The turn toward methodology and practice in higher education provides new incentive to reshape our pedagogical approaches. This presentation will advocate for teaching historical methods—specifically archival research and primary source analysis—in undergraduate dance history courses. While I argue that this approach has distinct pedagogical benefits, it also makes evident the disparity between asking students to think like dancers and asking them to think like historians and highlights the multidisciplinary nature of dance history.

Cognitive neuroscience is an area that helps us to enlarge our knowledge of how movement is perceived and how we can understand the process of kinesthetic empathy. In this article I will analyze the connections between the visual input while watching a dance performance, the motor memory, the awareness of movement sensation, and emotional experiences. Experiments done on monkeys by Rizzolatti et al. gave insight in the working of the brain while watching dance. He discovered activity of neurons, which he called mirror neurons. Many experiments followed by neuroscientists and psychologists like Keysers, Bekkering, and Calvo–Merino. In this article I will use research results from neuroscience, as well as results from my own empirical studies. Those results give us more insight in the mechanisms active in the process of kinesthetic empathy, which can be helpful for choreographers interested in involvement strategies on a movement level.

Within my contribution, I present the research project “Choreographies of Precariousness. A Transdisciplinary Study of the Working and Living Conditions in the Contemporary Dance Scenes of Brussels and Berlin” (supervisors: Katharina Pewny, Rudi Laermans, Christel Stalpaert; UGent and KULeuven; sponsored by FWO). For this conference, I would like to concentrate on the specificity of the contemporary dance profession and to elaborate the landscape of working in Brussels.

Working formats in contemporary dance revolve around internationalization, mobility, transnationalism, and collaboration. Contemporary dance therefore requires an appropriate social security system taking into account the specificity of the profession.

Brussels attracts many foreign dancers, as it offers prominent training possibilities, and hosts several reputable companies and workspaces. Flanders has established a unique social security system for the performing arts professions; however I will elucidate where the system collapses when it comes to contemporary dance. I will demonstrate how dance artists question the working conditions they are confronted within Flanders by analyzing their performances of precaritiousness. Flemish dancer Benjamin Vandewalle uses his piece Co-Productie (2011) to advert to the socio-economic situation, through abruptly stopping his performance in the middle of the piece, clarifying to the audience that he will not continue since the Minister of Culture decided to downsize project subsidies in the middle of the season. He calls for the investment of 2,500 euros by the audience so he can finish the piece. The latter tactic can be seen as one of many ways dance artists are bound to work collaboratively against their precariousness.

In previous publications I demonstrated that dance and music are essential conditions in the definition of tragedy for Aristotle. This opens the door for a re-examination of the place of theatrical dance in the work usually considered to be the most influential treatise on drama in Western culture. Here I begin to explore how the principles of dance criticism might therefore now be developed, and I also discuss whether Aristotle modifies Plato's own critical principles pertaining to choral art (including dance) from Laws II.

History, memory, and testimony propose to expand the parameters of collaborative research in the field of dance. Part of dance history can be told by dancers’ testimonies. My research conducted during my post-doctoral studies (UNESP) had as a central theme: recording dancers’ narratives, as a source of dance documentation and as a possibility to broaden São Paulo's dance history. For more than two decades (1990–2015), these dancers have been active in São Paulo's and Brazilian's scene.

Eeva Anttila (to Sue Stinson): One thing that comes to my mind is the conception/theory of learning that you currently feel most connected to. Could you clarify that? Is your conception in conflict with the learning objectives discourse that you have to deal with, and if yes, how so? Could you use some theoretical references to overcome this kind of demand that you are subjected to? For instance, constructivist learning theory is based on the idea that everyone learns different things, based on their previous experiences etc.

