````````Incorporation of an experiential anatomy component into the modern technique class educates students about the body in a way that permanently and positively impacts how they move. It is our responsibility as dance educators, whether at the elementary, secondary, or college level, to teach students how to care for their bodies and make…

Play is important in child development and learning. The intent of this study was to assess the effects of play, using physical movement and pretend imagery, on learning dance. Four preschool dance classes, encompassing 32 children ages 3-6, were randomly divided into pretend imagery groups and traditional teaching groups. The classes were…

Choreographers working in an educational setting often use student dancers as the instruments of their art. The inherent power dynamic of this relationship generates ethical issues that can affect the choreography and the learning experience of the student. At what point do choreographic decisions infringe upon goals for a moral, student-centered…

"Assessing Dance in Elementary Physical Education" is a special edition of the NASPE Assessment Series for K-12 Physical Education. Elementary school physical educators finally have a book that can help them plan assessments for dance, an important part of a comprehensive physical education curriculum. Through dance, students develop their motor…

Describes how a director-choreographer and teacher can help novice dancers present a polished performance with some encouragement, a little creativity and psychology, and some easy, solid stagecraft. Presents a four-step approach beginning with determining skill levels during auditions, planning choreography for rehearsals, holding a cast meeting,…

Rhythm tap is sweeping the nation as an outlet for self-expression. Also known as "jazz tap" or "percussive tap," this art form's dominant focus is musicality, improvisation, simple-to-complex rhythms, and new styles. It reaches beyond technique and serves as an outlet for self-expression, independence, and spontaneity. Rhythm tap incorporates an…

Integrating somatic practices into the dance technique class by bringing awareness to the bodily processes of breathing, sensing, connecting, and initiating can help students reconnect the mind with the body within the context of the classroom environment. Dance educators do not always have the resources to implement separate somatics courses…

Site-specific dance, which is often defined as dance that occurs outside of the conventional theater space, challenges choreographers to look at, listen to, feel, and think about the space in which the dance is performed. It also asks audiences to be active participants in the performance experience. The dances have to be informed by the space and…

This qualitative study describes the experience of professional contemporary dancers studying and applying the Alexander Technique to their dancing. This study was motivated by: 1. years of teaching both dance and somatics, 2. a strong desire to better understand how the Alexander Technique can be applied by dancers, and 3. a gap that the…

Good teaching, at its core, is an intuitive practice. It is an art and craft in which, through vision, objectives, and planning, a teacher prepares for the teaching moment. Experienced teachers know that lesson plans and pre-planning though, no matter how finely crafted, only point the teacher and the student in a direction. As artist-educators…

This paper represents an attempt to document some of the methods and processes involved in creating a new dance work. I observed, over a 5-week period, the making of a contemporary dance piece with a group of 19 3rd-year BA dance students at the Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts. The choreographer was Melbourne-based Dianne Reid, who…

Dance history is studied at all levels of the curriculum, whether as a named course or part of other domains of enquiry. Debates drawn from the philosophy of history and historiographic practice can impact on the teaching and learning of dance history in order to produce a more imaginative and personal engagement with the field. These debates are…

This volume introduces an experimental method for teaching creative movement and choreography. The method requires both a framework of conceptual structure, and freedom to explore ideas and imaginative transformation of experience through movement and external form. An opening discussion of creativity explains how dance performance has been…

One of the great puzzles within the Western concert dance world is why so many artists who create revolutionary works onstage conduct their classes and rehearsals as demagogues. Such teachers are engaged in teaching practices that replicate and reproduce in the dance studio the very power relationships they are often critiquing as unjust and…

What does it means to be a caring dance teacher? The essay reviews the rise of care in education and examines the concept of care as a moral orientation in personal and educational encounters so that connections to dance education are revealed, definitions are arrived at, and important related issues are identified. The essay describes three…