Om Claude Marchant: Ett historiografiskt bidrag till svart danshistoria i Sverige

In this article, the concept of «black dance» is used as a critical tool to explore the lifelong dance achievements of the black dancer, choreographer and pedagogue Claude Marchant (1919–2004) in relation to history making. Marchant’s history in the US and to some extent in Europe from the 1930s to the 1960s is mapped and analysed, with the aim of better understanding his work in Sweden, and more specifically in Gothenburg. While Marchant is mentioned in previous dance historiographies, there are no in-depth explorations of his life and work. This exploration, therefore, complements both Swedish and international dance research, with an example that problematises history production in relation to black artists such as Marchant. It is argued that a participatory «dance-where-we-dig» method is a useful tool for instigating locally situated historiographical processes of change, and can relate artists such as Marchant to broader, transnational contexts.

Dancing labour: Practising a personal archive

This article presents and discusses solo dance practices developed by Katrín Gunnarsdóttir during the years 2014–2020. She started to develop her practices with the solo work Saving History (2014), a chronological charting of her relationship with borrowing movement. As a consequence of that process she became interested in exploring the virtuosity of slowly morphing one movement into another, and that research developed into another solo work, Shades of History (2016). The act of warming up and getting ready for a performance formed the basis of the third solo, Dancing (to) (2020). Through this series of solo performances, Katrín has realized her ongoing interest in dancing labour, performing the archive and a focus on the dancing rather than the dancer.

Daring in dance–Bachelor Students in Dance Developing Life Skills for the 21st Century

This article investigates how to find connections between dance education and the development of life skills for the 21st century by interpreting students’ experiences of daring in dance. The article draws on a section of my PhD thesis that focuses on BA students’ lived experiences in modern and contemporary dance. The project is informed by hermeneutic phenomenology, and the material consists of eleven students log books and interviews. One of the main themes in the material is daring in dance, which is connected to a transformative learning process. In this article I dig more deeply into the embodied dimension of such learning process and discuss how the result of this process can be interpreted as developing life skills for the 21st century. The analysis shows that becoming a professional dancer is a vulnerable process, encompassing both fear of failure and learning to trust one’s own competencies. Several of these competencies point toward skills recognised as important to learning in the 21st century, such as flexibility, problem solving, self-direction and social skills. By focusing on everyday embodied experiences of daring in dance, this research provides one example of the development of life skills in higher education based in empirical research.

«Historia är något som konstrueras, det här är ett val» – om kritisk granskning i danshistorieundervisning

This article examines and discusses how teachers at upper secondary school relate to teaching dance history within the course Dance Theory, focusing on the aim that students critically examine various dance history writings. The study uses interviews and open-ended questionnaires, and the material has been analysed qualitatively and discussed in relation to historiographical and norm-critical perspectives. The study shows that a historiographic perspective is important to teachers when they describe their teaching but less important when describing what they think students should gain from their studies. Instead, a general knowledge of dance history and an ability to connect one’s dancing to a historical context are central. The norm-critical perspective is manifested mainly in the teachers’ positioning of themselves, but as I understand it, the critical examination primarily lies within the norm rather than providing a means of looking outside the Western box. The next challenge is therefore to not only review the conditions in which history is created but also question and change the structures that create knowledge.

Subjectobject and Movementmaterial: A Diffractive Reading of the Becoming of Dance through the Subject

With this study, which is linked to the research topic of ‘choreography’, I wish to contribute to our understanding of how internal and external factors are involved in the becoming of dance through the subject. I want to increase our understanding of the multilayered relationships that are ongoing in the becoming of dance and provide and develop understandings for didactical and pedagogical contexts. By studying my own praxis in a teaching context, I want to understand what is involved in the becoming of dance through the subject. In the article, I use post-humanist theories, with an emphasis on materialists such as Rosi Braidotti and her concept of the nomadic subject. The nomadic subject is fundamental for this study because it uses materialistic understandings of the world without renouncing the subject’s previous situational experience and embodied knowledge. In addition to the nomadic subject, I use concepts such as diffraction, intra-action and agents. These concepts have their roots in the theories of Karen Barad, also a post-humanist. I am interested in what agents are entangled in the process of becoming and what hierarchies are at work within my practice. I want to determine how they figurate and whether it is possible for these hierarchies to reach positions that are more anti-essential.

Tanssin mahdollisuudet aivoverenkiertohäiröiden kuntoutuksessa: Kirjallisuuskatsaus

Stroke affects one in six people in Finland and is the third most common cause of death. Strokes can cause changes in physical, mental and social functioning. All functional disorders can be affected by rehabilitation: physical treatment is a key part of active rehabilitation after a stroke. In this article, the known effects of dance on stroke are gathered together on the basis of a literature review and discussed in the context of dance pedagogy. The data was systematically retrieved from the PubMed, CINAHL and Arsca databases. Eleven research articles meeting the search criteria were selected. Content analysis was used to analyze the data. The results of the research literature analysis indicated that dance is suitable for stroke rehabilitation: it promotes psychological, cognitive and physical functioning. The results spoke in favour of dance intervention supporting and developing a relationship to one’s own altered body and self-esteem, as well as enabling social relationships. In addition, dance improves one’s mental state. Therefore, these factors suggest that dance could meet the need for a new form of neurological rehabilitation therapy.