TOWARDS A SYNERGY BETWEEN DANCE PEDAGOGY AND PRAXIS FOR NATIONAL DEVELOPMENT

The initial objective of dance education was to development the art form and harness it’s potentials for societal development. That dance education in Nigeria’s tertiary institutions of learning is largely seen as an isolated and purely academic exercise with little or no relevance to the real sector is hardly in contention as several studies attest to that reality. What is of concern is how to make it more relevant to the present milieu. Against universal trends, major developments in dance in Nigeria are driven by forces independent of academic influences. Various reasons have been advanced by scholars (Ikideh, 1987; Adeyemi, 2010; Onyemuchara, 2017; etc.) Onyemuchara, for instance, contends that the paucity of practice-based curriculum is the bane. Drawing from related disciplinary paradigms, this paper explores the possibility of synergizing the efforts of both the academic and professional/industry dance practitioners to make dance more relevant to national development.

Pedagogical Competency of Dance Instructors in The Training of Malay Court Dance Skills Among Upper Secondary Students at Johor National Art School

Dance pedagogy is a complex and dynamic field of competency that involves various skills and self-appearance. Therefore, dance instructors must widen the scope of their competency to strengthen and improve their level. This research aimed to identify the competency of dance instructors teaching the practical subject of Malay Court Dance based on factors including the components of pedagogy, curriculum, assessment, and professionalism. The data was collected from interviews with the instructors and was analyzed through thematic analysis. The findings indicated that the instructors’ competency level development could be mapped into three dimensions, namely orientation, agent, and competency content. It was concluded that art schools in Malaysia need to develop dance instructors’ competency in terms of (1) 21st-century learning needs, (2) vertical and horizontal knowledge sharing, (3) workshop, study tour, and competition, and (4) standardization of technological development relevant for curriculum, across knowledge, practical, and feeling domains.

Future designs of tertiary dance education: Scanning the field for decolonizing potentials in a major change project at the Department for Dance Pedagogy at Stockholm University of the Arts

This performative hybrid research and development project contributes knowledge about the decolonizing potentials and challenges that are articulated through an initial scanning of the dance pedagogical field as part of a large change project in tertiary dance education at the Department for Dance Pedagogy at Stockholm University of the Arts in Sweden. To do this scanning in a way that would promote collective learning, multiple perspective taking and creativity, we utilised design thinking. In total, 140 scan cards collected through the project were analysed. Both students and staff and other people in different parts of the world within the dance educational field created the scan cards. As a result, we suggest that the scanning of the field has pushed ourselves, the rest of the staff, students, and others into a process of collective learning, multiple perspective taking, and creativity, in which clear decolonizing potentials, as well as challenges to change are expressed.

VOICING THE MOVE: DISCURSIVE PRACTICES OF SCOTTISH DANCE INSTRUCTION

Bridging dance anthropology and multimodal discourse analysis, the article focuses on language used to teach and/or describe various versions of the pas de basque step in Highland, Scottish country, Scottish step and “called” Ceilidh dancing of Scotland. It analyses pedagogic discourse observed during on- and offline classes and dance events across the globe alongside the author’s own embodied experience as a Scottish dancer, learner and teacher. When examining culturally and somatically contextualised uses of English in Scottish dance pedagogy, the article takes into account a range of dance manuals and instructions published between 1950 and 2020 by the Royal Scottish Country Dance Society, the Royal Scottish Official Board of Highland Dancing, the United Kingdom Alliance of Professional Teachers of Dancing and other organisations and individuals. Revisiting issues of communicating (and delegating) authority, (re)shaping the dance tradition(s) and providing/refraining from regulation, the study is aimed at helping to better appreciate the mutual interconnectedness between pedagogic discourse, on the one hand, and dance learning and teaching as an embodied social and cultural experience, on the other.

How Does Pedagogy Compare between Professional Dance Education and Non-Professional Dance Education

Nowadays, dance education has been popularised at different educational levels, so dance teachers have the opportunity to teach students of different ages and backgrounds. However, this created a problem for me as, although I was teaching different people, I did not alter my teaching style. The pedagogy which aimed to foster professional dancers had no effect to non-professional students. In order to combine my experiences and resolve my problem, this paper concentrates on the difference between school-based and vocational dance pedagogy.

Dance on the Brain: Enhancing Intra- and Inter-Brain Synchrony

Dance has traditionally been viewed from a Eurocentric perspective as a mode of self-expression that involves the human body moving through space, performed for the purposes of art, and viewed by an audience. In this Hypothesis and Theory article, we synthesize findings from anthropology, sociology, psychology, dance pedagogy, and neuroscience to propose The Synchronicity Hypothesis of Dance, which states that humans dance to enhance both intra- and inter-brain synchrony. We outline a neurocentric definition of dance, which suggests that dance involves neurobehavioral processes in seven distinct areas including sensory, motor, cognitive, social, emotional, rhythmic, and creative. We explore The Synchronicity Hypothesis of Dance through several avenues. First, we examine evolutionary theories of dance, which suggest that dance drives interpersonal coordination. Second, we examine fundamental movement patterns, which emerge throughout development and are omnipresent across cultures of the world. Third, we examine how each of the seven neurobehaviors increases intra- and inter-brain synchrony. Fourth, we examine the neuroimaging literature on dance to identify the brain regions most involved in and affected by dance. The findings presented here support our hypothesis that we engage in dance for the purpose of intrinsic reward, which as a result of dance-induced increases in neural synchrony, leads to enhanced interpersonal coordination. This hypothesis suggests that dance may be helpful to repattern oscillatory activity, leading to clinical improvements in autism spectrum disorder and other disorders with oscillatory activity impairments. Finally, we offer suggestions for future directions and discuss the idea that our consciousness can be redefined not just as an individual process but as a shared experience that we can positively influence by dancing together.