COLLABORATIVE DANCE COMMUNITY: CRAFTING, DISTILLING, AND
ARTICULATING LANGUAGE OF SHARED EXPERIENCE
by
MARCIE MICHIKO MAMURA
A THESIS
Presented to the Department of Dance
and the Graduate School of the University of Oregon
in partial fulfillment of the requirements
for the degree of
Master afFine Arts
June 2010
"Collaborative Dance Community: Crafting, Distilling, and Articulating Language of
Shared Experience," a thesis prepared by Marcie Michiko Mamma in partial fulfillment
of the requirements for the Master of Fine Arts degree in the Department of Dance. This
thesis has been approved and accepted by:
Dr. 'ning Committee
Committee in Charge: Dr. Jenifer P. Craig, Chair
Dr. Steven J. Chatfield
Margo Van Ummersen
Accepted by:
Dean of the Graduate School
11
© 2010 Marcie Michiko Mamura
-- ~--------
iii
Marcie Michiko Mamura
in the Department of Dance
An Abstract ofthe Thesis of
for the degree of
to be taken
IV
Master of Fine Arts
June 2010
Title: COLLABORATIVE DANCE COMMUNITY: CRAFTING, DISTILLING, AND
ARTICULATING LANGUAGE OF SHARED EXPERIENCE
Approved: -----+-U
This qualitative and experiential research focuses on the nexus of language with
educational and artistic goals within dance communities. The study shares descriptive
language identified during my Master of Fine Arts Movement Project community's
collaborative processes, as we explored "skill training" and "art making" in dance over a
period of 10 weeks. Recommendations emerge through discussion of current dance
dialogic models and collaborative language resources for dance. Reviewed resources
outside the dance field provide additional support and context. Based on the
community's shared experiences and the researcher's investigations, suggestions are
made for increasing quality of practice in dance and language articulation. Practical
applications are offered.
CURRICULUM VITAE
NAME OF AUTHOR: Marcie Michiko Mamura
PLACE OF BIRTH: Sioux City, Iowa
DATE OF BIRTH: January 7, 1980
GRADUATE AND UNDERGRADUATE SCHOOLS ATTENDED:
University of Oregon, Eugene
Kansas State University, Manhattan
DEGREES AWARDED:
Master of Fine Arts, Dance, 2010, University of Oregon
Bachelor of Arts, Theatre with a Dance Concentration, 2002, Kansas State
University, Manhattan
AREAS OF SPECIAL INTEREST:
Collaborative Dance Pedagogy and Artistic Processes
Community-Based Arts Practices
PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE:
Graduate Teaching Fellow, Department of Dance, University of Oregon, Eugene
2007-2010
GRANTS, AWARDS AND HONORS:
Graduate Research Grant, Graduate School, University of Oregon, 2009
Summer Research Grant, Department of Dance, University of Oregon, 2009
Summer Research Grant, Department of Dance, University of Oregon, 2008
v
VI
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I thank my committee, Dr. Jenifer P. Craig, Dr. Steven 1. Chatfield, and Margo Van
Ummersen, for their collective investment and invaluable sharing during my research
journey. I also thank the members of my Master of Fine Arts Movement Project
community for their bold dedication and courageous investigation during all ofour shared
experiences. This work is a testament to the strengths, interests, and talents of this unique
community. I am honored to be a member and this community and I am grateful for the
journey.
For my father, who taught me that vision and artistry make a difference when
people are considered and honored in the foundation of the work.
Vll
Vlll
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Chapter Page
I. INTRODUCTIOl\f 1
Significance of Study....... 3
Purpose of Study.................................................................................................... 3
Assumptions/Biases 4
Delimitations.......................................................................................................... 5
Limitations of Study 7
Definition of Terms 8
Methodology.......................................................................................................... 18
Inception/Design Research Phase.......... 19
Active Investigation Research Phase............................................................... 20
CulminationlReflection Research Phase.......................................................... 24
II. REVIEW OF RELATED WORKS 26
Teacher Collaboration/Community-Based Arts Practice 27
Dance Pedagogy 35
Collaborative/Dialogic Dance Company Models 49
Dance Language Practice...................................................................................... 62
Chapter
IX
Page
III. DISCUSSION 75
Crafting.................................................................................................................. 75
Distilling 78
Articulating 88
IV. CONCLUSION 96
Evaluation.............................................................................................................. 96
APPENDICES 101
A. DAY FIVE AGENDA 101
B. DAY SIX AGENDA 102
C. COLLABORATIVE MFA CULMINATING PROJECT PROGRAM 103
REFERENCES 105
1CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION
In my dancing life, shared experiences are the greatest informants in my learning
and my artistry. Retracing embodied steps and recalling the people who were present in
the midst of my processes of change enlivens the meaning of each experience. For me,
the lens through which I experience dance education and artistry is directly related to the
time and space shared, felt, and traversed with other people, with my community.
Therefore for me, a community of people is an essential component in dance education
and artistry. Exchange of information, lived movement experience, and shared
expression is inextricably linked to the people who define that community. When people
move together, progressing simultaneously as individuals and as members of a collective,
connections can be cultivated and revealed.
In effective collaborative processes, multitudes of beliefs, personalities, talents,
and ambitions are incorporated into the communication mix. Challenges are likely;
however, potential solutions can evolve as dancers move through shared experiences
moment by moment. Collaborative language, exchanged via dialogue, text, and
movement, emerges through practice. Navigating shared dance processes, crafting
experiences, and making choices requires openness and keen determination by all
2involved participants. Collaborations can succeed or fail based on collective
responsiveness to these complex and dynamic challenges.
Artistry and education should not be parsed from collaboratively shared
movement and dialogic processes involving dance. Their partnered existence has the
potential to strengthen collaboration. For me, the artistry of a well-crafted dance
technique class plan is undeniable, but because it is contextually explicit, a well-crafted
dance technique class plan often goes unnoticed and undocumented as such. Similarly,
the educational value and skillful application of a well-crafted performance work is
undeniable; however, because it is not explicitly prescribed beyond its performance, a
well-crafted performance work also goes unnoticed and undocumented as educational
practice.
Increasing the means for collaborative exchange in dance pedagogy and dance
artistry is a driving aim of this research. The roles defined in dance and the operational
facets defined by traditional dance models can create stigmas and boundaries that prohibit
such exploration and development. In particular, these stigmas and boundaries may limit
the communication exchange within a community of dancers. I believe describing
movement in words, a recognized challenge in the dance field, and examining how these
descriptive translations can integrate dance practices in diverse settings, is the crux of
what collaborative processes can contribute to the field. Successful collaboration
integrates invaluable components in dance: people, vision, and resources, through shared
communication and experience.
3Significance of Study
This research is one attempt at capturing and focusing how we speak and write
about the ephemeral, complex nature of dance and the unique, diverse nature of people.
More specifically, it gives context to the journey of dance process through written
language, elaborating on what happens beyond points of inception, actualization, and
reflection. My research leads me to believe that investigation into examples of varied
language practices will positively impact the scope of dance scholarship and accessibility
for broader application. Similarly, my research directly connected me to exceptional
existing resources. I hope this research offers practical applications to the field of dance
and to the people who work together in communities through dance.
Purpose of Study
The purpose of this research is to share language from my Master ofFine Arts
Movement Project community's working processes, to discuss dialogic dance models in
current practice, and to recommend specific collaborative language resources as tools for
the field of dance. My Master of Fine Arts Movement Project was the experientia11ab
for my thesis inquiry. Based on my experience, I believe practicing how we
communicate in the same way we practice movement skill training and art making is
essential to developing language that represents process and captures the heart of what
may resonate as meaningful to the people who participate in the journey. Increasing the
means for collaborative exchange in dance via shared talking, writing, listening,
responding, and moving is a driving aim of this research. Attention to how we practice
4crafting, distilling, and articulating language of shared experience in dance directly
supports this aim.
Assumptions/Biases
This research assumes that collaborative community experiences are attractive
and valuable to other people, particularly to the participants in the research project. I
prefer to learn via recognition of both my independent path and the connection I feel with
my community. I feel I am always actively connected to community, no matter what the
context; I am a part of community and my connection directly informs how I relate to the
world. I affect and am affected by community. Therefore, how I define and value
community and collaboration is intuitively based on my experiences and beliefs.
I was interested, for this research, in engaging with people who are receptive to
collaborative environments. The project community selected for my Master of Fine Arts
Movement Project was a collective of people I knew and who I believed were interested
in collaborative dance ventures. I did not explicitly know what each member of the
project community believes or associates via experience in regard to community and
collaboration. Also, I could not gauge how each member of the project community
values shared practices and experiences. Possession of this information did not drive this
research; however, opening lines of communication for mutual exchange was a desired
aim of this research.
I believe people learn about themselves and about each other when they work
together, move together, and communicate together. Collaboration often encourages a
willingness to share and in tum, it likely creates space for reciprocal sharing. The
5exchange is mutual and commonalities, valuable reference points, are discovered in the
process. This research assumes the presence of multiple mutual exchanges and notes that
a majority, ifnot all, of these exchanges involve language, in terms of movement,
dialogue, or text. Movement is considered language in dance. As people work, move,
and communicate together, as a community, this research posits that common language is
generated through the continuum of shared process.
Delimitations
Processes initiated in my Master of Fine Arts (MFA) Movement Project, the
active research lab, evolved in ways that inextricably inform and propel my thesis work.
As I note this trajectory, I address delimitations for my MFA Movement Project design
and transition to the delimitations for my thesis.
The choice to work in the same environment I interact in daily and to invite
dancers I know, who are also university students, to participate in my MFA Movement
project community was a deliberate choice. University of Oregon courses adhere to 10-
week terms; therefore, I paralleled the 10-week time period in my research. However, I
deliberately designed the 10-week timeline to be equally split between summer break
(five weeks from August 17-September 18, 2009) and Fall Term (first five weeks of the
term from September 29-0ctober 30, 2009). The choice to work with a community of
nine dancers was intentional. For the context of this research, it was important to work
with a group greater than five but less than ten due to scheduling and logistics. Variance
in dance experience and background was also important to community demographics.
