This paper reviews, analyzes, and reflects upon two important reports released in 2013, both discussing research evidence for the value of dance education or arts education more generally, among school-aged students. One report was created by a large dance education advocacy and support group in the USA, the National Dance Education Organization;…

This paper seeks to examine how embodied methodological approaches might inform dance education practice and research. Through a series of examples, this paper explores how choreographic writing might function as an embodied writing methodology. Here, choreographic writing is envisioned as a form of visual word choreography in which words move,…

In this article, the author compares the practices, philosophy, and history of action research, also known as participatory action research, to the purposes and practices of dance education. The comparison yields connections in four categories, enhancing self-reflective teaching and curriculum design, taking responsibility for teaching outcomes,…

This essay traces the author's embodied practices toward the creation of an evening-length, spontaneously composed solo. Specifically, the author focuses on her work to release superficial and deep abdominal musculature to discover a new movement vocabulary, and greater access to the mobility of the pelvis/belly, ribs, and spine. The author…

This essay explores the numerous and diverse ways collaborative practices in dance research can unfold. Strengths and challenges within the collaborative process are discussed as emphasis is given to the multiple perspectives and types of relationships that evolve from and within the process. These core elements offer scholars a rich array of…

Validity is a key concept in qualitative educational research. Yet, it is often not addressed in methodological writing about dance. This essay explores validity in a postmodern world of diverse approaches to scholarship, by looking at the changing face of validity in educational qualitative research and at how new understandings of the concept…

The importance of reflective practice is frequently noted in the literature; indeed, reflective capacity is regarded as an essential characteristic for professional competence. The ability to think about why and what one does is critical to intelligent practice, practice that is reflective rather than routine. In recent years, higher education…

This article explores the creative role of contemporary dancers within the choreographic process, and introduces the question of why their creative contribution is often overlooked? It highlights how different modes of creativity can be understood, and what impacts different choreographic processes have on the way dancers understand their creative…

This article reflects upon the process of creating dance in an intermedial telematic dance setting with university students. Some contextualisation is made of five telematic dance projects (the "Phillypool Projects 2007-2012") that have taken place between two universities, one in the UK and one in the US. It will explore some of the…

In January of 2010, in Cebu, a southern province of the Philippines, a collaborative dance performance occurred between 1500 Filipino inmates, the choreographer Travis Payne, and backup dancers representing the late American pop star, Michael Jackson. The event took place at Cebu Provincial Detention and Rehabilitation Centre, a maximum security…

This qualitative study explored the use of metaphor within a somatic context as a means to bridge the divide between technique and expression in two undergraduate advanced intermediate ballet classes. Data included surveys, classroom observations, student journal responses and student work, as well as surveys and journal responses, one year after…

This essay investigates the ways dance narratives are constructed and aims to reconfirm the significance of dance narratives in the creation of meanings within dance practices. It draws on key concepts in narratology and psychoanalysis. These two critical perspectives are applied to the analysis of the narrative in Kenneth MacMillan's 1991 one-act…

Euro-American performance arts are exceptional among the world's cultures in that music and dance are separable and constitute independent disciplines. In the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries, a distinct consciousness emerged that demonstrated an awareness of the varying and protean relationships that music and dance can share. While…

Sophie Fedorovitch (1893-1953) had a formative influence on the designs of English ballet as it developed during the 1930s and 1940s. Trained as a painter, she was a Polish-born Russian who adopted England as her homeland. Reticent by nature, little is documented about Fedorovitch's life and work. This paper examines her sources of influence,…

This paper evaluates the experience of integrating a professional dancer into a collegiate environment using a case study method of qualitative research. Interviews, focus groups, observation studies and document analysis techniques were used to gather qualitative data for this study. The innovation of diffusion theory was used to highlight the…