Gymnastik- och idrottshögskolan, GIH

Creative dance, that is to say, movements, with or without music, which allow participants to express ideas, thoughts, and feelings, are sometimes accompanied by a ‘there is no right or wrong way to move’ rhetoric. This may reinforce the impression among physical education teacher education (PETE) students, who often have limited experience of (creative) dance, that there is nothing to practise in creative dance and that this activity is merely directionless movement. In this paper, however, based on Aggerholm's notion of practising movements, we explore an occasion in a PETE course where a magic moment occurred, indicating that the students had practised and ‘figured out’ something that made this moment possible. The purpose of the paper is to explore the knowledge in movement that PETE students were practising as they participated in creative dance. The purpose is also to shed light on what pedagogical practice contributed to enabling such practising. Video documentation and short interviews with students in one PETE course and one continuing professional development course for physical education teachers indicate that the magic moment was made possible as the students’ practised making sense of moving in non-predetermined – creative – ways and appreciating the expressive dimension of movement. Laban's movement analysis framework seemed, along with the teachers’ knowledge of movement, to be an important element in the pedagogical practice that made the magic moment possible.

This paper introduces the concept of ‘affirmative iterations’ as an approach that integrates the realms of educational practices and participatory research. Drawing inspiration from action research’s iterative nature, researcher-practitioners engage in a series of cyclical-sequential interventions (Casey & Coghlan, 2021) that are both educational and research-based. Additionally, we draw on affect theory’s affirmative stance in performing critique (Staunes 2016). Each educational iteration (i.e. lesson/workshop/seminar) is critically engaged with in an affirmative way, through acritical and careful sensibility (Gunnarsson 2018; 2022), building on what works andhow the situated practice can be developed (cf. Wessels 2022). In this way, affirmative iterations offer a productive framework for planning and executing educational practices through an organic evolution while simultaneously researching these practices.This paper explores how affirmative iterations can deepen our understanding of the participatory aspects in three distinct educational practices. The first case study delves into the planning and execution of a series of playful art education ‘walk-shops’. In the second case, ‘dendro educational seminars’ are organized, exploring how craft teachers can develop their approach to wood as a material. The third example highlights a collaborative teaching unit in creative dance in physical education teacher education (Engdahl et al. 2022).These examples demonstrate how each workshop, seminar, or lesson in the series naturally evolves from its predecessor. Researcher-educators collaborate closely with participants, fostering a shared sense of agency and collaboration. This approach aligns with the principles of co-creation and participatory research, enabling practitioners to adapt and innovate in response to the specific needs of the community or participants.

Ny forskning betonar vikten av att ge mer plats åt kreativ dans i undervisningen. Två avhandlingar som rör ämnet idrott och hälsa ger förslag på hur lärare och lärarutbildare kan uppmuntra ett utforskande av rörelse och skapa mer kontinuitet mellan studier på högskola och undervisningen i skolan.

The overall aim of this thesis is to explore how creative dance in Swedish physical education teacher education (PETE) can be taught and experienced. PETE holds a responsibility to extend preservice teachers’ movement repertoires and plays a crucial role to provide opportunities for the future physical education (PE) teachers to gain experience and knowledge of dance teaching. Creative dance is part of the teaching area of dance in PE and often a new experience for students when entering PETE programs. The research literature is scarce, in a Scandinavian context as well as internationally, about creative dance teaching in PETE. 

This doctoral project, guided by Deleuzian scholarship, includes three studies, a literature review, an interview study and a pedagogical intervention study. These three studies resulted in one article in the form of an unpublished manuscript and three published articles. The first article, the manuscript, explores how theoretical approaches are used in studies of creative dance teaching in PE and PETE. The second article explores how PE teacher educators describe their teaching of creative aspects of dance in PETE. The third article explores what PETE students express and experience when participating in mirror assignments during creative dance lessons and what insights can be made regarding creative dance teaching. The fourth article explores how human and non-human materialities play a part in movement exploration in creative dance in PETE and pedagogical implications in creative dance teaching.  

The thesis offers four key insights. The first insight is that PE teacher educators have specific ideas about creative aspects of dance and about teaching creative dance. The second insight is that inspiration from Deleuze’s philosophy can support and extend ideas about teaching mirror assignments in creative dance lessons in PETE. The third insight is that teaching mirror assignments in creative dance lessons in PETE can make students’ expressions and experiences involve indetermination. The fourth insight is that a post-anthropocentric and Deleuzian approach can be seen to extend notions of creative dance teaching in PETE. My thesis shows various ways how teaching can encourage PETE students to engage with a teaching area that can be unfamiliar to them. The pedagogical insights presented in this thesis can support PE teacher educators and PE teachers when considering teaching creative dance.

Materiality and movement play crucial roles in both the educational practice of physical education (PE), and in physical education teacher education (PETE). This conference presentation presents how materialities, human as well as non-human, play part in movement exploration in creative dance in PETE.

The methodological point of departure is a pedagogical unit in creative dance enacted as part of an optional dance course in a Swedish PETE program where movement exploration was studied. In the unit, students and a teacher collaboratively explored movement and movement assignments, including the use of materialities.

In order to understand how materialities ‘co-act’ in movement exploration during class, this article provides a Deleuzian and a posthumanist approach. The concept dancemblage is introduced both as a way to analyse materiality and as something to work with in pedagogical practice. 

