This paper explores what is perceived and believed to be an ideal ballet body by young ballet dancers. Such bodily belief becomes, in Pierre Bourdieu's terms, a core part of a ballet dancer's habitus. A four year longitudinal, ethnographic, empirical study of the experiences of 12 young ballet dancers, six boys and six girls, aged…

This paper explores how young ballet dancers' bodies are constructed and narrated through their desire to become performing ballet dancers. The schooling of the balletic body engages the young dancer in embodying the discipline of ballet and in developing a particular belief in a performing body. The embodied set of acquired dispositions that are…

The purpose of this study is to examine children's cognition within the creative process in dance and to examine how dance making affects cognitive development in children. Data on children's thinking were gathered from fifth graders participating in an artist-in-residence program in a public school in Pennsylvania. Both the inquiry and the data…

This paper reports on "Web3D dance composer" for ballet e-learning. Elementary "petit allegro" ballet steps were enumerated in collaboration with ballet teachers, digitally acquired through 3D motion capture systems, and categorised into families and sub-families. Digital data was manipulated into virtual reality modelling language (VRML) and fit…

In this essay, the author talks about the aesthetic aspects of education with some special reference to movement in different senses. First, he discusses the aesthetic and its relation to education in a general way. He then explains the concepts of expression and embodiment in the appreciation of the arts. Lastly, the author talks about the…

This essay narrates the biography and dance aesthetics of Myra Beltran, a pioneering, independent and contemporary woman dance artist in the Philippines. Featured here are the history, alternative aesthetics, philosophy, and influences of Myra Beltran's works. It comes from the point of view of an author who is also a woman, dancer, and writer…

The aim of this study is to present Rallou Manou's work, as well as to demonstrate her contribution to the development and emergence of modern dance in Greece. The data used were mostly collected from Rallou Manou's personal "Archive," but also from published reviews, interviews from her students and the personal experience of the writer. The…

Western aesthetics tends to maintain its long-standing preoccupation with the visual arts, music and literature. The dance, along with the arts of radio and television drama, has not yet received the attention that would seem commensurate with the cultural importance of these forms and the widespread influence they undoubtedly exert. To come upon…

This paper is a reflection on the process of dance choreography, an assignment for pedagogical evaluation at postgraduate level in an Indian university. It is also a recapitulation and reconstruction of my experiences while undergoing a Master's course in Bharatanatyam (a style of classical dance) in the Centre for Performing Arts (CPA),…

In this essay, the author notes a danger concerning the general approach to teaching about the arts through improper use of the concepts "aesthetic" and "artistic." Observing that both concepts are often used interchangeably, with "aesthetic" being seen as the more generic term, the author argues that these concepts are separate and should be…

Many UK universities now recognise that artistic practice can constitute a form of research in its own right; increasingly, practising artists are sponsored or employed to work creatively within the academy, whilst the regulatory frameworks of research degree programmes have evolved to enable practical doctoral submissions. These developments have…

Three key publications from September 2000 point to rapid changes in the educational and arts environment in Hong Kong that will impact on the development of dance education. This paper provides some contextual details on the current state of dance education in Hong Kong and also examines the influence and possible ramifications implicit within…

The most familiar form of evaluation in Western theatrical dance is aesthetic judgement, which considers dance performances as objects of art. This is how dance critics usually approach dance. However, there is more to evaluation than this. It also plays an integral part in learning: it can help a student develop skills in choreography as well as…