Skip to content
1981
Teaching Practising: Frameworks, Experiments, Conversations
  • ISSN: 1757-1871
  • E-ISSN: 1757-188X

Abstract

This article examines the notion of ‘practising’ through the lens of contemporary dance technique training. The author explores the extent to which a ‘reflexive-dialogical’ approach to contemporary dance technique training, which is an approach developed within the context of the author’s own action research, can cultivate a mode of ‘practising’ by emphasizing continuous, processual learning. The reflexive-dialogical approach focuses on positioning both dancer and teacher in a critical relationship with their respective practices; a dialogical mode of learning is used to expose and question the ‘how and why’ of physical and cognitive behavioural dispositions that are acquired through the process of embodying and transmitting dance techniques. Proposing that this critical relationship creates destabilization within the habitus, the author argues that such destabilization is required for teachers and students to notice and disrupt patterns of embodiment in the pursuit of maintaining a curious, practising approach to training that cultivates agency.

Loading

Article metrics loading...

/content/journals/10.1386/jdsp_00099_1
2023-09-08
2026-04-18

Metrics

Loading full text...

Full text loading...

References

  1. Anttila, E. (2007), ‘Searching for dialogue in dance education: A teacher’s story’, Dance Research Journal, 39:2, pp. 4357.
    [Google Scholar]
  2. Bourdieu, P. (1977), Outline of a Theory of Practice, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
    [Google Scholar]
  3. Cruz Banks, O. (2009), ‘Critical postcolonial dance recovery and pedagogy: An international literature review’, Pedagogy, Culture and Society, 17:3, pp. 35567.
    [Google Scholar]
  4. Cvejic, B. (2015), Choreographing Problems: Expressive Concepts in European Contemporary Dance and Performance, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
    [Google Scholar]
  5. Davies, B. (1990), ‘Agency as a form of discursive practice: A classroom scene observed’, Journal of Sociology of Education, 11:3, pp. 34161.
    [Google Scholar]
  6. Deleuze, G. (1993), ‘One manifesto less’, in V. Constantin (ed.), The Deleuze Reader, New York: Columbia University Press, pp. 20422.
    [Google Scholar]
  7. Deleuze, G. (1994), Difference and Repetition (trans. P. Patton), New York: Columbia University Press.
    [Google Scholar]
  8. Dragon, D. (2015), ‘Creating cultures of teaching and learning: Conveying dance and somatic education pedagogy’, Journal of Dance Education, 15:1, pp. 2532.
    [Google Scholar]
  9. Dryburgh, J. (2018), ‘Unsettling materials: Lively tensions in learning through “set materials” in the dance technique class’, Journal of Dance & Somatic Practices, 10:1, pp. 3550.
    [Google Scholar]
  10. Dyer, B. (2010), ‘The perils, privileges and pleasures of seeking right from wrong: Reflecting upon student perspectives of social processes, value systems, agency and the becoming of identity in the dance technique classroom’, Research in Dance Education, 11:2, pp. 10929.
    [Google Scholar]
  11. Foster, S. (1997), ‘Dancing bodies’, in J. C. Desmond (ed.), Meaning in Motion: New Cultural Studies of Dance, London: Duke University Press, pp. 23557.
    [Google Scholar]
  12. Foucault, M. (1977), Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison, New York: Pantheon Books.
    [Google Scholar]
  13. Foucault, M. (1981), ‘The order of discourse’, in R. Young (ed.), Untying the Text: A Post-Structuralist Reader, London: Routledge, pp. 4878.
    [Google Scholar]
  14. Freire, P. (1972), Cultural Action for Freedom, Harmondsworth: Penguin.
    [Google Scholar]
  15. Freire, P. (2005), Pedagogy of the Oppressed, London: The Continuum International Publishing Group.
    [Google Scholar]
  16. Green, J. (2001), ‘Socially constructed bodies in American dance classrooms’, Research in Dance Education, 2:2, pp. 15573.
    [Google Scholar]
  17. Hanstein, P. (1990), ‘Educating for the future: A post-modern paradigm for dance education’, Journal of Physical Education, Recreation and Dance, 61:5, pp. 5658.
