This research highlights a K-5 dance artist-in-residence as a form of democratic and exemplary dance education that ignited collaboration, promoted equity, fostered student autonomy, and demonstrated rigor in school curriculum. Through examining observation, interview, and performance-based data and calling upon critical, democratic education…

Classical ballet technique is commonly taught through the use of authoritarian practices and normalizing aesthetic values, but the construction of the ballet dancer as a docile subject in opposition to an all-knowing instructor might impede ballet's progression. In this article I explore my development of a feminist or democratic ballet…

This article explores ways of learning experienced by university dance students participating in a community dance project. The students were unfamiliar with community-based practices and found themselves needing to remediate held attitudes about dance. How the students came to approach their learning within the dance-making process drew on…

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…

This article provides an example of a collaborative effort between a dance specialist and four third-grade classroom teachers at an arts magnet school. They developed a dance and geometry integration project including implementation strategies, assessment tools, and reflections completed by both the classroom teacher and the third-grade students.…

Dance studio spaces are often tucked away in the physical plant, separated from other classrooms and the primary activities of the school. During team meetings and curriculum planning, where does the dance educator ft in? With whom does the dance educator partner or team? The dance educator should be routinely partnered with a department or team…

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…

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…

This article describes the school-wide support behind an arts-infused dance curriculum at the Linwood A+ Elementary School. The "A+" stands for "arts plus academics." Linwood A+ Elementary School is based on this model, an approach to teaching and learning that infuses the arts into the whole curriculum. It is a vision of arts-infused teaching and…