6The diverse perspectives present in my MFA Movement Project community
indelibly shaped the shared experiences and the terms of exchange. The scope of topics
investigated is not as significant as the specific context of language use in correlation
with the community's response. The focus is on investigating how dance language is
crafted, distilled, and articulated via shared practice and exchange. From a place of
reflection, after the active navigations inside the project community concluded, I gained
additional perspective on the salient aspects of the work. I realized the act of finding,
honing, and communicating language, particularly impromptu talking and writing, was
the greatest challenge for the community. Language practice evolves over time and
benefits from awareness of and adaptability to multiple perspectives.
Fresh in my realizations and inquiry, I sought out additional resources specifically
addressing language practices in dance. In order to synthesize what transpired in my
Master of Fine Arts Movement Project community experience, I focused on sources with
both narrative components and practical applications. Sources written to embrace a
community perspective were of particular interest due to the complex interplay of voices
and values. As a result, my research connected me to resources in the field of
community-based arts and constructivist collaboration in the field of education.
Although I am unable to make claims about the scope of community-based arts or
constructivist collaboration research, I apply noted principles from these fields to the
context of this research.
7Limitations of Study
The Master of Fine Arts (MFA) Movement Project aspect ofthis research did not
take place in a controlled environment. The community demographic and the material
presented and created was in flux, to some extent, throughout the scope of the study. The
outcome was not known nor defined in totality in advance. Tracking information and
insight on the characteristics of community in the blended dance environment as it
developed through shared processes illuminated the research. However, identifying what
is significant in shared processes is not for the researcher to control or act on alone; it
requires community conversation and active response.
As researcher, the role of facilitator was not to be misused as power of authority;
however, guided language and a communication framework was relayed and prepared by
the researcher/facilitator. Decisive responsibility was sometimes amorphous. Similarly,
community member expectations were personal to the individual, varied throughout the
collective, and often unknown by the researcher/facilitator. Therefore, the multiplicity of
voices, although welcomed and acknowledged, cannot be fully articulated by the
researcher.
Coalescence in this research journey cannot be referred to in finite terms. Process
implies some level of continual progression; therefore, describing process can have
continuous trajectories. This research extrapolates and describes "phases" of experiential
processes with a focus on language. Discussions, writings, and movements emerged
through experiential processes. Inevitably, some ofthe continual nature of process and
its dynamic relevance will be lost.
8Definition of Terms
The definition of terms clarifies terminology that informs and supports my
research. Terms are listed in alphabetical order for easy reference. Some definitions, due
to language variation, diverse application, and field specificity, require more in-depth
discussion.
Art making, defined in my own words for this research, represents the creative
and collective act of generating movement to be shared through performance. The
artistry and artful contributions of each individual inspires the collective choreographic
process. Art making was used instead of "dance choreographic rehearsal" in the Master
of Fine Arts Movement Project blended dance environment to investigate how dialogue
and definitions impact the overall development and operational foundation of a
collaborative community. Dancers in an academic environment often classify what they
actively participate in by descriptors of "class" and "rehearsal." This research
intentionally combined the activities usually identified separately by these descriptors
with the goal of realizing a new forum for language possibilities or a clearer
representation of the actions already enlivened in the experiences.
Collaboration most simply means to work together. In the dance field, working
definitions of collaboration, versus dictionary examples, provide important context for
this research. Established educators and artists 1awole Willa 10 Zollar, Founding Artistic
Director of Urban Bush Women and Liz Lerman, Founding Artistic Director of the Liz
Lerman Dance Exchange, practice collaboration in their dance companies as well as in
broader community contexts. In the March 2009 issue ofDance Magazine Michelle
9Vellucci recognizes Zollar and Urban Bush Women in her article entitled, "Phenomenal
Women: 1awole Willa 10 Zollar and Urban Bush Women Celebrate 25 Years of Creating
Art as a Catalyst for Social Change." On the topic of collaboration in Zollar's work and
quoting Zollar directly, Vellucci writes:
More than vessels for Zollar's choreography, the members of Urban Bush Women
are collaborators and co-creators of the work. 'Dancers are still trained to
duplicate steps, and being in a collaborative, investigative process is for the most
part a new experience for many of them,' she [Zollar] says, 'particularly if they
come from a classical background.' (Vellucci 2009,28)
Vellucci also writes, "Collaborative problem-solving is also key to Urban Bush Women's
work outside of the studio. The company's two primary programs are community
engagement residencies ... and the Summer Institute, which trains both artists and non-
artists in community engagement practices" (Vellucci 2009, 30). Expounding on Urban
Bush Women's community engagement residencies and emphasizing language in
collaborative settings Vellucci quotes Zollar:
'You bring people who represent different aspects of a community and talk about
what is important to them, what they would like to see addressed and celebrated,
and how we can have a process of mutual collaboration,' Zollar says. 'We try to
establish a common language around issues that affect the community: racism,
systemic poverty, who has power and who doesn't. It's a common establishment,
through a creative process, of what determines a community'S identity.'(Vellucci
2009, 30-32)
Liz Lerman and her company, Liz Lerman Dance Exchange, uphold dialogue as
an essential component in their collaborative artistic work. Edited by Pam Korza and
Barbara Schaffer Bacon, Dialogue in Artistic Practice: Case Studies from Animating
Democracy, highlights Lerman and her company in a chapter entitled, "Liz Lerman
Dance Exchange: An Aesthetic ofInquiry, An Ethos of Dialogue," written by the
10
company's Humanities Director, John Borstel. Succinctly addressing viewpoints on both
collaboration and communication, Borstel writes:
The Dance Exchange often gathers people of diverse bodies, brains, and
perspectives to collaborate, listen, and make something together-a process of
understanding and problem-solving in which clear and constructive
communication is essential. The dance is never exactly the same in any two
places; as artists and participants move gradually into unfamiliar territory, they
are constantly challenged to collaborate in order to adapt. The artists and their
community collaborators engage in topics that are current, vital, curious,
unexpected, and always sparking dialogues within and beyond the work. Artists,
participants, and audiences are consistently engaged at a level where values are at
stake, and where human integrity is on the line. (Borste12005, 58)
Collaboration requires reciprocal communication; therefore how we talk and write is vital
to the shared experience. Lerman and Zollar's astute awareness and application of
language in practice offer tremendous insight to the field of dance and community-based
work as a whole. Both educator artists and their work are discussed in more detail in
Chapter Two "Review of Related Works."
Collaboration, for the purposes of this research, refers to the active practices of a
collective of people agreeing to work together in a mutually beneficial way.
Accentuating language, I parse out the word "lab" from "collaboration" and define it as a
place where knowledge is sought and discovered through active investigation and crafted
process. The second word I parse out is "labor" which I define as work or the act of
doing work. Applying these distilled personalized definitions for lab and labor, I define
collaboration as the exchange actualized by people agreeing to work together in a
mutually beneficial way, seeking knowledge through active investigation, and doing the
work via crafted process.
11
Community, defined in my own words, is a collective of people connected
through shared interests, passions, ambitions, and practices. A community possesses
individual and collective knowledge and resources. I view the dance technique
classroom and the choreographic rehearsal setting as communities that often operate with
exclusivity, but for me, they are interconnected. The project community for my research
was designed to integrate skill training and art making.
Noting the breadth of potential interpretations and meanings of community along
with the imperative use of "community" in my research, I found it necessary to bring
definitions into the fold from the relatively new field of community-based art and
performance. In the 2005 text, Local Acts: Community-Based Performance in the United
States, author Jan Cohen-Cruz offers this description: "Community-based art is a field in
which artists, collaborating with people whose lives directly inform the subject matter,
express collective meaning" (Cohen-Cruz 2005, 1). Verifying the historical context of
this field, Cohen-Cruz states: "Its [community-based art] immediate roots are in the
turbulent 1960s and early 1970s, when nationwide questioning of the status quo led to
significant expansion of art vis-a.-vis potential creators, sites, subjects, audiences, and
funding policies" (Cohen-Cruz 2005, 1).
Community-based performance envelops concepts of community. Exemplifying
this, Jan Cohen-Cruz simultaneously describes both community-based performance and
community, stating:
It is a collaboration between an artist or ensemble and a 'community' ... at the
source of community-based performance is not the singular artist but a
'community' constituted by virtue of a shared primary identity based in place,
12
ethnicity, class, race, sexual preference, profession, circumstances, or political
orientation. (Cohen-Cruz 2005, 2)
Community-based arts organization, Alternate ROOTS, the Regional Organization of
Theaters South, defines the particulars of community as "place, tradition or spirit" in
Kathie deNobriga's 1993 High Peiformance article "An Introduction to Alternate
ROOTS" (deNobriga 1993, 13). Richard Owen Geer, community-based performance
scholar-practitioner, describes community-based performance as "work that is of, by and
for a particular community of spirit, tradition, or location" in his 1993 High Performance
article "Of the People, by the People and for the People: The Field of Community
Performance" (Geer 1993, 28). According to Geer, "community performance is
synonymous with community change" (Geer 1993, 28). He offers this metaphor:
When a community performs its beliefs and traditions it makes meaning. Fuel,
oxygen and heat are required to make fire, and a similar relationship exists
between the elements in community performance. People are the fuel, their
beliefs and traditions oxygen, and performance is the heat. Metaphorically, fire
and performance are similar. Fire makes nutrients valuable for digestion and
provides illumination and warmth. Performance cooks experience into meaning,
provides illumination and security. In tribal societies fire and performance occur
at the community's center. (Geer 1993,28)
The working definitions of community and community-based art can be
embedded in ways that skew contextual parameters. Consequently questions arise.
Cohen-Cruz addresses a few of these questions in her text, Local Acts, writing:
Do we do ourselves a disservice by reinforcing fixed categories of community?
.. .Identities are so complex and multiple that it may not be obvious who is of 'the
community.' Who makes such determinations? Ifprofessional artists are moved
by the same subject matter as people with a material bond, do they become part of
'the community' When community is grounded in geography, for how long must
someone have lived there? (Cohen-Cruz 2005,3)
13
Since I am unable to answer these questions definitively, it was my responsibility as a
researcher of collaboration and community, to acknowledge the complexities in the
vocabulary I utilized. Cohen-Cruz, in addition to addressing questions, boldly takes on
the challenge of parsing potential meaning and value from semantic components.
Constructivist collaboration is a term created by Linda Lambert, Michelle Collay,
Karen Kent, Anna Ershler Richert, and Mary Dietz in their 1996 text, Who Will Save Our
Schools? Teachers as Constructivist Leaders. They describe it as:
... the actions and interactions among willing participants that result in learning.
