Gymnastik- och idrottshögskolan, GIH

The identification and development of talent is a key concern for many dance educators, yet little research has been conducted in the area. In order to understand better how to optimise dance talent development among young people, systematic and rigorous research is needed. This paper summarises and discusses the key findings of a ground-breaking longitudinal interdisciplinary research project into dance talent development. Over two years, almost 800 young dancers enrolled at one of the eight nationwide Centres for Advanced Training (CATs) participated in the project. Physical factors, psychological characteristics, and injury data were collected quantitatively while the students' thoughts and perspectives on commitment, creativity and cultural variables were captured using qualitative methods. The largest study of its kind, the project yielded a wide range of findings with a number of practical implications. The main focus of this paper is on how the project findings apply to important pedagogic topics such as audition criteria, passion and commitment, and teaching behaviour. The area of talent identification and development is complex, yet this research has begun to shed new light on the notion of talent and has provided novel insights to support its development.

Background: Music listening can improve acquisition of new knowledge.Purpose: The purpose of the study was to evaluate the emotional and cognitive effects of a knowledge concert on the attending audience. Methodology: The audience was asked to complete a Visual Analogue Scale (10 cm) before and after listening to the concert, along five variables: Arousal, Degree of happiness, Degree of worry, Daily worries and Benevolence. Follow-up qualitative interviews gathered narratives from the participants. Findings: 228 concert attendees took part in the study by completing the questionnaires (51 percent of the whole audience). Statistically significant changes were observed in the outcome measures for: Arousal (p=0.002), Daily worries (p<0.001) and Degree of happiness (p=0.01). Degree of worry interacted with age (p<0.001). No changes were found for Benevolence (p=0.93). Gender and previous music experiences did not make a difference to feelings evoked by the music. Age, however, was important since younger participants became more worried by the concert than older. Originality: We discuss the potential role of future knowledge concerts that comprise qualities explored, such as mitigating a variety of embodied psychological capacities, including reflection and agency in audiences, facilitating learning about sensitive issues, and potentially also transformation towards prosocial mindsets and behavior.

Although “making it” in dance has long been associated with a performance career, few dancers solely perform and many also pursue choreography and/or teaching. Considering these many ways of being a dance artist, the aim of this study was to understand (a) the psychological characteristics which are perceived to be facilitative of engagement and well-being in dance, and (b) the experiences that dancing itself provides that encourage engagement and well-being. Eight dancers in vocational ballet training and 17 professional dance artists, all of whom had performed and/or taught and/or choreographed, participated in semi-structured interviews which were analyzed using thematic analysis. Key themes of a) intrinsic motivation to dance, b) psychological characteristics in the dancer, and c) basic psychological need satisfaction in dance were found. It is important to equally nurture intrinsic motivation across dance training, performance, choreography, and teaching to promote engagement and well-being across the training and career span.

While there is a lack of research into abuse in elite dance, numerous allegations of emotional, sexual and physical abuse of dancers can be found anecdotally in the media, legal convictions and personal accounts. As more dancers speak out, the scale of the problem within preprofessional schools and professional companies is becoming apparent. Accordingly, effective safeguarding mechanisms for preventing, identifying and reporting abuse are urgently needed. This viewpoint is intended to raise health professionals' awareness of factors contributing to abusive practices found in dance environments and the potential clinical implications of abuse to dancers' health and well-being. We also call for research and policy engagement on safeguarding and abuse prevention designed and implemented in partnership with stakeholders, aiming to promote safe and positive dance environments for all.

In this small-scale study we investigated ballet teachers’ views and experiences of autonomy and autonomy support. For this purpose, we conducted semi-structured interviews with six ballet teachers in a prestigious pre-professional ballet school in Europe. Findings indicate that when and how autonomy was provided seemed to be impacted by whether a teacher either challenged or adhered to ballet ideals. By using the Circumplex Model of motivation, three different levels of autonomy support could be identified: high autonomy support, moderate autonomy support, and controlling approaches. The findings present a nuanced picture of ballet teachers’ views, experiences, and teaching styles and suggest that dance educators move on a continuum of autonomy supportive and controlling behaviors.

