what the body looks like or how it should behave. The dance education students in the study often defined somatic authority as a sense of personal engagement in the learning process and an ownership of the body. The paper also discusses the reflexive analysis of participant responses that were sometimes in conflict with the assumptions and ideas of the ...
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Congress on Research in Dance Conference Proceedings, 2008
This essay uses ballet as an example of how dance can be rooted in a discourse of difference that women must learn to overcome. Contributing to the growing research on ballet produced by Jennifer Fisher (and others), this article explores the practice of ballet from the perspective of three female students enrolled in a university-level intermediate ballet class. Based on ethnographic material that was brought together by observing the body practices in the ballet classroom and interviewing the students about their experience with ballet, I explore the intersection between ballet and the lives of the female participants. In describing how the students understand their bodies in relation to the rigid structures of ballet, I show that it is precisely those structures that imbue the students with a sense of agency and self-expression. I also reveal that by conforming to the structures of ballet, the students are achieving higher levels of thinking that allow them to negotiate their eve...
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This dissertation is a philosophical analysis of the language of dance education. In particular the writer analyses the relation between language and body understanding. The Introduction presents an initial metaphor of consciousness as "world". The dance classroom is characterized as a space for the negotiation of the worlds of the students and teachers. The negotiation is political with unequal distribution of influence over the formation of the classroom world, such negotiation ordinarily favoring the teacher's world. Berger and Luckmann and Rorty are major sources for the analysis. Chapter One relates language to the formation of consciousness. Language functions to prevent us from knowing the world and enables us to come to know the world. Language is characterized as metaphorical, as a set of conflicting languages vying for social ascension and as incorporating a set of dialectical relationships. The individual consciousness is understood to be, at base, socially ...
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This article explores various historical moments in the academic disciplines of dance and physical education in which “dance as art” was debated, points to various considerations in how dance is framed in educational settings, and argues for prioritizing dance offerings for all students by resisting the urge to compartmentalize dance as discretely an art form. This approach offers an opportunity for collaboration between education professionals in dance and physical education to work together to support the ideal of providing dance for all.
Congress on Research in Dance Conference Proceedings, 2007
This paper explores body pedagogy, particularly related to how we teach dance technique in the United States. It addresses the paradigmatic positions underlying dance education and how somatics plays a role in how educators teach dance. Although somatics is viewed as a positive addition to a pedagogical repertoire, the author questions viewing it as a universal panacea for all the world's ills and points to larger sociopolitical factors concerning power dynamics and institutional power (that is, higher education dance).