Constructivist collaboration usually involves a combination of talking, listening,
observing, doing, thinking, and reflecting. Collaboration has a variety of
purposes and is often initiated by a specific focus or need. The process of
collaboration may lead to discovering emerging understandings, purposes, and
needs. (Lambert et al. 1996, 75)
For the purposes of my research, which is collaborative in nature, constructivism
is viewed through a social lens. George W. Gagnon, Jr. and Michelle Collay identify
social development as an informant to constructivism in their 2006 text, Constructivist
Learning Design: Key Questions for Teaching to Standards. Applying ideas on socially
constructed knowledge in the context of an educational environment, they write:
Individuals thinking alone first make personal meaning. Then they test their
thinking in dialogue with others to construct social meaning. Next, they construct
shared meaning by reviewing their thinking with the class or in a larger
community. Finally, the teacher leads students in considering the standard
meaning among local communities and the broader society. Movement through
these four phases of meaning making embodies the process of socially
constructing cultural knowledge. (Gagnon and Collay 2006, 78-79)
This idea of phases ofleaming in regard to meaning making and shared knowledge was
valuable to me as a researcher working with a community of dancers.
14
Gathering, defined by the Master of Fine Arts Movement Project community of
this study, represents the time spent in shared process and practice. Upholding the
integrity of this research as both trial and lab, it was important to leave room for the
community to cultivate and further define its function and characteristics. Thus, the
community was invited to consciously craft language about the collective's work.
"Gathering" is the word chosen instead of dance class or rehearsal by the entire project
community to describe daily one-to-two-hour project meetings throughout the 1a-week
research period. It became contextually important to describe our shared time and
experiences with a word that reflected the community's collective investigative interests.
Hermeneutics refers to theoretical study of interpretation. Sondra Fraleigh's 2000
Dance Research Journal article entitled, "Consciousness Matters," describes
hermeneutics as discovery "through the descriptive process-what the experience itself
has uncovered" (Fraleigh 2000, 59). Informed by improvisatory sensibilities,
hermeneutics brings "a rendering of meaning derived from the lived experience" to
consciousness (Fraleigh 2000,59). Dance educator Susan W. Stinson utilizes a
hermeneutic methodology in her dissertation entitled, "Reflections and Visions: A
Hermeneutic Study of Dangers and Possibilities in Dance Education." Stinson writes: "A
hermeneutic methodology, based upon a model of the process of doing art, is used for the
study because it allows the author to connect the personal, professional, and social worlds
in which the dance educator lives" (Stinson 1984, vi).
For the purposes of this research, hermeneutics refers to the intersection of
language and meaning. Joann McNamara elaborates on this intersection in the 1999 text
15
Researching Dance: Evolving Modes ofInquiry. In the chapter, "Dance in the
Hermeneutic Circle," she defines hermeneutics as "a tradition, an approach used to
examine the meaning ofa text and how its meaning is constructed" (McNamara 1999,
163). She continues by clarifying her working definition of text: "The term text here
refers to all symbolic constructs of meaning which, in the world of dance, may include
dances, the social and cultural activities surrounding dance, books about dance, the
language of dance, and so forth" (McNamara 1999, 163). Movement, an integral part of
the dance, is considered language in dance. On language in hermeneutic study, Joann
McNamara writes: "Rooted in language, as well as a particular historical and social
situation, human expressions communicate what has been, what is, and what can be.
Interpretation or other human expressions can be acknowledged as a never-ending
process of being" (McNamara 1999, 179).
The hermeneutic circle begins with consciousness and cycles around to conscious
reflection as a means to "assess the value of an interpretation" (McNamara 1999, 181).
Bringing the focus to dance, McNamara states: "Using language to convey the meaning
of a dance, for example, one must apprehend the lived experience of the dance and then
express, through language, that experience as it arises" (McNamara 1999, 178).
Language, for me and in the context of this research, includes movement,
dialogue, discussion, conversation, feedback, typewritten text, and hand-written text.
With technology in the mix, emails and communication via electronic networks are also
considered language. Semantics, word choices, and concepts, both artistic and
pedagogical, are part of language as referenced in this research. The way language is
16
presented informs potential responses and potential meanings. Tone, timing, and delivery
can impact response. This research is interested in language as it correlates to
collaborative preparatory, investigative, and reflective phases in dance. Acknowledging
individual and collectively shared perspectives, language is examined in relationship to
these associated phases of development.
From the vantage point of researcher and facilitator, language also includes
prompts, cues, and questions expressed primarily through verbal exchange. Language is
communicated and exchanged by people with people. It is crafted in the present moment
and dependent on its form and usage, language can exist beyond the time of original
generation if preserved in text or transferred through memory recall and repeated physical
practice. Movement, like words, is communicated in forms, phrases, categories, lists, and
impromptu ways. As dancers, collaborators, and people, we respond and react differently
to language; however the utilization of language is imperative to communication and
translation of experience.
Phenomenology, for the purposes of this research, refers to theoretical study of
description. In The Routledge Dance Studies Reader 1998 text edited by Alexandra
Carter, Sondra Fraleigh clarifies her use of phenomenology and credits philosophers in
the field in the chapter entitled, "A Vulnerable Glance: Seeing Dance Through
Phenomenology," writing:
When I use the term phenomenology I mean existential phenomenology, the
development of Edmund Husserl's phenomenological philosophy by later
twentieth-century existentialist philosophers: Martin Heidegger, Jean Paul Sarte,
Paul Ricoeur, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, and Gabriel Marcel. The common
concern of these philosophers was to describe existence from the 'horizon'
17
(Husserl's tenn for the 'context' in which experiences arise) of being-in-the-
world. (Fraleigh 1998, 136)
In phenomenology, consciousness is transcendent and perception of phenomena is not
static, it exists through time. Fraleigh describes existential phenomenology as
"vulnerable" because it "rests on experiential descriptions of the lived world; more
precisely, human experiences arising always in particular contexts of being-in-the-world"
(Fraleigh 1998, 136). Applied to dance, a phenomenologist approaches the task of
describing a phenomenon, a dance or dance experience for example, as though he/she is
"seeing it fresh for the first time" (Fraleigh 1998, 138). Phenomenology attempts to
remove biases and assumptions from consciousness. The idea of describing "fresh"
experiences and their meaningful essences is the phenomenologist's challenge. For this
research, keeping collaborative practices "fresh" was a collective challenge.
Post positivist, a tenn with various applications and practitioners, refers to a belief
that reality is socially constructed. Researching Dance: Modes ofInquiry, the 1999 text
edited by Sondra Fraleigh and Penelope Hanstein, includes a chapter entitled
"Postpositivist Research in Dance" written by Jill Green and Susan W. Stinson. Green
and Stinson note that postpositivists "tend to believe that we construct reality according
to how we are positioned in the world, and that how we see reality and truth is related to
the perspective from which we are looking" (Green and Stinson 1999, 93). This approach
purposefully leaves room for emergent patterns and themes.
Skill training, defined in my own words for this research, represents the act of
honing technical, cognitive, social, and communicative skills. The skill sets each
individual cultivates and brings to a shared experience are of great educational and
18
artistic value and they are diverse in potential. Skill training is used instead of "dance
technique class" in the Master of Fine Arts Movement Project dance environment as a
means to study how dialogue and definitions impact the overall development and
operational foundation of a collaborative community.
Methodology
This research journey, a continuum of beginnings, progressed through
inception/design, active investigation, and culmination/reflection phases. The inception
or design phase of the research was sparked by my personal experiences as a Graduate
Teaching Fellow in Dance at the University of Oregon and as a participant in the 2009
Urban Bush Women Summer Leadership Institute in New Orleans, Louisiana. During
this phase, which was more independent in nature, I gathered a diverse sampling of
resources. The 1O-week Master of Fine Arts Movement Project community trials and
discoveries defined the active investigation research phase of the research. The collective
directly informed this second phase. Resources were both prescribed from my earlier
design phase and emergent in response to the community's interests and needs. The
culmination or reflection phase of the research acknowledged individual and collective
feedback in response to the shared movement project experience and posited further
inquiry and practice. During this third and final phase, the working context for me
transitioned from collaborative to independent. The resources I sourced after the research
project culmination support the research processes, outcomes, and a call for action.
Tracing facets of the unfolding research journey, Chapter Two "Review of Related
Works" is organized in correlation with the three identified research phases:
19
inception/design, active investigation, and culmination/reflection. Chapter Three
"Discussion" addresses progressions from these research phases in reference to practices
in crafting, distilling, and articulating language of shared experience.
Inception/Design Research Phase
My experience as a Graduate Teaching Fellow in the University of Oregon
Department of Dance allowed me to explore dance inquiries based on my own instincts
and curiosities. Particularly, I noticed categorization and separation in practice between
dance technique classroom modes and choreographic modes. In response, I designed an
environment to investigate possibilities in the practical integration of both "skill training"
(technique) and "art making" (composition/performance). Community interaction and
collaborative exchange were desired research outcomes. Initial research resources
included: collaborative constructivist theory specific to professional development in the
field of education, dance pedagogy, and collaborative dance company models. The
collaborative dance practices of Liz Lerman, Artistic Director of Liz Lerman Dance
Exchange and 1awole Willa 10 Zollar, Artistic Director of Urban Bush Women
influenced the design of this research.
The resources on Zollar and Urban Bush Women provided context on their
"community engagement" and "Summer Institute" programming. Intrigued to learn more
about their collaborative community practice and with support from the University of
Oregon Department of Dance, I attended the 2009 Urban Bush Women (UBW) Summer
Leadership Institute in New Orleans, Louisiana. I gained direct knowledge about
conscientious language practices at the UBW Summer Leadership Institute. The
20
vocabulary Zollar and Urban Bush Women used illuminated important facets of our
community practices and shared values. We were asked to be accountable for our actions
and words. As a result, movement and discussion practices were cultivated collectively
with respect for multiple voices. Aware of my voice in the process, I critically examined
how I worked and contributed inside the Urban Bush Women Summer Leadership
Institute framework.
The Institute's design and implementation was pivotally insightful for me as a
new researcher with collaborative inclinations. My shared experience as an Institute
participant and the resources I accessed on Zollar and Urban Bush Women's working
processes provided me with key support throughout this phase ofmy research. The
practice of crafting, organizing how to implement and support trials in my own research,
became most apparent during this initial phase.
Active Investigation Research Phase
As researcher, I flowed between roles of teacher, artist, and facilitator. The
remaining community of dancers was comprised of nine undergraduate students.
