This mixed methods study investigates the juncture of dance science, somatics, and contemporary modern dance training, and how they intertwine with learning processes and skill execution through transfer theory. The effects of a novel somatics training program are analyzed through six case studies using data reduction and interpretation of…

This article identifies the student's perceptions regarding the lack of inhibition, spontaneity and codification of the tasks associated with corporeal expression. The aim was to identify the positive and negative feelings of the students regarding the expressive activities involved in the three phases of the exercise: exploration, expression and…

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,…

This article calls choreographers and educators alike to continue building an awareness of methodologies that support a disability aesthetic. A disability aesthetic supports the embodiment of dancers with disabilities by allowing for their bodies to set guidelines of beauty and value. Principle-based work is a methodology that supports a…

A number of complex, interrelated issues impact dancer norms and nourishment knowledge, which can make the subject daunting to address. This article provides a curricular model which examines aspects of physical, mental, and emotional wellness as components of human nourishment. An interdisciplinary literature review considers the…

This article examines a culturally specific case study of integrated dance. While integrated dance must constantly combat what I termed as "disdance" to earn legitimacy, each project might do this differently in its particular context. Based on documentary analysis and ethnography, I argue that in the Israeli context, wheelchair folk…

This paper analyses "Bharatanatyam on Wheels" by Ability Unlimited Foundation, Delhi. It interrogates the possibilities and challenges that disability performance presents to codifications in the form and grammar of "Bharatanatyam," a "classical" dance form of India. The Indian classical scriptures of performance…

This article addresses the use of the fifth position in historical and current dance training practices with particular emphasis upon examining the 180° aesthetic and its hegemonic, idealized persistence in dancing bodies, as a marker of perfection and "beauty". Historical research is interwoven with practice-based experience and dance…

We theorise an interdisciplinary arts practice university course and consider the forms of educational imaginary challenged by our curriculum. We argue for the disruptive and generative potential of what we call diffractive pedagogy as an example of the type of learning that can take place when materiality and entanglement are considered as vital…

Speckled Egg Dance was established in Galway, Ireland, in 2013, to facilitate opportunities for learning disabled dance artists to develop semi-professional dance skills and independent choreographic practice. The company aims to contest normative perceptions of learning disabled dance ability, and to make learning disabled dance aesthetics…

This article explores bodily movement practices as a foundational component of rhetorical awareness. Through ethnographic study of dance pedagogy, the author demonstrates how genre uptake is enabled by bodily experience; learned ways of moving produce inclinations toward certain rhetorical pathways over others. Enabling students to uptake new…

Since the establishment of Acting Studies, movement has always been a part of actor training. In the current vocational training institutions in the UK, movement for actors covers a wide range of subjects, including dance, somatics and movement practices. The aim of this research was to collect information about the dance techniques considered…

Background/Context: The tradition of dance art in Finland is characterized by values such as individuality and uniqueness, and the professional practice is structured by competition and different kinds of hierarchies, which may also add color to the culture of dance teaching. One of the most noticeable elements within the dance education community…

This article provides an example of teacher research conducted by a dance educator at an elite independent boarding school in the Northeastern USA. The research was conducted during the second year of a two-year master's degree program at a large Northeastern university and the article is co-written by the former master's student/teaching fellow…

What are the dominant images of the Child in contemporary Western societies? In order to challenge some dominant images of the Child, this essay explores the possibilities of analyzing an experimental dance practice with preschoolers aged 1-2 years with Claire Colebrook's theorizing on "the war on norms". Colebrook suggests a "Queer…