Knowledge in movement is often tacit. It does not need to be verbalised to exist. That it is verbalised is, however, of great importance to enable deliberation about its meaning in educational contexts, and how to reason about it in relation to, e.g., selection. Arguably, it also needs to be verbalised if it is to gain value in the academy, a place where "knowledge about" often trumps "knowledge in". In this paper we explore knowledge in movement as it is expressed in creative dance in physical ed-ucation teacher education (PETE). In the literature, creative dance is sometimes as-sociated with a view that "there is no right or wrong way to move". But if there is no "right or wrong", or at least something "better or worse", then what is there to know? Or is it activity without direction? The purpose of the study is to explore what knowledge in movement is becoming as PETE students are practising creative dance. The notion of practising is sometimes negatively connoted (it has been likened to drill, for example). However, we draw on Aggerholm et al's (2018) conceptualisation of practising as “the form of activity in which we seek to improve our capabilities through repeated efforts” (p. 201). An analysis of WHAT the students are practising makes it possible to discern knowledge in movement in creative dance. Two units of creative dance have been documented using video filming, short interviews and field notes. In total, around 15 hours of teaching have been documented, with around 30 students in one course and 20 in the other. The preliminary analysis shows that knowledge in movement among these students, who often have a background in competitive sports, is expressed as an ability to shift focus from the unction of movements to the expression of movements. Furthermore, knowledge in movement is also expressed as the ability to move outside of one's habitual move-ment patterns, and to distinguish nuances regarding the expression of movements in connection with a differentiation of the execution of the movements. Intensive practising enables the students to arrive at magic moments, occasions “where a con-tent with a meaning is communicated with a special intensity” (Svendler Nielsen, 2006, p. 58). We believe that the capacity to move outside of one's habitual move-ment pattern and to learn to perceive and discern nuances with respect to what movements express (e.g., with respect to social norms) can be an important contri-bution to the discussion of what is valuable knowledge in movement within PETE – and by extension also within physical education.

References

Aggerholm, K., et al. (2018). On practising in physical education: Outline for a pedagogical model. Phys Ed and Sport Ped, 23(2), 197-208.

Svendler Nielsen, C. (2006). Betydningsfulde øjeblikke i sanselig praksis. In: L. Engel, H. Rønholt, C. Svendler Nielsen, & H. Winther (Eds.) Bevaegelsens poetik: om den aestetiske dimension i bevaegelse (p. 56-79). Copenhagen: Museum Tusculanum.  

Materialities play a crucial role in both the educational practice of physical education (PE), and in physical education teacher education (PETE). This article explores how, often unnoticed, materialities, human as well as non-human, play part in movement exploration in creative dance in PETE. The methodological point of departure is a pedagogical unit in creative dance enacted as part of an optional dance course in a Swedish PETE program where movement exploration was studied. In the unit, students and a teacher collaboratively explored movement and movement assignments, including the use of materialities. In order to understand how materialities ‘co-act’ in movement exploration during class, this article provides a post-anthropocentric and Deleuzian approach. The concept dancemblage is introduced both as a way to analyse materiality and as something to work with in pedagogical practice. Moreover, the article suggests that by recognising dancemblages in creative dance teaching, teachers can be given a tool to further learn about learners’ explorations and to become open to divergent understandings about what it means to participate in creative dance

Background

There is a global consensus that stimulating and fostering children’s creativity in education is crucial. Addressing creativity has become an imperative in educational policies and in school curricula internationally. School-based physical education (PE), and specifically the teaching area of dance, has been identified as an important pedagogical setting within which to develop creativity. Existing studies have suggested, however, that dance is seldom taught in PE in ways that acknowledge creative aspects of movement learning. Scholars have claimed that teaching pre-arranged dances with predetermined movement outcomes dominate dance teaching in PE. Furthermore, studies have asserted that the overarching regulative principles of PE and PETE that privilege sport skills and physical exercise hinder creative movement learning. Still, dance teaching is frequently seen as part of expressive dance teaching in PE and PETE and is regarded as holding potential in the area of education for creativity. Little scholarly attention has been given to how teacher educators approach creative aspects in dance teaching.

Purpose

This article aims to create insights into how PETE teacher educators understand and work with creative aspects of dance in their educational practice.

Method and theory

To address our aim, we investigate how teacher educators describe their teaching of creative aspects of dance. To do this, empirical material was generated through qualitative interviews with PE teacher educators from each of the PETE institutions in Sweden. The theoretical concepts of smooth and striated spaces and experimentation by Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari were used to guide the analysis of how the PETE educators described their teaching of creative aspects of dance. Deleuze and Guattari developed a framework that concerned questions of creativity and newness. Despite this conceptual framework having not yet been used in dance education in PE and PETE, their writing fits well when analysing questions of creativity in an educational context.

Findings

We identified three major themes relating to creativity in the empirical material: (a) creative aspects of expressive dance; (b) challenges that teacher educators face when introducing movement exploration in expressive dance to their students, and; (c) the teacher educators’ pedagogical work with students.

Discussion

The results of this study show that teaching expressive dance can take teaching in PE and PETE in new directions. The results provide insights into alternative ways of teaching in these educational settings that can counter the dominant ways of teaching dance. Results suggest that teacher educators operate in various striated spaces that are shaped by expectations and conventions. In such spaces, the educators aim to create momentary passages of smoothening that open up for experimentation and the development of students’ creativity. The results also suggest that expressive dance in PE and PETE emphasizes creative movement learning through which students learn to operate within new and unpredictable situations.