Invitations were personally extended to dancers, via telephone and email, with a
description of the research environment design. This invitation process was my first
opportunity to practice communication with dancers in the project community.
Opportunities to share descriptions of creative learning processes are often missed
and unrealized. The field of dance can benefit further from recognizing communication
as an active and descriptive craft that demands practice. Language is not limited to
feedback and responsive exchange after the fact, after a witnessing of someone's work in
21
class or their presence in performance. Word choices that illuminate working processes
in dance can clarify context. The committee members I worked with in my research are
well versed in the field of dance. Engaging in process discussions with these dance
professionals reinforced a checks and balances system for me inside the active
investigation research phase. The specificity of their word choices and the clarity of their
concepts informed my research practices. Per invitation, all committee members
attended at least one of the community's two-hour gatherings during the 10-week
timeframe.
This phase of the research took place over a ten week time period with the first
five weeks designated during the later portion of summer break, August 17-September
18, 2009, and the second five weeks designated during the first half of the Fall 2009
academic term, September 29-0ctober 30,2009. The community of dancers met two-
three times weekly for one-two hours at a time. The project culminating sharing entitled,
"We Are the One, I," took place on Sunday, November 1,2009 from 2-3 p.m. in the
University of Oregon's Department of Dance Building, Gerlinger Annex Rooms 353 and
354. All community gatherings took place in the University of Oregon Dance
Department studio space. Performance space was negotiated and arranged in compliance
with Dance Department events and protocol.
Each project community member was invited to invest in the process actively,
both in regard to skill training and art making. The consistently changing agenda fused
both my resources and ideas with the resources and ideas of each dancer in the
community. Codified exercises, methodologies, and dialogic dance company models,
22
such as those of previously mentioned Urban Bush Women and Liz Lerman Dance
Exchange, were combined with experiential processes generated during the gatherings by
the project community's preferences and background. Noting the range of movement
variations, the fluid sharing of concepts, and the shaping of movement material that
transpired within the dance environment, the research journey was a continuum of
beginnings and an active learning lab. The goal was not to create a "new" dance
approach, but to open the forum for collaboration and increased possibility through
shared experience and language exchange.
Tools for analysis included journals, dialogue discussions, and written responses
recorded on individual notecards or on the community notepad during project gatherings.
Originally, journals were the primary form of documentation. However as the research
progressed, the individual notecards and the community notepad also became primary
forms of documentation. As researcher, I kept journals on my summer study including
processes unique to my 2009 Urban Bush Women Summer Leadership Institute
experience, on the planning process prior to the start of the research, and continually
throughout the shared research process as it occurred and in reflection. The community
of dancers would occasionally journal during gathering time; however, most of the
journaling was structured to take place outside of the project community as a reflective
tool. The practice of journaling can give voice to what is uniquely known and felt by the
individual participant inside the collective experience. Voluntary journal sharing with the
collective was welcomed but not required. However, a majority of the participants
23
submitted their journals after the project culmination to aid me, as researcher, in
reflection.
Language was crafted, distilled, and articulated in the midst of the community's
working processes. Group discussions during gatherings gave participants the
opportunity to discuss their experiences in an open format. The use of open-ended
questions allowed for a broader scope of responses and inter-personal exchanges.
Responses to questions were not only verbally discussed, they were hand-written on
individual notecards or on the collective community notepad. Periodically and with the
entire project community's permission, group dialogue sessions were audio tape-
recorded. The community of dancers involved in the project met three weeks after the
culminating sharing for reflective feedback exchange. In addition to group discussions
with the community of dancers, I engaged committee members in open-ended discussion
as an important outside collaborative facet of the study's design. Both one-on-one and
collective discussions with committee members during the active investigation phase of
my research provided important reflective opportunities for me as researcher-facilitator.
Resources like Liz Lerman's 2003 Critical Response Process text were referenced
and implemented throughout the active investigation research process. Specific to the
work of Jawole Willa Jo Zollar and Urban Bush Women, Michelle Vellucci's 2009
Dance Teacher article, "Phenomenal Women: Jawole Willa Jo Zollar and Urban Bush
Women Celebrate 25 Years of Creating Art as a Catalyst for Social Change," and Urban
Bush Women company member Paloma McGregor's 2009 Dance Magazine article,
"From the Heart: Why I Dance," were copied and handed out to the project community
24
during gatherings. It was important to identify resources I found helpful during our
shared processes and to make them accessible. Therefore, a resource list was updated
and shared with the community during the active investigation research phase. The
practice of distilling, utilizing discussion to generate movement or movement to spark
discussion with intentions to identify individual and collective focus and interests,
pivotally informed the shared experiences in this constantly evolving phase.
CUlmination/Reflection Research Phase
After the public culminating sharing on November 1,2009, the community of
dancers, less one dancer, gathered three weeks later on November 22, 2009 for feedback
exchange and reflection. Informed by the evaluation questions I answered as a 2009
Urban Bush Women Summer Leadership Institute participant and layered with my own
research reflections, the questions I crafted in my personal research journal read:
What did you learn from the experience?
Reflect upon how you will use what you learned in the following areas:
A. Educational settings
B. Art making processes
C. Community Life
How were you informed/affected by the dialogue/discussion component in this
process?
Describe your movement connection in the process. How did movement inform
you-inspire you?
As a community, we wrote our own responses on notecards and subsequently talked
about the salient points as a collective. I collected the notecards and added them to our
community process documentation. I also collected journals from community members
who were willing to share their work with me. Journals were not viewed by the
community.
25
The context of the culmination/reflection research phase transitioned from
communal to independent as I began to write about the active investigation research
experiences in my IO-week Master of Fine Arts (MFA) Movement Project lab.
Significant realizations emerged during my focused writing practice. I felt inspired and
overwhelmed by the challenge of crafting language to describe the shared processes and
discoveries inside the active investigation research phase. I needed the words to convey
the meaning and value of the actual lived experience, the collaborative dance community
experience. Articulating active investigation and emergent trials through the writing
process was a new and unfamiliar journey.
Seeking additional resources to guide my practice, I focused on published
resources in the field of community-based arts. It was insightful to see how community-
based arts scholars and practitioners navigate descriptive language, narrative elements,
and multiple perspectives. In addition, I sought published resources in dance pedagogy
with practical applications and a focus on language practices in dance. These resources
were crucial to the culmination/reflection research phase and they propelled me toward
synthesis and suggestions for application. The practice of articulating shared
experiences, giving context to collaborative moving, writing, and talking processes with
what seems like a limited vocabulary and a personal viewpoint embedded in the felt
progression, was the most prevalent challenge during this final research phase.
26
CHAPTER II
REVIEW OF RELATED WORKS
The research discussed in this chapter traverses a range of topics including:
Teacher Collaboration, Community-Based Arts Practice, Dance Pedagogy,
Collaborative/Dialogic Dance Company Models, and Dance Language Practice. This
review of related works examines methods, shares findings, and critically reviews
processes in relation to the interests and goals of this research. The format of this chapter
is intended to support the unfolding journey of the researcher as designer, seeker of
emergent themes, and advocate for broader understanding. Crafted to distill language as
a descriptor of process, the literature reviewed under each topic header traces the research
journey's progression toward synthesis. Therefore, the literature is presented in order of
its application to my research. Grouped by topic, the resources I drew from during the
research inception/design research phase are reviewed first. Resources I accessed as
support for the active investigation research phase are noted second. Third and finally,
works I sought out following the project culmination are reviewed as support for the
culmination/reflection research phase. Each review concludes with statements
identifying aspects of the work that informed the research project design, active research
investigation, or the research project outcomes.
27
Teacher Collaboration/Community-Based Arts Practice
Research by Michelle Collay, Associate Professor in the Department of
Educational Leadership at California State University, East Bay in Hayward, examined
teacher engagement in professiona11earning communities. Her 1988 dissertation
"Dialogue as a Language of Learning: An Ethnographic Study of Teacher Socialization"
utilized an ethnographic approach to delve into her question: Where does one really begin
to learn about teaching? Interpreting from her roles as Clinical Professor, Co-Teacher,
and Participant Observer/Researcher, Collay investigated the process of new teacher
induction. The development of a common language and open dialogue between
professionals provided a context in which Collay posits one can know teaching. Shared
knowledge about teaching was created as a result of this exchange.
Collay's methodology included four rounds ofthemed interviews over a one-year
period with a five-person sample. The assumption outlined by Collay directly coupled
the development of a common language and dialogue between professionals with a
context of knowledge or heighted means of knowing. Participants were both new
teachers and graduate students. The interview format was flexible; deviation from her
questions was encouraged, with greater importance placed on discussing topics of
personal relevance to each interviewee. Collay concluded: teaching and learning are
integral parts of knowing, levels of knowing increase through dialogue and collegial
interactions, and the Teaching-Learning process, a term coined in 1970 by Freire in
Pedagogy ofthe Oppressed, is open-ended. Emergent themes identified through
28
personalized interviews were showcased with sensitive attention to biases, reflections,
and personal experiences of both the researcher and interviewee.
Collay's work informed the design of this research in the manner in which it
explored emergent themes. Development of a common language and open dialogue
exchange between the community of dancers in this research study did provide a context
in which the individual, and the collective, came to know dancing. The reciprocal respect
and attentive embrace of the lived process in Col1ay's qualitative research influenced me
to develop and attend to some sort of checks and balances system, even in fluid
circumstances, to preserve the integrity of open-ended processes.
Building on Collay's early work, in true collaborative spirit, Collay, Dunlap,
Enloe, and Gagnon discuss constructivist collaboration in their 1998 text, Learning
Circles: Creating Conditions for Professional Development. Active sharing ofthe
collaborators' experiences through open dialogue, reflection, and group action focused on
six essential conditions necessary for initiating and sustaining communities of learners.
They include: "building community, constructing knowledge, supporting learners,
documenting reflection, assessing expectations, and changing cultures" (Collay et aL
1998,8).
"Learning circles are small communities of learners among teachers and others
who come together intentionally for the purpose of supporting each other in the process
oflearning" (Collay et aL 1998,2). The learning circles focused on in the text are
comprised of teachers or other educators engaged in their own professional development.
According to Collay and co-authors, communities of learners can change only as
29
individual members learn. Individual members learn most effectively as part of small
groups who support change. "People in a community, living or working in a common
place, may feel some sense of belonging shared beliefs, proximity to others, shared
customs, traditions, and perhaps reciprocal duties and obligations" (Collay et al.