This article examines notions of temporality of online performance as a way to rethink earlier debates about performance ontologies. Today, online, and increasingly mobile, technological activities such as photo and video sharing, instant messaging, blogging and social networking organise around performance practitioners' day-to-day existence. In this networked society, performances are constantly mediated through the prism of myriads of digital platforms. Because performances are enacted within or supported by digitally mediated networks and, this is crucial, they incessantly expand temporally, I will refer to online performance in terms of transtemporality, rather than depend on an ontology of unmediation and presence. I depart from Rebecca Schneider's Performance Remains (2011) where she argues how notions of performance, reiteration and documentation are intertwined and contingent, and from the recent performative answers to the logic of the archive found in Amelia Jones's and Adrian Heathfield's anthology Perform Repeat Record: Live Art in History (2012). I argue, by illustrations of Adam Weinert's performance work (2013-2014) as well as my own (2010-2012), that online performance is never fully present but immanently distended through remediation. Performances participate in inherently ruptured transtemporal networks (tweets, reperformances, blogging, video sharing) through which they are continuously remediated and transformed. I propose that online performance even might suggest that performance continuously escapes a sense of Being. Performance's ontology, or rather its ontogenesis proposed by Heathfield (2012), resides with the elements of transformation inherent in its online remediations.

This is Not Not My Dance is a practice‐based research project that advances processes of choreographic re-enactment through a method of choreographic re-documentation. I propose a means of re‐documenting choreography to make it a digital resource for new creation. This thesis presents a renegotiation of notions of performance and documentation, emphasises aspects of alteration in processes of preservation, and re‐evaluates ideas of exclusive ownership rights of dance works. Lepecki’s claim that choreography is an inconclusive ghostly matter ‐ derived from Derrida’s philosophical use of the terms ghostly and haunting, together with Schneider’s notion of cross‐temporality ‐ theoretically support an understanding of choreography constituted by a process of re‐documentation.

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

Aim

The aim with this study was to find out whether former students of the upper secondary school dance-program, experience that they through dance have enhanced/strengthened certain psychological and social abilities as well as physical capacities. The questions asked in relation to the aim where:

• Do the students mention that dance as expression strengthens self-esteem, self-confidence and self-awareness?
• Do the students mention that dance as expression strengthens body-control/body-awareness?
• Do the students mention that dance as expression helps enhancing the social ability?
• Is there any part of dance (the dance-education) that seems to be particularly part of the development according to the questions asked?

Method

The method being used is a quantitative questionnaire with some qualitative approaches where former students of the upper secondary school aesthetic dance-program have been part of the subject group. A total of 45 answers where collected and they have been analysed quantitatively and interpreted from an abductive theoretical framework consisting of phenomenology, social psychology and by the support of earlier research in dance.

Results

The results show that a majority of the students experience that dance has contributed to (to great extent or partly) strengthen their self-esteem, self-confidence, self-awareness, body-control/body-awareness and enhancing their social ability. The parts of the dance-education that turned out to be particularly enhancing the psychosocial abilities where; the possibility to be on stage, improvisation and the self-creating work.  The physiological capacities that the students experienced most enhancing where; the possibility to be on stage, improvisation and meeting different dance-styles.

Conclusions

The conclusion is that through meeting dance as expression and dance-education, based on the values of the schools steering documents, the dance-students psychosocial abilities and physical capacities enhances. This seems mainly being referred to when the student can work creative and with communication in a safe environment. A learning-environment based on a holistic point of view where the body can be both subject and object, where a healthy view of the body reigns, might give the student a chance for developing a good sense of self.

Performance anxiety is a major issue for performing artists. This qualitative paper extends our recent mixed-methods collective case study showing the beneficial effects of psychological interventions for managing performance anxiety, tailored in individual coaching settings. Here, we report on participants’ experiences of being coached, their understanding of how and why the interventions were effective, and the researcher-coach's experiences. Ten performing artists received five individual coaching sessions and were interviewed about their experiences pre- and post-intervention. A qualitative synthesis of transcripts of sessions and interviews, and of the coach's field notes and journal entries, was conducted. Findings suggest that change mechanisms have to be understood in the context of participants’ enhanced self-awareness during coaching, and the process of co-creating solutions and building a coaching relationship through mutual understanding and appreciation. While disentangling mechanisms and effects may not always be possible, we discuss useful strategies in coaching performing artists to manage performance anxiety. 

The topic of sport psychology is hardly new—but Essentials of Dance Psychology applies it to dance in a way that sets it apart from all other sport psychology texts available to dance students, instructors, and professionals.

Through Essentials of Dance Psychology, readers will come to understand why dancers think and behave as they do and how to design healthy, creative dance environments that lead to both well-being and optimal performance.

The book is built on a foundation of evidence from dance and sport psychology research, with applied experiences used as examples throughout. Where appropriate, evidence from other areas of psychology—for example, cognitive behavioral therapy—is used. A thorough coverage of topics relevant to dancers, teachers, and others working to support dancers is included, making the book suitable for one slightly longer course or two short courses in introductory dance psychology.

