Our research examined the student-athlete experience for university dancers transitioning from studio-based competitive dancing to the competitive university context. This experience was explored in a photovoice project with 12 dancers on a competitive university team in Southern Ontario. Collectively, the researchers and dancers established three…

This study examined the impact of an in-school dance curriculum on the social-emotional development of at-risk preschoolers in a southern California public preschool program. The preschoolers (N = 69) participated in dance for thirty minutes, once a week, over an entire academic year. We compared the Desired Results Developmental Profile (DRDP)…

This article communicates a study on dance for people over 65 in Sweden. Earlier studies on dance for elderly people have primarily focused on treatment and wellbeing. The current study centers on the right to make oneself heard in and through contemporary dance as an artistic form of expression, regardless of age, gender, or geographical context.…

In many dance competitions in North America, performances of sexualized choreography have become normalized. One result is that bodies of girl dancers are increasingly constructed as sexual objects. Sexual objectification is highly problematic for the development of girls' self-identities, body image, psychological health, and overall wellbeing.…

Flow states have been linked to positive emotions, optimal focus, productivity, and a stronger sense of self through learning. Past research has confirmed that dancers experience flow, that flow in dance is related to spirituality and community connectedness, and that environmental factors can inhibit or facilitate dancing flow. This exploratory…

This study investigates the impact of partial versus full mirror use on body image in a beginner-level ballet class. At the end of a seven-week period, researchers distributed an online survey inclusive of qualitative questions to two groups of female collegiate students enrolled in separate beginner-level ballet courses taught by the same…

Postsecondary dance technique teachers negotiate extensive physical demands throughout their careers. As they rise through the academic ranks, their bodies age, and with age sometimes comes limited mobility, decreasing strength, and injuries. Further, mental and emotional processes and self-perceptions sometimes change in response to diminishing…

Commercial dance forms, specifically musical theater dance, remain highly marginalized within higher education research. This article presents the need to establish more scholarly research in musical theater dance and points out the ethnographic identity of the genre in our global society. Ethnographic study can be useful in validating musical…

This article addresses the notion of touch and its constitutive role in the participatory sense-making process (de Jaegher and Paolo 2007) of play and dance improvisation. It is argued that touch is always relational, as it continuously changes the contours of self, other(ness), and world(ing). It is therefore surprising that touch traditionally…

The following study is a phenomenological qualitative analysis of collegiate dancers' experiences with and perceptions of body awareness and somatic movement. Participants (n = 8) were trained dancers, although not dance majors. Semi-structured interviews explored what kinds of experiences dancers have had in the realm of body awareness, what…

This article explores the expanded possibilities of Bharata-Natyam education in the United States (US) based on a reflective practice in my dance over the past thirty years. This has given rise to an epistemological investigation into the seeming dichotomy of tradition and agency and has percolated into a set of questions, especially salient in my…

"Professional performance experience versus pedagogical knowledge in teaching technique class as a creative process" is a qualitative examination of the practices of six contemporary technique teachers that identifies the ways in which their educational and professional performance experiences have affected their teaching practices.…

Professional dance careers require years of intensive training. Stress experienced during training must be balanced with adequate recovery to prevent overtraining and burnout. Little is known, however, about how dancers achieve recovery-stress balance. This study examined dancers' recollection of stress and recovery during their vocational dance…

As globalization endures onslaughts from neo-state nationalism, examining the role that dances from non-Western cultures play in facilitating intercultural education is necessary. This article critically examines the intercultural reflections and meanings that student performers constructed from learning and performing the movements, techniques,…

I discuss my journey in the construction, pedagogy, and philosophy of the dance technique CaribFunk™. CaribFunk fuses Afro-Caribbean (traditional and social dance), classical ballet, modern, and fitness elements. It also encourages exploration of self while investigating identity, citizenship, and culture through a kinesthetic expression of the…