1998,14). However to Collay and co-authors, community must be deliberate; it is created
and sustained by each member.
Reflecting on this text, intensive dialogue, feedback, and reflection are required of
the researcher(s) as they process individually and share collaboratively. Incorporating
concepts of the learning circle can aid in strengthening the growth and transformation of
the individual and the community. This text emphasizes the educator and the educator's
community. There is implied separation in this emphasis.
For the purposes of my research design, roles were fused and ownership was
shared in order to create balance within the community. The collaborative dance
environment in my research encompassed the "learning circle" concept focused on in the
work of Collay et al. However, unlike the work of Collay and co-authors, the group
discussions in my research included the entire community of dancers instead of being
exclusive to those in designated educator or leadership roles. The educator and the
educator's community were not viewed exclusively; instead, the project community in
my research viewed individuals, roles, and the community in an integrated context. This
integration, a clear risk, was significant to the advancement of prioritized community
potential.
30
A multiplicity of active voices in the field are highlighted in Keith Knight and
Mat Schwarzman's 2005 Text, Beginner's Guide to Community-Based Arts. The text is
cleverly written in the style of a travel guide including illustrations and comic strip
commentary. Knight and Schwarzman do not report on the collaborative ventures and
successes of other practitioners in the field. Instead, they provide the literal framework
for a shared journey that embraces multiple perspectives and experiential narratives. This
text gives authorship to community-based arts practitioners; and, it celebrates the
language artist-activist communities are crafting and practicing. Mapping out the
overarching context, Knight and Schwarzman identify "five territories" of community-
based arts processes using the acronym CRAFT: contact, research, action, feedback, and
teaching (Knight and Schwarzman 2005, xxv).
CRAFT is the umbrella structure of the text, and the supporting material is the
collection of experiential stories and practical insights included in the unique narratives.
As the text recreates the journey, techniques are outlined by each community-based arts
organization contributor and the information is offered to the field in lesson plan form.
Tips and disclaimers are flagged in ways that foster reflective consideration and proactive
preparation. The clarity of the language and the organization of the exercises provide
readers with information that is both applicable and user-friendly. The Beginner's Guide
to Community-Based Arts promotes accessibility to resources and community
engagement. Each section of the text calls attention to planning and implementation
logistics, operational steps, and potential variations.
31
More than synthesized information, Knight and Schwarzman's text is strategically
written as a tool for practical use. The text synthesizes a breadth of experiences and
meanings in a way that propels action and investigation. This community-based arts text
encouraged me to try some of the techniques and exercises in my own dance community.
In general, it supports active lab scenarios by explicitly outlining objectives, steps, and
follow-up suggestions for implementation. The guiding language encourages trials. It
provides context and suggestions to help balance open-ended frameworks. Talking and
writing about what we do as dancers is a constant challenge. The inclusion of more
resources modeling language that guides and describes practice, like Knight and
Schwarzman's Beginner's Guide to Community-Based Arts, would benefit the field of
dance.
Jan Cohen-Cruz's 2005 text Local Acts: Community-Based Performance in the
United States discusses the history, principles and purposes, as well as the aesthetic
diversity within the field. She describes the field as "unwieldy and seemingly
contradictory," writing:
It [community-based art] spans performances committed to social change along
with those whose purpose is the conservation of local cultures, sometimes both at
once. Its practices range from grassroots oral storytelling to formal techniques
created by professional artists. Its theories build not only on ideas about art but
also on concepts from education, therapy, sociology, anthropology, the emerging
field of dialogue studies, and community organizing. (Cohen-Cruz 2005, 1)
Cohen-Cruz elicits multiple voices to represent the collective practice and the stories that
contextualize roots in the field. The multitude of voices includes a range of language
from personal narratives to critical writings. Cohen-Cruz, Associate Professor in the
New York University Tisch School of the Arts Drama Department, and community-based
32
performance practitioner and activist, includes her personal experience in the text's
narrative exchange.
Early on in the text, a clarification is made between community theater and
community-based performance. Cohen's personal perspective informs the definition
discrepancy, stating:
Growing up in the small town of Reading, Pennsylvania, I performed in
community theater-amateur productions, typically of plays that had thrived on
Broadway at least a decade earlier. This is not to denigrate community theater,
which is often amateur in the best sense, the love of doing it. In my own
experience, community theater was an emotional oasis, a place to express feelings
in a small, somewhat repressed town. But in contrast to community-based
performance, community theater is enacted by people who neither generate the
material, shape it, work with professional guidance, nor apply it beyond an
entertainment frame. There need not be any particular resonance between the
play and that place and those people, and there is rarely a goal beyond the simple
pleasure of 'Let's put on a play.' (Cohen-Cruz 2005, 7)
Language, in terms of usage and implied meaning, in this case is very specific. How we
use words directly relates to the value and meaning we associate with them. My
experience with community theater mayor may not align with Cohen-Cruz's experience,
but we both have working definitions with relational meaning and value. Associations
with "community" vary in ways that parallel stigmas about "art" and perceptions of high
art. Community-based arts are not void of aesthetic form and development and the work,
although diverse, values artistic integrity.
Cohen-Cruz refers to Liz Lerman and the Liz Lerman Dance Exchange in great
detail throughout the Local Acts text. She interviewed Lerman on four separate occasions
during the writing of this text: in person on January 21, 1995 in New York City, over the
phone on June 28, 1997 and January 22, 1999, and in person on October 7, 2003 in
33
Takoma, Maryland. Lennan is referenced in discussions about fonn, aesthetic
compositional approaches, and a need for criticism in the field of community-based art.
The language Lennan uses has been conscientiously and artistically crafted via
community practice; consequently, her voice and practices describe the interconnectivity
between dance and community-based arts. Her practical knowledge and her efforts to
diversify definitions are consistently noted throughout Cohen-Cruz's text. Critiquing
prevailing notions of dance professionalism Lennan "finds overcompartmentalized," she
expresses:
'You are a dancer if you take two technique classes a day; wait tables, behave and
dress a certain way, perfonn once a year. ...You are not a dancer if you teach
dance in a senior center. You are a social worker. You are not a dancer if once a
month you work with the rabbi at the synagogue. You are a liturgical something.'
In other words, the narrow definition of dance as art has led to a narrow practice.
(Cohen-Cruz 2005, 173)
Similar to the way in which Cohen-Cruz addresses definitions informing
community-based arts practices, Liz Lerman addresses definitions informing dance
practices. Lerman talks candidly about integrating her passions: "I had the idea that
dance could belong in a community and that there would be a mutual change in both the
dancer and the community ifit were there" (Cohen-Cruz 2005, 173). Cohen-Cruz
describes Lerman's application of political organizing principles to dance as a way to
build community. The organizing principles Lerman applies are: "meet people on their
own turf, affirm what they already know, bring them together" (Cohen-Cruz 2005, 173).
Local Acts incorporates a variety of detailed stories and compelling examples
from active community-based arts practitioners/organizations in theater, music, and
dance. It weaves through the field's history and strives to capture both the breadth ofthe
34
field and the essence of its impact and implications. Cohen-Cruz acknowledges
tendencies to marginalize community-based arts and in response, she suggests the genre
of community-based arts belongs in the center of society. Cohen-Cruz concludes by
describing the language used in the field, distilling essences of meaning and value from
semantics.
The etymological root of art, 'ar,' means to fit together, such as numbers in
ARithmetic, soldiers in ARmy, musical notes in hARmony. Including its variants
ri, ra, and re, as in ritual, ratify, ratio, and reason, this root can be found in the
words for many of the disciplines that we in the West separate, even perceive as
opposites, such as art, reason, and religion. Some languages do not have a
separate word for art. I am told that in Bantu, the same word is used to indicate
agriculture, craft, art, and science. In certain Native American languages, art
translates as 'prayer made visible.' The modernist idea of art as a self-contained
domain is the blip on the screen. Community-based performance is in the great
tradition of art integrated into people's lives, expressing and bestowing meaning.
(Cohen-Cruz 2005, 189)
Cohen-Cruz's text delves deeply into theory, history, and practice of community-
based arts in the United States. The thorough, critical nature of her scholarly work, fused
with the rich complexity of voices and opinions, makes this resource both attractive and
useful for me as a person who will continue to work with people through the arts. Cohen-
Cruz's parsed definition of "art" in the conclusion ofLocal Acts influenced my parsed
definition of "collaboration" and heightened my awareness of word choice and resultant
application. Local Acts champions creativity and community; the language strives to
convey the value behind the work and the diversity of the work. The interconnected
applications for the field of dance, as presented by this text, are invaluable.
35
Dance Pedagogy
Doctor of Education Edward C. Warburton examines and questions what skill sets
influence high-quality teaching in dance. In his 2008 article, "Beyond Steps: The Need
for Pedagogical Knowledge in Dance," he argues that teacher deficiencies in the skills
needed to teach dance content, or a teacher's lack of pedagogical knowledge, pose the
greatest threat to effective instruction. Content knowledge, or familiarity with the subject
being taught, is not seen as a sufficient skill set for high-quality teaching. Warburton
states, "truly effective teaching, however, requires consideration not only of what and
when to present information but also of how to present it" (Warburton 2008, 8). The
concept of "teaching for understanding," contrasts with training which emphasizes the
recall of steps and routines as a passive act, challenging teachers to address their own
assumptions about dance. Teaching for understanding requires exploration of one's
assumptions about dance as a means to uncover deeper foundational ideas and structures
in the discipline. "Creative and critical thinking" are present in dance instruction which
explores these deep processes (Warburton 2008, 8).
Warburton champions a refocus on the dance learning and teacher enterprise,
where content and pedagogical knowledge find balance. Warburton's case study with
expert dance educators used ethnographic methods and focused on dialogic exchange
with people in the field. From observations, talks, and participation with the group, he
discovered a common emergent theme that addressed issues of "personal beliefs, teaching
approach, and learning advantages" (Warburton 2005, 11). Elaborating on this theme,
deemed the "100 percent" doctrine, he writes:
36
Expert dance educators appear to believe in critical-thinking activities for all
learners, and they hold high expectations for everyone, including themselves.
Instead of 'talent will out' instructional tendencies, these experts believe
'achievement will out' regardless of students' ability, motivation, or previous
knowledge in dance as long as the educators' pedagogical knowledge is
leveraged in appropriate and systematic ways. Most experts told me a variation
on the same theme: namely, that if they did not get 100% of students to achieve at
a high level, then they did not believe they had done their job as a teacher.