Focusing on characters from Disney's three most recent “princess” films, Tangled (2010), Brave (2012), and Frozen (2013), I examine the development and divergence of these figures from “classic” Walt Disney models. Their mercurial character, as illustrated through gesture and movement, presents a firm contrast with and significant departure from their predecessors in films such as Cinderella (1950) and Sleeping Beauty (1959)—protagonists who exhibited a static character reflective of their social roles through the “embodiment” of balletic grace. Expanding on existing research comparing Walt Disney–era princesses with those from the Disney Renaissance of the 1980s and 1990s, I explore the significance of this shift in representation. Viewed as a metaphor for contemporary femininity, how do these modern princesses resolve the incongruity between their official social stations, proscribed behavior, and “real” personalities through their bodies over the course of the films?

I believe that the conflict staged on these animated bodies is representative of larger societal issues emerging from contested definitions of both feminism and femininity, and that the Disney princess offers a contemporary site for the expression and resolution of this dissonance. Viewing the body of the Disney princess as representative of a larger female “social body” and conflict that occurs within her as indicative of the larger forces that shape female identity, I integrate my study with historical dance scholarship which regarded movement as indicative of the presence of an Apollonian/Dionysian dialectic working within culture.

Drawing on theories from performance studies, dance studies, and critical race studies, this paper explores the ways in which Korean pop (K-pop)'s appropriation of hip-hop reveals a complex moment of global cultural flow. Western audience reception of K-pop is likely limited to framing K-pop either as a form of contemporary minstrelsy or a postcolonial mimicry, e.g., making fun of African American culture or a bad copy of American pop. This perspective, however, understands K-pop through the lens of American culture and only considers external signs of the performances. It fails to capture the local context in Korea, such as how and why the performers appropriate hip-hop, such as the process of embodiment and training process to learn hip-hop movement, rhythm, and styles, etc. By analyzing K-pop singer G-Dragon's (GD) music videos, this paper argues that Koreans' appropriation of American culture is neither minstrelsy nor postcolonial mimicry. K-pop's chameleonic racial and gender hybridity reveals incommensurability of contemporary Asian-ness, which I have called post-racial Asian-ness as non-racialization.

This statement started its life as part of the State of the Profession panel at the joint ASTR/CORD conference in Seattle (November 2010). I was asked to respond to the question of “how power has worked on/through/with bodies in the fields of dance and theatre studies, and in the academy at large.” I decided to speak about the serious crisis facing higher education in light of the economic recession and its particular challenges to the academy and our field, using my present context in the UK, where I have lived since 2006, as a case study.

Cultural policies, understood as acts of intervention, not only from the State, but also from social groups and institutions, trigger devices that highlight the complexity of the cultural system and power relationships. These acts, developed in a participatory manner, can contribute to the global re-politicization of collective life.

Regarding Brazil, we can assert the search for common spaces has grown in importance under president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva's administration (2003–2010), when cultural policies suffered a significant change with the implementation of an inclusive and participatory model. This led to sectorial policies and the creation of public spaces for the representation of civil society. The field of dance took an active role in this process through its associations and regional forums, leading to the creation of a Dance Sectorial Collegiate and a Dance Federal Plan.

Despite some progress that has been made, cultural policies in Brazil are still under the strong influence of a neoliberal approach, which centers its efforts in economic development with a focus on public funding to culture and the creation of funding laws. A participative construction of public policy for dance would be based on agreements between civil society and government, going beyond the financing of arts through grants. The area of dance in Brazil needs structuring programs and actions that would collaborate with the organizational and productive modes of people and groups that are working to develop the area. Thus, this paper discusses cultural policies of dance by pointing out the consequences of “fast-cult” dance production and identifies spaces of resistance and micro-politics, generated by Brazilian artists who are seeking sustainable development and collaborative modes of production in dance.

Traditionally, dance learning has involved two modes of delivery: visual and verbal instruction. A teacher explains and corrects, demonstrates, and gives tactile feedback to teach students about ideas through movement. She may find it difficult to contextualize concepts through verbal explanation alone and could spend hours searching for appropriate supplements. Even then, students unfamiliar with dance vocabulary and uncomfortable with abstract movement could run into frustration through this limited approach. Education requires a variety of stimuli, and dance education in particular can benefit greatly from the advantages of online learning tools. This presentation will show you how dance educators can easily incorporate twentyfirst-century technologies into their classrooms, thereby enhancing students' comprehension of theories such as feminism.

