Abstract Title: The dance-teacher body as a sounding board - a hermeneutic phenomenological study about dance-teachers experiences observing (their own) dance education. Author: Anders Frisk, Stockholm University of the Arts - School of Dance and Circus Language: Swedish Key words: Dance, dance teacher, dance education, dance pedagogy, phenomenology, kinaesthetic empathy, interaffectivity, bodily resonance    The aim of this study is to give insights into how dance teachers experience observing (their own) dance lessons. The interest lies in what they are reacting to and what gives an action in the form of feedback, guiding or ending an exercise, and how these reactions and actions are manifested in the body. Two teachers at the Swedish school of sport and health sciences (GIH) in Stockholm were observed and filmed during dance lessons with PE&H-student teachers. The subject of the lessons were experiencing and exploring dance as expressive form. From the videos of the lessons, different situations were chosen and discussed during a so-called re-experiencing interview. The interviews were transcribed and the text has been analysed using a hermeneutic phenomenological method.  The analysis resulted in the following findings: To observe one’s own teaching seems to be a valuable tool for the teachers in order to reflect upon didactical considerations and possibilities for developing the teaching. The teachers seem to react on (lack of) movement, presence, focus and movement qualities. This creates a dissonance in their own bodily resonance that seems to create an embodied experience that they react upon. They act by guiding the students by adding more movement, verbal affirmation or instruction, metaphors or by ending the exercise. Sometimes they postponed reacting in order to give the students a chance to find their way back in focus. The teachers also have a focus on creating a learning environment where the aim is for the students to explore and to experience their own bodily resonance and how this can relate to other bodies.  It seems that the teachers show a sensibility for the situation and the harmony in the dance studio that could be derived from a professional-personal competence or from an embodied practical pedagogical knowledge. The results of the study are discussed with the concepts of interaffectivity, mutual incorporation and kinaesthetic empathy. By raising awareness around how bodily (and embodied) interactions are intertwined within dance education these concepts might help and support the development of teaching in this specific context.

The purpose of this study is to examine what motivates adult pupils to participate evening dance classes at School of Dance and Circus. In addition to this, the purpose is to find out if their motivation is more intrinsic or extrinsic. Furthermore, the study aims towards investigating how dance pedagogues can develop their teaching with this specific target group to support the pupil’s interests and desires. The questionnaires of one evening dance course consisting of 11 pupils are analysed with Grounded Theory. The results show that there are 15 motivational factors: Joy, Development in dance, Physical development, Promotion of mental well-being, Other activity and Other form of training, Price, Curiosity, Cognitive development, Challenge, Aesthetics, Different experience of dance class, Social interaction, Prevention of pain and Prevention of injuries. The first six ones can be summarized as Self-fulfilment that work as the basis for the theory of the study. It is also shown that the motivation of the target group is more intrinsic than extrinsic. Promotion of experience of flow and creativity, preference of using mastery goal structures and teaching with direct instructions enforce intrinsic motivation and serve pupils’ interests and desires. These are suggested to dance pedagogues to use for developing their teaching with this target group.

The aim of this study is to investigate how different approaches and methods for giving feedback can be articulated, problematized and discussed. Also, to produce a bigger knowledge about how feedback is used in a contemporary dance teaching context and to pay attention to feedback in dance teaching. The investigation is made by qualitative methods there three dance teachers have been interviewed and their answers were analyzed by disposing their answers in categories. The result of the study shows that teachers’ feedback can have different forms and their choices depends on several factors. Teachers’ intention is to not comment their pupils’ appearance and instead focus on dance-related aspects and use feedback consciously. The aim of teachers’ feedback is to develop and improve pupils’ dance practice and includes also problems and difficulties that can be encountered in the communication. However, the study contains and present how just a small part of dance teachers experience feedback and cannot be representative for the all dance teachers in one country or even institution.