The book is organized into four parts. Part I delves into dancers’ individual differences, examining how personality, perfectionism, self-esteem, self-confidence, and anxiety factor into performance and well-being. Part II explores topics related to dance-specific characteristics such as motivation, attentional focus, and creativity. In part III, readers learn about a range of psychological skills, including mindfulness, goal setting, self-regulation, and imagery. Part IV examines topics related to dance environments and challenges, zeroing in on the social aspects of teaching and learning dance, the challenges of talent identification and development, injuries, body image, and disordered eating.

Essentials of Dance Psychology offers readers the opportunity to understand sport psychology from the vantage point of a dancer. The text will help develop dance teachers who are able to inspire and sustain high levels of performance and psychological health among dancers. It will also help other professionals who work with dancers to implement evidence-based practices that enhance and sustain dancers’ lives and careers. [Text from publisher]

Från Idrottsforum.org:

Kroppen står i centrum för verksamheten här på idrottsforum.org. Inte dess inre organ, inte skador på skelett och mjukdelar; det hör medicinen till. Forumet är främst social- och kulturvetenskapligt till sin inriktning, och tveklöst är det så att i första hand idrotten står i centrum för uppmärksamheten. Inom ramen för den specialiseringen vilar forumet, kan man säga, på två ben, dels idrottsläran som handlar om utbildningen av lärare till skolämnet idrott och hälsa och den omfattande pedagogiska eller utbildningsvetenskapliga forskningen i det området,. Det andra benet kan enklast beskrivas som idrottsvetenskaplig forskning, utanför idrottslärans område vilket är den övervägande delen av idrottsforskningen utanför medicinen och fysiologin – den senare förekommer dock då och då i forumets recensionsflöde. Här finns en myckenhet av tävlings- och elitidrott, inte minst kritik av densamma, men också forskning om idrottshistoria, idrottens rum och arenor, med mera. Häri ryms också till exempel motionsidrott, friluftsliv och dans. Där kroppar rör sig, där håller idrottsforum.org ett vakande öga på utvecklingen. I artikeln här intill möts ett par olika aspekter av det som intresserar forumet. Anna Rosén, som är dansterapeut och utbildar idrottslärare på Gymnastik- och idrottshögskola GIH i Stockholm, skriver om ett projekt hon bedrivit på dåvarande Teaterhögskolan i Stockholms. Hon studerade olika modeller för kroppslig gestaltning, och i sin artikel diskuterar hon på ett intressant sätt hur man kan tillgodogöra sig modeller och tekniker inom ett område, teaterns scener, på ett annat, idrottens arenor.

ANNA ROSÉN är rytmiklärare och dansterapeut, utbildad vid Kungl. Musikhögskolan (KMH) och Dans- och Cirkushögskolan (DOCH). Anna arbetar för närvarande som högskoleadjunkt vid Gymnastik- och idrottshögskolan (GIH), inom sektionen för rörelse och dans. Hon har tidigare varit dansproducent i forskningsprojektet ”Kulturpaletten” under ledning av Eva Bojner Horwitz, MD, och varit medförfattare i ”Kulturhälsoboxen” – om kulturens plats i vården och egenvården (2014). Senast har Anna medverkat i Utbildningsradion TV-serie ”Idrottslärarens drömmar och dilemman” (2014).

Abstract

The following research was conducted 2009 as a part of a bigger project; a development work in the Arts at Teaterhögskolan (Stockholm Academy of Dramatic Arts).  

Aim

The aim with this research is to capture and analyze my own experiences during physical interpretation, based on work with Viewpoints, Mask and costume/Character.

How does work with Viewpoints affect my experiences, during physical interpretation?

How does work with Mask and costume/Character affect my experiences, during physical interpretation? What moments do I experience as extra critical? How does my sense of experiences change during the process?

Method

The research is built up on participant observation, through introspection. I have made a simultaneous introspection. The researcher and the subject of research is the same person, which is referred to as researcher introspection. The empirical material consists of my kept journal, from where I picked out a number of the noted experiences for analysis and interpretation.

Results

The three methods Viewpoints, Mask och costume/Character raised several kinds of emotions derived from affects. A causal connection can be noted between Viewpoints and the positive affects of joy and interest/curiosity whereas Mask and costume/Character more often generated strong negative affects such as fear. The experience of the negative affects was unmistakably physical. The negative affects transformed over time by the end of my empirical material I gave voice to the positive affects joy and interest/curiosity as well, when working with Mask or costume/Character. By keeping a journal my ongoing “negotiations” became obvious containing my view upon/ experience of categorizing gender and heteronormativity.

Conclusions

The three methods Viewpoints, Mask and costume/Character can all, in their own particular way, be seen as powerful educational tools and contribute to personal development, when it comes to physical interpretation.