Long before So You Think You Can Dance and Dance Moms, dance competitions focused on tap, jazz, contemporary, and ballet were alive and well throughout the U.S. Since the 1970s, dance competitions have served as venues for dance students to display their skills as both a team and as individuals, and as a means of profit for the individuals and corporations who run them. Dance competition culture operates on a “pay to dance” framework and belief system. By some estimates, for competitors who are deeply involved in dance competitions, the costs can easily top $1,000 per month.

In many ways, more Americans are involved directly and indirectly in dance competitions than ever before, yet there has been little to no discussion of dance competition culture in relation to capitalism. The choice to participate in dance competitions affects the for-profit business models used in dance studios and is reflected in dance studios' tuition structures, required fees, and studio policies. Analyzing the economics of dance competition culture, which includes the organizations that offer dance competitions and dance conventions, the dance studios who train dancers for these events, and dance competition participants and their families, can provide valuable information about who has access to dance, and how that access reflects and shapes ideas about dance, gender, race, and class in the larger U.S. culture. As governmental support for dance continues to dwindle, it is timely to assess the financial, societal, and artistic impacts of increasing popularity of dance competition culture.

A dynamic, reflexive relationship exists between bodies and space as humans both respond to and mold the world around them, and vice versa. Demonstrating this body–space relationship as one of embodiment, site dance holds great potential for engaging community, activating public space, and affecting change. By placing dance within the lived experience, site dance empowers audiences to recognize their roles as active agents shaping the non-static entity of space, and thereby it can be used to engender new relationships to places within a community.

Professional ballet is often problematized, as is the training that leads up to it. Even when ballet's training model is not being held up as an example of outright abuse, its “old school” methods are generally considered authoritarian, outdated, and oppressive. However, pre-professional training is not always so dire, and more importantly, it does not have to be. The dance profession and training are changing: to reflect and strengthen emerging “new school” methods, teachers reworking the traditional model should be more active in sharing and asserting their ideas, and there should be greater interaction between academia and the studio.

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.

The historically autocratic teaching model of Western concert dance provides both student and teacher with the comfort of expected ritual and outcomes. That comfort is greatly disrupted, however, in employing a pedagogy that has student empowerment at its center—feminist pedagogy. This paper will focus on the conditions of the liminal space created in shifting to a process-based educational approach from a traditionally product-driven training model.

The aim of the paper is to examine the ongoing transformation in Kathak art and practice, in response to demands of global markets, sensibilities of new audiences, and the artists' personal need for self-expression. The paper explores why classical Indian dancers push the barriers of Kathak tradition, and how they redefine the idea of authenticity. Do the innovative choreographies indicate an increasing shift toward individualization, transnationalism, and cultural pluralism, or rather do they attempt to renegotiate the notions of “Indianness”? To what extent is genre hybridity considered as an emerging aesthetic value that reflects complex, multi-layered identities of the performers?

Historically, during the first wave of globalization, then known as colonialism, efforts were made by colonizers to silence indigenous cultural expressions as a means of establishing power and control. In this current wave of globalization, which is marked by an aggressive technological revolution that has facilitated greater connectedness and spread of the more dominant North Atlantic aesthetic values and practices across the globe, Afro-Caribbean traditional cultural expressions face the potential risk of being obsolete and powerless in the dancing lives of young studio-based dancers in the Caribbean. This paper presents findings of a qualitative study into measures taken by Caribbean dance teachers (n = 6), from Jamaica, Grenada, and St. Vincent and the Grenadines, to promote Afro-Caribbean movement aesthetics and practices in their dance studios with young people. I will argue that such measures are important to the empowerment of the Afro-Caribbean dancing body and to safeguard against colonial structures in post-colonial Caribbean dance education.