The purpose of this essay is to inspire and find ways to incorporate different time signatures in jazz dance education. Through literature studies, a focus group and an own analysis leading up to the meeting with the focus group, I founded a base of knowledge, but also material to analyze. By comparing my different sources of information, I found that the different time signatures, have different qualities, but they are also affected by other factors such as the instruments, singing and how it is performed. During the meeting with the focus group, I also found that music and dance is personal and that feeling calm and secure with the music is important to be able to move freely to it. In the discussion I could see that there are a lot of ways that you can use different time signatures in jazz dance education. Some examples were to expand your musicality and musical knowledge, but also to highlight and use certain qualities in the different time signatures to develop your dynamic practice.

This study aims to examine how the phenomenon of connection in Swedish folkdance is experienced and formulated by dancers. Connection is a big part of all couple dances, yet not many have concrete descriptions of it. The empirical data comes from two practical workshops with a focus group in which the participants got to dance and then directly discuss or write down their thoughts. The analysis of the material, which consists of notes and recordings, results in five themes: physical touch and its role in connection, metaphors and inner pictures of connection, technical aspects to create connection, a biomechanical approach and dancing in relation to one’s dance partner. In addition to those themes, the study generates perspectives with which the topic can be studied further. The biomechanical perspective can help understand the logics and functions of a couple dance and the metaphorical perspective appeals to the intuitive part of learning. This study is performed in a Swedish folk dance context but might be relevant to other couple dances as well, both to see similarities and differences in how the topic of connection is taught and discussed in the respective contexts.

Denna vetenskapliga essä utforskar danslärares förhållande till kroppen, till smärta och fysiska förluster. Den diskuterar hur undervisningen påverkas och förändras på grund av skador och smärta. Undersökningen baseras dels på egna upplevelser, dels på intervjuer med danslärare med liknande erfarenheter. De teoretiska perspektiven hämtas främst från filosofer inom den fenomenologiska inriktningen, huvudsakligen Maurice Merleau-Ponty och andra som har tänkt i hans efterföljd och med utgångspunkt i hans teorier. Dessutom kommer texter av dansare och danslärare till tals när det gäller undervisning och förhållandet till kroppen som rörelse. För att komma närmare den mångbottnade smärtupplevelsen förs också en dialog med några verk inom bildkonst och litteratur. Resultatet visar att smärtupplevelsen är komplex och dubbeltydig för en danslärare. Vad gäller undervisningen kan det finnas sätt att arbeta med språk, med eleverna som centrum och med en justering av lärarrollen som gör att lärandet inte påverkas negativt utan tvärtom kan stärkas. Dock förefaller det finnas en gräns där de fysiska hindren blir så stora att det inte längre är möjligt att fortsätta undervisa. / This scientific essay explores dance teachers’ relation to the body, to pain and physical losses. It discusses how teaching is affected and how it changes because of injuries and pain. The research is based on personal experience as well as on interviews with dance teachers with similar experiences. The theoretical perspectives come first and foremost from philosophers of the phenomenological school, mainly from Maurice Merleau-Ponty and others who have thought and written with his theories as a starting point. Moreover, writings by dancers and dance teachers concerning teaching and the relation to the body as movement are used. To come closer to the multi-dimensional experience of pain, a dialogue takes place with some works of art and literature. The result shows that the dance teacher’s experience of pain is complex and ambiguous. Regarding teaching, there can be ways to work with language, the pupils as centres and an adjustment of the role of the teacher which can prevent learning from being negatively affected. However, there seems to be a limit where the physical barriers become so great that it is no longer possible to continue teaching.

