Creating Cultures of Teaching and Learning: Conveying Dance and Somatic Education Pedagogy

Abstract

Often in teaching dance, methods of teaching and learning are silently embedded into dance classroom experiences. Unidentified and undisclosed pedagogic information has impacted the content of dance history; the perpetuation of authoritarian teaching practices within dance technique classes and in some dance classes deemed “somatics”; and the perception of the field of dance as “dance as art” or “dance as education”. This research illuminates a history of dance pedagogy in United States higher education. Dance pedagogy is aligned with current educational theory and practice, which reveals the impact of pedagogic choices on creating student-centered and teacher-centered cultures of teaching and learning. This article calls upon dance educators to be cognizant of the implications of pedagogic choices and to be transparent to students about pedagogy in their classrooms.