(Warburton 2005, 11)
Warburton embraces reflexive aspects of pedagogy, and, in order to improve dance
teacher quality, he supports the idea for some regulatory certification standard,
acknowledging the work of the National Dance Education Organization in addressing
professional development. Warburton writes,
The individuals involved in these efforts [creating certification and professional
development opportunities in dance education] understand that once dancers
know what, when, how, and who they are teaching-when pedagogical
knowledge is as valued as content knowledge-our community will be stronger,
more informed, and more respected. (Warburton 2005, 11)
Warburton credits dance educator Sue Stinson, particularly her 1994 "Research as
Choreography" lecture, as inspiration for his work. Stinson's lecture is discussed later in
this literature review. Warburton concludes, "I believe that nothing in dance education
will change until we convince young dancers that pedagogy, like choreography, is their
work" (Warburton 2005, 11).
Warburton's work influenced my research project design. The intentional fusion
of skill training and art making is an undeniable facet of the pedagogical knowledge
Warburton promotes. Similarly, this research embraced reflexive practices that required
each member in the project community, including the researcher/facilitator, to examine
assumptions and biases linked to personal experience in order to cultivate new and shared
37
knowledge. Creative and critical thinking were both active facets of this research project
community's learning processes.
Pedagogic models in dance education often skew towards either a product-based
or process-based acknowledged foundation. With 42 years of experience teaching dance
in secondary and higher education, noted contributions to pedagogical theory, and teacher
training in dance, Jacqueline M. Smith-Autard categorizes a pedagogical dance model
that acknowledges product and process work equally. Based in Great Britain, her work is
recognized internationally. Classifying the process-driven model as "Educational" and
the product-driven model as "Professional," Smith-Autard adds what she calls a
"Midway" model (Smith-Autard 1994,27), which absorbs aspects of both models. She
describes the "Midway" model in her 1994 text, The Art in Dance Education, and
identifies the "three strands of the model: creating, performing, and appreciating" (Smith-
Autard 1994, 28). The third strand, appreciating, is conceptualized as an over-arching
constant in dance education. Smith-Autard illustrates this concept stating dance
education is "appreciation through creating, performing, and viewing" (Smith-Autard
1994,28).
Her model, which floats between traditions in education and in the professional
dance realm, serves to enlighten a multitude of options and to provide a broader
foundational context. The essence of Smith-Autard's model is one of true fusion and
hybridization. The "Midway" model promotes educational development with artistic,
aesthetic, and cultural components. Smith-Autard advocates for continued investigation
and reflection on the art in education model. "The art of dance in education model has
38
developed over a period of time. However, like all teaching/learning models, it is not
static. Teachers should reflect on and develop their own practice so that dance teaching
is always dynamic and responsive to change" (Smith-Autard 1994, 50).
Her clear fusion inspired the blended dance environment designed for this
research. The blended dance environment was not intended to exclude product or
process; instead, it provided room for content from both models to exist and emerge in
unique ways. The language I crafted, particularly skill training and art making, was used
in my research as an attempt to examine and diversify what is associated with traditional
educational and traditional professional dance models. Smith-Autard's "Midway" model
diversifies options and provides language that supports trial investigation, as in my
research. For me, Smith-Autard's "Midway" model as discussed in The Art ofDance in
Education, offered guiding contextual insights and a reference point for dance education
practices.
Noted dance educator and researcher Susan W. Stinson embraced the challenge of
writing about dance in her 1984 dissertation entitled "Reflections and Visions: A
Hermeneutic Study of Dangers and Possibilities in Dance Education." Art and poetics
serve as the methodology for her research and her reflections revolve around the act of
doing art and recognizing relationship connections. Stinson writes:
The task of the artist became not creating the relationships, but becoming aware
of them, and revealing them in a form. The task ofthe observer, in looking at the
form, is to look as an artist, rediscovering relationships. It is this tradition for
doing art that has the most relevance for the kind of research I have pursued.
(Stinson 1984, 20).
39
According to Stinson studying dance and teaching dance require self-inquiry.
"We must also study ourselves, reflect upon who we are as persons, define and redefine
our values in dialogue with other voices" (Stinson 1984, 153). Stinson described arts
education as a combination of both vertical and horizontal dimensions, growing and
being with people while reflecting personally. Investigating phenomena of shared
experience can help to describe the relationships and connections created in dance
learning environments. As Stinson stated in the "Summary of the Journey" section of her
dissertation, "It is time to recognize we can also look critically at that which we love, and
transform it" (Stinson 1984, 156).
The intersected dimensions Stinson highlights reinforced my research interest to
blend intersections of skill training and art making in an environment inhabited by a
community of dancers who supported each other in efforts to "grow" and to "be" in the
experience together. Stinson views research as a journey and she recognizes both love
and critical examination as necessary components for transformation in the field of
dance. My research journey was sparked by Stinson's call for action.
Susan W. Stinson shares her thoughts on dance research and its creative
connection to choreography. In her 1994 National Dance Association Scholar Lecture
entitled "Research as Choreography," Stinson describes teaching, choreographing, and
researching as parallel ventures. All of these tasks involve attending and reflecting,
sensing and making sense. She asks the question: How do participants in dance make
sense of their experiences? Referencing her experience teaching a Dance Research course
to Master of Fine Arts (MFA) students at the University of North Carolina, at Greensboro
40
she links personal experience with thinking about research. She believes in the
importance of revealing one's own subjectivity in one's work writing: "I want to share
'where I'm coming from': I want it to be clear that the ideas I present are not some sort of
revealed truth, but are human creations-my own and others" (Stinson 1994,3). She
calls for more dance research of this type and acknowledges the difficult task of
translating the art of movement into words.
Stinson states that scholarly research, like choreography, is personal to the
individual and involves interpretation. The methodologies of both research and
choreography generate more material than is ultimately used. Deciding what is
worthwhile, what has the possibility to generate insights, figuring out what it means, and
devising a way to construct a cohesive work communicating this process and insight to
others is the most difficult task for the researcher and choreographer alike. Form and
content arise together. Stinson elaborates, "We figure out what we want to say as we
figure out how to say it. .. and we truly do not know one until we know the other"
(Stinson 1994, 9). Stinson describes both processes (of research and choreography) as
"acts of faith" and "messy" (Stinson 1994, 9).
She discusses how organizing research is like the process of choreography. The
connection between theory and the sensory/kinesthetic knowledge is active thinking. She
states, "we can think only with what we know 'in our bones' ... attending to sensory
awareness, followed by reflection, is as important in research as it is in teaching" (Stinson
1994, 13). Similarly, she views dance as a use of all senses including heightened
consciousness. In accordance with Stinson's shared thoughts, making aesthetic
41
decisions, sensing possibilities, and negotiating answers parallels the process of editing in
both research and choreography. The process is unique to each person.
Stinson concludes by encouraging researchers, choreographers, and teachers to
speak in their "own voice" and to trust what they "know" in body, mind, and passion
(Stinson 1994, 15). She validates choreography as a form of research because it comes
from the person... from what only they can know. On documentation, Stinson advocates
journal keeping as a means of connecting processes both inside and outside the studio.
Paralleling Stinson's voice, this research aimed to describe how processes evolve and
actualize. In an attempt to trace process, journaling was personally utilized by the
researcher-facilitator at all times and collectively practiced by the community of dancers
occasionally during agreed meeting times and outside of project gatherings.
Susan W. Stinson's presented a keynote address on October 23,2004 at the
National Dance Education Organization's (NDEO) annual meeting. Her address was
published in 2005 as an article entitled "Why Are We Doing This?" in the Journal for
Dance Education. Stinson acknowledges that the language we use to describe what we
do in dance and why we do it presents challenges. The challenges she illuminates relate
to how we advocate for dance.
Providing context from her direct experiences as a Professor of Dance at the
University of North Carolina at Greensboro, Stinson identifies questions she asks
students when they take their first class with her. The questions are: "Why are you doing
this?" and "What drew you to dance and to dance education as a career?" (Stinson 2005,
82) and the responses from her students reflected commonalities. She states:
42
Almost all of the students in my dance education courses at UNCG [University of
North Carolina at Greensboro] have told me that they keep dancing because of
how they feel when they do it, and they want to teach so that others can share the
joy and satisfaction they find in dance." Addressing the National Dance
Educational Organization audience, Stinson continues: "My guess is that these
sentiments are shared by a large number of you. This is not, however, the
language most of us use in trying to convince school administrators why they
should offer dance. (Stinson 2005 82)
Stinson recognizes the diverse approaches dance educators and artists use to advocate for
dance and she addresses the reality of pressures to tailor dance as a "product" in line with
established educational and systematic models and demands.
For Stinson, advocacy for dance has been influenced by philosophies, trends, and
varied practices in education. She acknowledges the viewpoint of Dr. Nel Noddings, Lee
L. Jacks Professor of Education, Emeritus, at Stanford University and author of numerous
texts, including Caring (1984), on the topic ethical care in education. Stinson quotes
Nodding's view on current educational foundations described by Noddings in her 2003
text Happiness and Education.
At the beginning of the twenty-first century, educational discussion is dominated
by talk of standards, and the reason for this emphasis is almost always economic.
The underlying aims seem to be (1) to keep the United States strong economically
and (2) to give every child an opportunity to do well financially. (Noddings 2003,
84)
In agreement with Noddings and finding support in her stance, Stinson articulates a
suggestion of her own for the field of dance education.
Yet, as Nodding's points out, schools give almost no assistance to students in
learning what brings them joy, meaning, and satisfaction. Like Noddings, I
suggest that we not limit our thinking to what schools are now, but consider what
they might be, and that one major purpose of schooling might be, should be,
learning how to live a meaningful, satisfying human life-what some people call
happiness. (Stinson 2005,83)
43
Stinson expounds on "happiness" by placing it in the context of scholarly
research. Child and adolescent psychiatrist and author of the 2002 text The Childhood
Roots ofAdult Happiness, Edward Hallowell, as described by Stinson, offers "a
critically-based theoretical framework that defmes two sources of happiness: the ability
to create and sustain joy, and the ability to overcome adversity" (Stinson 2005, 84).
Connection, play, practice, mastery, and recognition are the five steps Hallowell
identifies in the development of these abilities.