This research is a qualitative interview study on consent in upper secondary school dance education through focus group interviews with teachers and students. The intention is to give more insight on how teachers and students understand consent in upper secondary school dance education and in general. The study shows that consent in upper secondary dance education in Sweden exists at the intersection between norms of communication, power and the context in which it is practiced. The most common communication of consent for dance in this study is through reading body language, and the most discussed situation is regarding touch and bodily contact. Touch is viewed by the teachers as a vital part of knowledge generation in dance. Both teachers and students find situations where students are engaging with touch and body contact as the most challenging. The study observes that consent is specific within its context, which requires dance teachers to establish and clarify norms and intentions in the dance studio. To do so takes time and repetition, if not successful norms and perceptions from other contexts may be stronger and make the communication of consent difficult. Further, the study suggests that teaching about consent needs to be combined with practical exercises for a more preventive knowledge. The material was analyzed with qualitative analysis and a norm critical and multimodal perspective.

“it is like jumping down into a water-barrel”  – a study about dance pedagogues work with choreography in dance education This study examines how modern- and contemporary-dance pedagogues, in Sweden, work with choreography in their teaching. The purpose of this study is to through a phenomenographical perspective examine a selection of dance pedagogues perceptions of what the meaning of the phenomenon choreography has in their teaching. This is to hopefully contribute to an increased understanding of how choreography can be used in dance education. The research questions are How does three dance pedagogues perceive the usage of choreography in dance education? and Which pedagogical aspects can affect the teaching in dance? The study was researched through three semi-structured interviews which were processed and analyzed through Kvale´s interview-guide and Dahlgren’s &amp; Johansson’s phenomenographical method for analyzing. The results show three main categories of description that were distinguished; The student´s affect in the dance education, The teacher´s affect in the dance education and Knowledge from choreographic processes. Each category was perceived differently, yet many connected to each other. Though this is a small-scaled study, the variation of perceptions shows many different ways to recognize and understand choreography’s and pedagogy’s relation to each other. Further research needs to be done to verify if these factors are important to the bigger population of dance-educators. / <p>2023-05-05</p><p>Språk: Svenska</p><p>Praktiskt presentation. Geslatade del utav resultatanalysens tredje rubrik.</p><p>Stockholms konstnärliga högskola</p><p>Brinellvägen 58, Stockholm</p>

The purpose of the bachelor thesis is to, from a didactic perspective, gain increased knowledge about how an artistic practice can be used in dance education. The study is conducted through a qualitative research method using the practice Dancing is... . For the research, four practice-based investigations were conducted in a dance studio. To analyze the result, coding was used as a method to identify various themes. The themes identified in the study were as follow: The body and its functions, Multilingualism, Passive-activity, Sensing the body, Seperation of the body and self, Attention and its direction, Drawings, Questions, Problem-formulations, Spatial direction, A composition-everything is happening simultaneously. These themes reflect MTS (Moving Through Stillness) as a practice and are components that can be used in dance education by creating a pedagogical structure. Moreover, since MTS has a somatic and artistic approach, this study provides a nuanced apporach to how these perspectives can be incorporated into dance education. As a result, this contributes to an increased understanding of how an artistic practice can be used in dance education.

This study aims to explore the defining characteristics of jazz dance as a genre with the ambition of reaching a deeper understanding of the art form as well as clarifying the foundations for my own jazz dance teaching. Using a qualitative research method, the study examines the perceptions of four dance educators, each with experience in dancing and teaching different forms of jazz. Drawing on a phenomenographic perspective, the study identifies variations in perceptions through semi-structured interviews and categorization. The findings present six descriptive categories of important components within jazz dance including Body and Music Interplay, Relevant Music Choices, Freedom, Play and Individuality, Contrasting Dynamics, Technical Finesse and Body Control, and Interaction and Expression. Furthermore, the study discusses the challenges of defining jazz dance but highlights the significance of embodied musicality and Africanist aesthetics as key elements of the art form, as well as emphasizing the concept of "swing" as central to jazz and the perception of “jazziness”. In conclusion the study shows a broad variety in perceptions which contribute to an increased awareness and understanding of jazz dance as well as providing tools for communication in jazz dance teaching. Ultimately the study encourages further research on the topic.