In the German federal states of North-Rhine-Westfalia (NRW) and Baden-Württemberg dance isn't a school subject. However, there is dance within physical education—with big differences: In NRW physical education is committed to the purpose of holistic education. Dance is an essential part thereof and obligatory for girls and boys at all class levels and in all types of schools. In Baden-Württemberg dance diminishes within physical education the higher the class and educational level of the student. Unfortunately it has degenerated into a semisport without artistic or pedagogical depth. As an elective matter it can be chosen—or not.

Theory suggests that prescription should be detrimental to creativity. The Cloud Gate Dance School has highly structured and detailed curricula and pedagogical practices where the meeting of specific course and individual lesson objectives are regarded as essential. Yet, personal creativity in activities is stressed by the school's leaders and teachers, both for teachers and students. This paper considers the construction of creativity in the specific context and how it is underpinned by the school's ethos. It is based on observations of studio practice, discussions with teachers and other staff, and analysis of printed curricula documentation.

This paper discusses an action research project conducted for three semesters at two Brazilian cities: Vicosa and Paula Candido. It describes meanings, elements, and processes of education in dance appreciation experienced by K-12 public school students. The pedagogical method assured participants' attendance of ninety-minute dance classes once a week. The research method included qualitative analysis of more than two hundred written and oral answers from children and adolescents to questionnaires about dance appreciation, of their videotaped classes and performances, and of systematic on-site observations. The paper concludes with reflections on the future of dance appreciation in education.

This paper offers an interrogation of dance training methodologies used as a basis for dance education, training, and pedagogy by Flatfoot Dance as it operates in the African contemporary context of South Africa. Focus is placed on interrogating the dance education work, which uses dance as a methodology for life skills training around health, HIV/AIDS, and sexuality, and the more focused training of young dancers for a performance career. All of this is navigated in the postcolonial context of looking for a dance pedagogy that speaks to the context of the South rather than appropriating a very problematic “globalised” process of defining dance training and pedagogy.

I was commissioned by Kim Nofsinger to make a dance for students at Middle Tennessee State University that explored the African American experience. The creative process integrated historical and bio-archaeological research being conducted by Dr. Shannon Chappell Hodge and Dr. Kevin E. Smith from the Department of Sociology and Anthropology. In this paper I will discuss the methodology I used to develop a creative process that involved the intersection of African American history, bio-archeological physical evidence, ritual exploration, and performance. This repertory experience represents how interdisciplinary relationships involving research, choreography, pedagogy, ritual, and performance can be imagined.

This lecture-demonstration reflects on a research-informed teaching project in which teaching staff in dance and music technology collaborated on technical and pedagogic research and artistic creation in interactive dance. Our primary aim was to throw light on how interactive technologies might challenge and develop the ways in which students in dance and music technology engage in creative practice. Through the exploration of a set of technologies and conceptual approaches, the research has revealed very particular compositional structures and methods. Experimental sketches were developed with a particular focus on emergent behaviour and richly behavioured audio-visual feedback systems that were both controlled by and influenced the dancers. The demonstration presents our approaches and offers methodologies and strategies for the use of new technologies in dance pedagogy.

This presentation outlines the application of cross-disicplinary and transdisciplinary epistemologies and pedagogies within the field of dance studies and the parameters of dance teacher education. Charting and challenging readings of the articulated and bodily knowledge, including dance disciplines (such as reading, writing, and embodying dance histories; performance analysis; and performance making), the enquiry presents an application of the three dimensions of academic disciplines within two case studies (dance histories/performance analysis and making). The paper presents epistemologies and pedagogies that facilitate methodologies for an embodied and articulated knowledge of balletic genres and histories, practices, and traditions.

Last year I started a research project with the aim of pursuing collaboration among dance teachers. Through collaborative inquiry, the study aims to bring forth some core but unarticulated undercurrents within dance teaching, thus enhancing self-understanding within the rapidly changing circumstances of dance education. In this paper, I will first introduce some notions on the culture of dance teaching and then discuss collaboration in relation to reflective practice as well as to research practice. The main emphasis, however, is to explore the possibilities and challenges in collaborative inquiry as experienced by the participants.

One of the most critical issues in education is teacher quality. In dance there is long-standing debate concerning which teaching skills tend to be weakest and thus comprise the most exigent threats to dance teacher quality. The requisite skills of teaching expertise have been broadly categorized as content knowledge (that is, expertise in the subject being taught) and pedagogical knowledge (that is, expertise in teaching techniques). Which of these sets of capacities (or lack thereof) more frequently cause dance teachers' work to be ineffective? Data from a series of original research studies, employing a range of methods, are considered.

The following is a lightly edited version of the notes that the panelists and chair used. The spoken presentations and ensuing discussions differed by virtue of their liveness and performativity. Nonetheless, it was thought important to place these discussions on record in a form that, it is hoped, will remind those who attended and be of interest to those who did not.