Placing her own work in scholarly context, Stinson draws from an extensive
eight-year research project she has been engaged in with colleague Dr. Karen Bond. The
project includes examination of data from over 700 young people "describing how they
experience dance education, in a variety of school and community settings in this
country, Canada, Australia, and others" (Stinson 2005,83). Both Stinson and Bond were
struck by the similarities between their research's qualitative data and Hallowell's theory.
In their 2007 co-authored Research in Dance Education article, "'It's work, work, work,
work': Young people's experiences of effort and engagement in dance," Bond and
Stinson reference Edward Hallowell, making this Stinson's second reference to his 2002
text, The Childhood Roots ofAdult Happiness, in support of her work. Bond and Stinson
write:
He [Hallowell] identifies two primary sources of individual happiness: the ability
to create and sustain joy, and the ability to overcome adversity. Hallowell
describes five steps to developing these abilities that speak directly to our study of
young people's experiences of work in dance, as well as our larger study of
engagement: 1) Connection (with parents and teachers, activities, the arts, and
oneself); 2)Play (a requirement for ground-breaking in any field); 3) Practice
(gives control to the environment and facilitates discipline); 4) Mastery (builds
44
confidence to persist through obstacles); and 5) Recognition (the feeling of being
valued by others). (Bond and Stinson 2007, 176)
President of the American Psychological Association and Fox Leadership
Professor of Psychology at the University of Pennsylvania, Martin Seligman has also
researched the concept of "happiness." His work is classified under the field of Positive
Psychology, or the scientific study of positive emotion. Stinson includes a sampling of
his work and theories throughout her address. In addition, psychologist Mihaly
Csikszentmihalyi's "How" theory and characteristics are mentioned in support of
Stinson's suggestion to view dance and education in a broader and conceptually changing
context. These publishes resources outside the field of dance education appear to offer
significant support for the salient points Stinson addresses in her research as well as in
her collaborative research with Karen E. Bond. The written and descriptive language
from these researchers and their work provides helpful context for experiential work in
the dance field.
Talking with fellow dance educators, Stinson articulates that happiness is part of
the dance experience. In conclusion, she states: "I hope each of us will be more mindful
of the happiness we experience in dance, and savor it; and consider the ways in which
learning and teaching this art have played a role in the meaningful lives we have created"
(Stinson 2005, 88). She follows this with a call for action: "I hope we will have the
courage to advocate in some part of our lives for the human right to discover such
happiness, and for schools where this kind of discovery can occur."
Inspired by Susan W. Stinson's research and her consistent voice in the field of
dance, particularly in dance education, I sought out an example of her recent work
45
following the culmination of my movement project research. My reflections and
realizations compelled me to seek greater context. It is valuable to know what people in
the dance field are interested in talking about and how people are articulating information
for exchange. My research, with cultivated shared processes, yielded outcomes of
happiness and meaningful connections. It is hopeful to know dance educators, like
Stinson, validate inclusion of dance's more elusive outcomes in order to expand how we
advocate for the field. The topic of advocacy in the field is discussed in further detail in
Chapter Four "Conclusion."
Texas Women's University Dance Department faculty Jordan Fuchs and Sarah
Gamblin write about shared experiences and inquiries as dance educators. "As dance
faculty at TWU [Texas Women's University], we have both been grappling with the
question of how to connect our daily training to our dancemaking, and our performing to
our teaching" (Fuchs and Gamblin 2009,44). Their 2009 Contact Quarterly article
entitled, "Partnering, Permeability, and Sensation: Integrating Contact Improvisation into
Technique Class," addresses the aesthetic and pedagogical challenges associated with
integrating traditional and experimental perspectives in dance technique class. Fuchs and
Gamblin identify "traditional perspectives" as "the ability to dance set solo combinations
to prescribed musical structures" and "experimental perspectives" as "skills that can
support spontaneous movement invention in solo, partnering, and ensemble
relationships" (Fuchs and Gamblin 2009,45). They ask the question: "How do we
integrate the multiple perspectives called for in our dancemaking aesthetics within the
confines of a 90-minute technique class?" (Fuchs and Gamblin 2009, 45). More
46
specifically, they examine how contact improvisation can be integrated into the technique
classes they teach.
Fuchs and Gamblin pinpoint three organizing principles that have helped them to
fuse multiple perspectives in a technique class: "(1) creating permeability between the
solo dancing body and the partnering body; (2) exploring anatomical concepts through
sensation; and (3) instilling the impulse to move from sensation" (Fuchs and Gamblin
2009,45). Fuchs and Gamblin reflect on potential difficulties for students inside the
classroom such as repeating movement combinations with precision and adapting to
changing stimuli in improvisation. From their experience and observation, they share:
"we find that is it easier to start a class with a somatic and partnering perspective and
then shift to solo work than it is to shift from solo work to working somatically with a
partner" (Fuchs and Gamblin 2009, 45). In relation to my research, this statement made
me wonder what progression of movement components would flow best for the dancers
participating in my Master of Fine Arts Movement Project.
In line with the second organizing principle, "exploring anatomical concepts
through sensation," Fuchs and Gamblin view sensation as a creative support for learning
and understanding. They advocate for integration of contact improvisation practices into
the technique class as a means to clarify technical ideas. Fuchs and Gamblin outline
specific examples of movement partnering activities that promote sensory and somatic
exchange. Sourcing contact as a contextual reference in dance technique class can help
students "deepen intellectual knowing by connecting thought to sensation and
experience" (Fuchs and Gamblin 2009,46). Fuchs and Gamblin's third organizing
47
principle, "instilling the impulse to move from sensation," encourages deeper attention to
"touch-derived sensory feedback" as a means to "amplify and clarify dancer's
understanding and sense of their bodies" (Fuchs and Gamblin 2009,46). They note that
it takes time to build rapport with a partner.
Fuchs and Gamblin notice "a significant shift taking place in the integrated
technique class" (Fuchs and Gamblin 2009, 47). Articulating aspects of the shift they
reference, they write: "For dancers used to the traditional technique class paradigm, the
added awareness of the sensorial bases of movement, attention to choice-making in the
moment, and relationship with a partner can make the class much more challenging"
(Fuchs and Gamblin 2009,47). They acknowledge that navigation of added concerns in
an integrated class can create a "more ambiguous experience than a traditional technique
class" (Fuchs and Gamblin 2009, 47). To support the contrast between an integrated
technique class, one that incorporates contact improvisation practices, Fuchs and
Gamblin state: "As the performer is called upon to take more responsibility for
movement invention, real-time decision-making, and partnering relationships, traditional
notions of right and wrong, authority and authorship, are reconfigured" (Fuchs and
Gamblin 2009, 47). Fuchs and Gamblin acknowledged the ambiguity within the
integrated technique class as well as the resulting increase in personal responsibility
partnered with a reconfiguration of traditional practices. Their realistic description and
insightful awareness was refreshing to me as a researcher who had also explored an
integrated trial in my Master of Fine Arts Movement Project.
48
To conclude, Fuchs and Gamblin collectively identify the benefits of an integrated
technique class.
Dancers are able to shift between solo body, partnering, and ensemble bodies with
ease and finesse; engage in real time decision-making and movement creation;
integrate the depth and inspiration of the sensing body; and accurately locate,
present and re-present the visual body in time and space, whatever the sound,
visual, spatial, or conceptual structure. (Fuchs and Gamblin 2009, 47)
Based on their independent experience and collective pedagogical inquiry, Fuchs and
Gamblin believe the skills they call upon in their own dancemaking and performing, as
identified above, are the skills they have to "offer the next generation of performers and
dancemakers" (Fuchs and Gamblin 2009, 47). These skills are shared and cultivated
through the teaching experience. The declarative tone in their common language,
language from their shared experience, is apparent. They are able to succinctly identify
potential changes that can occur as a result of their collaborative investigation and
practice.
As I reflect on the experiences and processes shared in my research, I am curious
about the collaborative pedagogical inquiry and investigative practices of Jordan Fuchs
and Sarah Gamblin. They are actively seeking integration between their own learning
and artistic experiences and the potential learning experiences, particularly for students,
inside the dance technique classroom. In regard to the research journey outlined by
Fuchs and Gamblin, I align the skill training and art making fusion and examination in
my research with a similar quest for integration and exploration. I appreciate the specific
movement exercise details Fuchs and Gamblin outline because they provide a framework
that can be implemented and applied in practical contexts. Their observations and
49
reflections give great insight into the exchange they are experiencing as educators, artists,
and colleagues. Because they share their process, they give more dimensionality to the
work, to the multiplicity of potential experiences, and to the human connectivity created
through dance. Fuchs and Gamblin describe intersections in dance pedagogy and
personal artistic practice and they offer their written descriptions as collaborative
perspective in the field of dance.
Collaborative/Dialogic Dance Company Models
The Urban Bush Women company model celebrates community and the processes
inherent within a working community. Florida State University doctoral candidate Ama
Oforiwaa Konado Aduonum recognized the contributions of the Urban Bush Women in
her 1999 dissertation, "Urban Bush Women: Building Community and Empowering the
Disempowered Through a Holistic Performing Arts Medium." The dissertation explored:
1) How the troupe employs the notion of collective individualism as a model for
group organizing and as a philosophy for choreography and music composition,
2) How Urban Bush Women uses dance-based performances to build community
by promoting acceptance, appreciation and celebration of difference, and 3) How,
in doing so, they endeavor to empower the traditionally disempowered.
(Aduonum 1999, xv)
The dissertation is both an ethnographic study of the Urban Bush Women and an in-depth
study of two of the company's major works: "Batty Moves" and "Shelter" (Aduonum
1999, xv). "Urban Bush Women: Building Community and Empowering the
Disempowered Through a Holistic Performing Arts Medium" described two important
processes: the artistic processes of 1awole Willa 10 Zollar's Urban Bush Women and the
personal research processes of dissertation candidate Ama Oforiwaa Konadu Aduonum.
50
Both processes provided insights that informed the structural basis for my
research. It was beneficial for me to reference Ama Oforiwaa Konado Aduonum's
research methodology and her reflexive application. Her work provided a lens into
1awole Willa 10 Zollar's choreographic processes from inception to reflection. For me,
access to these illuminated processes helped to contextualize a traceable journey, to
promote understanding of a progression. Describing process is a challenge; however the
benefits are immense. The perspective I gained from Ama Oforiwaa Konado Aduonum's
dissertation is enriched by her presence and parallel journey inside the research itself.