    [Google Scholar]
  18. Loots, L. (2021), ‘Decolonising dance pedagogy? Ruminations on contemporary dance training and teaching in South Africa set against the specters of colonisation and apartheid’, Theatre, Dance and Performance Training, 12:2, pp. 18497.
    [Google Scholar]
  19. Maton, K. (2012), ‘Habitus’, in M. Grenfell (ed.), Pierre Bourdieu: Key Concepts, 2nd ed., London: Routledge, pp. 4864.
    [Google Scholar]
  20. Millard, O. (2017), ‘Dancing participation: Observations of a long-term group dance improvisation practice’, Brolga: An Australian Journal About Dance, 41, https://ausdance.org.au/articles/details/dancing-participation-observations-of-a-long-term-group-dance-improvisation. Accessed 2 May 2023.
    [Google Scholar]
  21. Mitra, R. (2018), ‘Talking politics of contact improvisation with Steve Paxton’, Dance Research Journal, 50:3, pp. 618.
    [Google Scholar]
  22. Nelson, R. (2013), Practice as Research in the Arts: Principles, Protocols, Pedagogies and Resistances, London: Palgrave Macmillan.
    [Google Scholar]
  23. Nelson, R. (2022), Practice as Research in the Arts (and Beyond): Principles, Processes, Contexts, Achievements, Cham: Palgrave Macmillan.
    [Google Scholar]
  24. Olsen, A. (2002), Body and Earth: An Experiential Guide, Lebanon: University Press of New England.
    [Google Scholar]
  25. Pallaro, P. (ed.) (2007), Authentic Movement: Moving the Body, Moving the Self, Being Moved, London: Jessica Kingsley Publishers.
    [Google Scholar]
  26. Parviainen, J. (2023), ‘Dance Techne: Kinetic bodily logos and thinking in movement’, Choreographnet, 19 and 26 May, https://choreographnet.substack.com/p/dance-techne-kinetic-bodily-logos, https://choreographnet.substack.com/p/dance-techne-kinetic-bodily-logos-46f. Accessed 31 May 2023.
    [Google Scholar]
  27. Pont, A. (2017), ‘Philosophising practice’, in S. Attiwill, T. Bird, A. Eckersley, A. Pont and J. Roffe (eds), Practising with Deleuze, Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, pp. 1642.
    [Google Scholar]
  28. Pont, A. (2021), A Philosophy of Practising with Deleuze’s Difference and Repetition, Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.
    [Google Scholar]
  29. Rimmer-Piekarczyk, R. (2018), ‘Self-somatic authority: Exploring the cultivation of somatic intelligence through a dialogic approach to self-reflection in dance technique learning’, Journal of Dance & Somatic Practices, 10:1, pp. 95110.
    [Google Scholar]
  30. Rimmer-Piekarczyk, R. (2021), ‘Doxic agreements and the mobilisation of agency: Examining students’ engagement with cognitive reflection in relation to the dominant pedagogical discourses of western dance technique education’, Ph.D. thesis, Manchester: Manchester Metropolitan University, https://e-space.mmu.ac.uk/629427/. Accessed 5 July 2023.
    [Google Scholar]
  31. Roche, J. (2011), ‘Embodying multiplicity: The independent contemporary dancer’s moving identity’, Research in Dance Education, 12:2, pp. 10518.
    [Google Scholar]
  32. Roche, J. (2015), Multiplicity, Embodiment and the Contemporary Dancer: Moving Identities, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
    [Google Scholar]
  33. Röhrig Assunção, M. (2002), Capoeira: The History of Afro-Brazilian Martial Art, London: Frank Cass.
    [Google Scholar]
  34. Rothfield, P. (2016), ‘Tinkering away: The untimely art of subtraction’, in T. F. DeFrantz and P. Rothfield (eds), Choreography and Corporeality: Relay in Motion, London: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 1530.
    [Google Scholar]
  35. Stinson, S. (2015), Embodied Curriculum Theory and Research in Arts Education: A Dance Scholar’s Search for Meaning, London: Springer International Publishing.
    [Google Scholar]
/content/journals/10.1386/jdsp_00099_1
Loading
  • Article Type: Discussion
Keyword(s): agency; critical reflection; dance; practising; praxis; training
This is a required field
Please enter a valid email address
Approval was a success
Invalid data
An error occurred
Approval was partially successful, following selected items could not be processed due to error
Please enter a valid_number test