This article proposes a model for introducing biological perspectives into teaching dance as a means to encourage students toward deeper, healthier, and more personal relationships with their art form as well as appreciation for their physical and cognitive abilities, both inside and outside of the dance studio. It recommends that dance teachers…

This article describes Communication by Design, a year-long project developed to foster an important dialogue between emerging student costume designers and student choreographers. Two university professors, one teaching costume design and one teaching dance, collaborated to help their students gain an understanding of how these two disciplines…

In this article the author, Rachel Rimmer, explores how improvisation can facilitate skills that are transferable to other areas of dance practice, enabling different areas of study to complement each other. The experimental forum of improvisation as an alternative method of learning technique is considered, contemplating the value of this…

For intermediate and advanced university students, technique class has traditionally been the place to study a particular teacher's style and to hone technical skills. This article suggests a pedagogy that broadens standard practice by focusing additionally on both performance principles and spontaneous problem solving in the technique classroom.…

Over a three-month period, Arcadia High School and Arizona State University formed a community partnership with the help of New York modern dance choreographer David Dorfman to create an original dance titled "Here." Dorfman's community-building approach is based on personal refection, collaboration, critical thinking, problem solving, genuine…

Research on the efficacy of traditional ballet barre exercises in relation to student learning and performance in technique class essentially is non-existent. This research explored how students described their experiences with barre work as well as how they saw these experiences as developing desired skills for moving in the center work.…

This study explores the intersection of the individual's imagery ability, imagery use in dance training and performance, and learning style. Thirty-four intermediate-level ballet and modern dance students at the University of Oregon completed the Movement Imagery Questionnaire-Revised (MIQ-R) and Kolb's Learning Style Inventory-3 (LSI-3). The four…

The article addresses the utilization of modern dance compositional approaches in the development of sacred dance works. A brief history of sacred dance in the Western Church is traced as a foundation for students' stereotypical approaches to dance and religion. Also examined is the 20th Century modern dance choreographers' practice of…

This article describes a new alcohol education program at Dickinson State University. The centerpiece of the program is the Alcohol Awareness Through the Arts Program. It involves dozens of students and faculty and regularly draws 400 to 450 audience members. Funded by grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, The Otto Bremer Foundation,…

This study examines the interaction between learning styles and academic performance in an anatomy course that blends traditional lecture with an array of hands-on activities. Participants were 19 students (ranging from 18 to 24 years of age) at Columbia College, Chicago. The Felder-Silverman Index of Learning Styles and a 25-item pre-test and…

In the dance studio, the mirror can play a large role in the dancer's learning process. Research on learning and memory shows that reducing the amount of feedback during training enhances long-term motor skill retention and that more externally focused attention may aid performance. Research testing the effectiveness of training with a mirror as a…

The dance studio typically features a wall of mirrors; however, there has been little research on the pedagogical advantages and disadvantages of mirrors in the training environment. Psychological studies on objective self-awareness, the ability to see one's self as an object, suggest that the mirrors magnify this state. How this increased…

Reconstructions are critical in giving body to the history of dance. For student dancers, participating in reconstructions is a participation in both the legacy of dance and in dance as a form of cultural discourse. When choreographers generate movement vocabulary and improvisational parameters together with performers, the resulting collaborative…

Sixty-two college-aged, ballet and modern dancers evaluated their bodies and themselves in different dance and non-dance settings. In a self-report survey design, dancers' body esteem, fitness esteem, and self-esteem (an overall self-evaluation) were measured in three different contexts. Dancers rated their body esteem, fitness esteem, and…