Aduonum's reflexive work ethic and her illumination of processes, for me, strengthened
the translation of her work. The narrative elements, the threading of multiple processes
and perspectives, brought me closer to the work and its context for application. The
language she captured, in written text, welcomed me into her experience. Her vivid
descriptions of experiences and interpreted meanings made an impression on me as a
reader.
The 2005 text Dialogue in Artistic Practice: Case Studies From Animating
Democracy, edited by Pam Korza and Barbara Schaffer Bacon, illuminates the dance
company models of 1awole Willa 10 Zollar's Company, Urban Bush Women (UBW) and
Liz Lerman's Company, Liz Lerman Dance Exchange. Both companies employ
collaborative creative frameworks that celebrate the community and the process of
engagement. Caron Atlas, in written collaboration with Zollar, Urban Bush Women, and
additional community partners, authors the first chapter in Dialogue in Artistic Practice:
51
Case Studies From Animating Democracy entitled, "Urban Bush Women: Hair Parties
Project."
Urban Bush Women's belief about dance is that it is "a celebration, a solution,
and a necessity" and that "art is a catalyst for social change" (Atlas 2005, 1). Putting this
into practice, Urban Bush Women Company activities include: "the creation and
performance of works for the stage; artist training in dance and community engagement;
and public projects that encourage cultural activity as an inherent part of community life"
(Atlas 2005, 2). Atlas and collaborators define and describe Urban Bush Women's
(UBW) community engagement residencies:
Community engagement residencies are designed to respond to specific issues
that are important to the host community....During these residencies, UBW
company members partner with local artists and residents through dance classes,
workshops, trust-building exercises, and a creation process that culminates in a
communitywide performance. (Atlas 2005, 2)
Some of the basic concepts and assumptions that inform Urban Bush Women's
community engagement work include:
Each community is unique and has the answers it seeks to uncover.
The community engagement process that UBW uses must help people gain a
sense of their own power.
In order to move powerfully into the future, a community must "own" its history,
for better or for worse.
All change starts within.
Accountability is key to working with communities. (Atlas 2005, 3)
The company's organizing principles elaborate on these assumptions, articulated as:
"validating the individual, serving as a catalyst for social change, embracing a process
driven practice, entering community and co-creating stories, and celebrating the
movement and culture of the African Diaspora" (Atlas 2005, 13). Community structure
52
and foundational organization is vibrantly alive in practice in Zollar's Urban Bush
Women.
Upon celebrating their 20th anniversary in 2004, Urban Bush Women engaged in a
period of rebirth and renewal that clarified how they wanted to share their vision in
practice. Atlas writes:
As dialogue became an opportunity to build new relationships in Brooklyn [Urban
Bush Women home community], it also became a means oflearning and
meaning-making inside the company. The company began to codify what it had
been doing intuitively and became more deliberate about transferring knowledge.
UBW [Urban Bush Women] affirmed itself as a process-oriented learning
organization and has quickly incorporated the lessons learned from this project
into its subsequent work. (Atlas 2005, 2)
The implementation of dialogic learning practices was pivotal to the codification and
facilitation of company work from a foundationa11evel. "UBW's organizational structure
changed to reflect company transformations" (Atlas 2005, 19). Atlas continues:
UBW is working to integrate dialogue into the internal decision-making process, a
challenge made more difficult by the logistical fact that the company is often on
the road and away from the office. Yet Zollar has become convinced that 'you
have to go slow to go fast.' UBW administrative staff is taking the time to set
goals with more clarity, acknowledge assumptions, and hold regular debriefings.
(Atlas 2005, 19)
Communication, dialogic exchange, throughout the entire UBW community is an
important facet of their foundation and practice.
Researching Zollar and Urban Bush Women's assumptions, organizing principles,
and community building processes via this case study helped inform the initial
parameters for my research. Identifying a framework for my research and honing in on
the values and points of focus were crucial to building shared foundation in the new
collaborative dance environment. The language used by Zollar and Urban Bush Women
53
inside the company's operational foundation and inside community engagement
residencies has been conscientiously crafted via collective practice.
Artistic Director Liz Lerman and her company's work is discussed in chapter
three of the 2005 text Dialogue in Artistic Practice: Case Studies From Animating
Democracy, edited by Pam Korza and Barbara Schaffer Bacon. The chapter, entitled
"Liz Lerman Dance Exchange: An Aesthetic of Inquiry, An Ethos of Dialogue," is
written by John Borstel, Humanities Director for Liz Lerman Dance Exchange. Borstel
writes:
Who gets to dance? Where is it happening? What is it about? Why does it matter?
These four questions are the DNA of Liz Lerman Dance Exchange. Like all
DNA they supply the internal coding for much of the work we do, informing
innumerable small moments as well as the full sweep of our largest projects. And
like DNA, they constitute both the origins and the density of the Dance Exchange.
(Borstel 2005, 57)
Liz Lerman Dance Exchange is a multi-generational company with collective interests in
dialogue, creative inquiry, and community engagement. With clarified goals and room
for variation, the company pursues their mission with artistic clarity, compassion, and
dedication to discovery.
The language used to describe their beliefs and practices is relatable and clear to
me as a researcher. Describing what Liz Lerman Dance Exchange values and recognizes,
Borstel states:
The Dance Exchange often gathers people of diverse bodies, brains, and
perspectives to collaborate, listen and make something together-a process of
understanding and problem-solving in which clear and constructive
communication is essential. The dance is never exactly the same in any two
places; as artists and participants move gradually into unfamiliar territory, they
are constantly challenged to collaborate in order to adapt. The artists and their
community collaborators engage in topics that are current, vital, curious,
54
unexpected, and always sparking dialogues within and beyond the work. Artists,
participants, and audiences are consistently engaged at a level where values are at
stake, and where human integrity is on the line. (Borste12005, 58)
Borstel addresses specific Liz Lerman Dance Exchange project work, particularly their
1998 Shipyard Project and their 1999 work Hallelujah. Borstel examines the works
through a company audit on their own practices. The reflexive nature of this audit
process provides context through which to study the success of the dialogic practices the
company utilizes. "Achieving civic dialogue" is something Liz Lerman Dance Exchange
tracks and analyzes as it corresponds with their work (Borstel 2005, 60).
Pivotal to the working framework of Liz Lerman Dance Exchange, is the art of
the question. "Because inquiry is a core value of the Dance Exchange, and because the
question is a basic unit of dialogue and an important tool used by dialogue practitioners,
we spent some time in the audit discussing what makes an effective question for
advancing an artist/community engagement process" (Borstel 2005, 64). Borstel
provides an example of the language crafted by Liz Lerman Dance Exchange.
(We often use the word 'prompt' instead of 'question,' as it encompasses
methods for eliciting content from participants that go beyond the grammatically
defined form of a question-for example, write a series of sentences, each starting
with the words 'I corne from ... ' or 'talk about a time when you gave shelter to
someone. '). (Borste12005, 64)
According to Borstel, "the evolution ofHallelujah can be tracked in the evolution of the
questions we posed to our community collaborators" (Borste12005, 64). He associates
the questions asked with a process of distillation in the project. Through questions,
Borstel shared a list of questions posed by the Dance Exchange in their work, Hallelujah,
which include:
55
What are you in praise of?
What is a little Hallelujah in your life?
What do you miss and what do you wish for?
When did you cross a boundary and who did you bring with you?
When was a time when you met your beloved?
When have you found beauty and disorder in the same moment?
What do you remember about birth, death, or first love?
What is paradise to you?
What reminds you that you're human? (BorsteI2005, 64)
These questions elicited reflexive responses that impacted the overall work. "Throughout
Hallelujah the ongoing dialogue in response to the questions had a reflexive effect on the
questioning process itself, and the questions evolved in response to what we learned from
the answers" (Borstel 205, 65).
In addition to recognizing how the formulation and presentation of questions
informs Dance Exchange practices, Borstel provides in-depth descriptions of the Dance
Exchange's audit processes and methodologies. He notes the advantages and
disadvantages of oral and written traditions in creative practice and concludes by stating:
The audit deepened our thinking about the ways that we teach and pass on the
methods of the Dance Exchange within the company. Up until now, the Dance
Exchange-typical of much of the dance world-advanced and imparted its
methodology through what is basically an oral tradition of teaching, sharing
information, maintaining repertory, and passing on stories about what we did and
how we did it. Part of the goal of the dialogue audit was to move us more toward
a written tradition in which our methods are written down, disseminated in
definitive versions, and backed up with documentary evidence. For our purposes,
the oral tradition has meant that the methodology is malleable, nonproscriptive,
adaptable to myriad situations, and able to be owned and advanced by many
people acting communally. But oral tradition has had its disadvantages:
newcomers required long periods of initiation; Dance Exchange techniques, when
practiced by artists from beyond the company, could be implemented poorly but
still credited to us; and people were largely reliant on firsthand encounters to get
the benefits of our work, which limited our ability to extend and sustain impact.
Written tradition has its attendant set of advantages and disadvantages: it
threatens to codify our approach; to freeze the evolution of our methods; and
inhibit artists into practicing the methods as if there were only one right way. One
56
of the revelations of the dialogue audit so far has been that the solution to
advancing our work and its dialogue components lies not in forsaking the oral
tradition for a written tradition, but in finding a way to act and advance in both
traditions, taking what is beneficial from both. (BorsteI2005, 90-91)
The deep inquiry and reflective analysis practiced by Liz Lerman and Liz Lerman
Dance Exchange is a model for accountability in the dance field and in community-based
fields. The crafting of the language and the way Dance Exchange artists facilitate
collaborative exchange guided my research design. The fusion of dance, dialogue, and
civic engagement is a constant practice, and Liz Lerman and her company, Liz Lerman
Dance Exchange, seize opportunities to learn in the community lab. As a collective, they
are astute in organizing their findings in a way that respects their values, honors the
multiple perspectives in dialogue, and encourages further inquiry within the field.
Artistic Director 1awole Willa 10 Zollar and her company, Urban Bush Women,
are featured in the March 2009 issue ofDance Teacher Magazine. The article,
"Phenomenal Women: 1awole Willa 10 Zollar and Urban Bush Women Celebrate 25
Years of Creating Art as a Catalyst for Social Change," written by Michelle Vellucci
looks at "this multifaceted company and its many contributions, onstage and off'
(Vellucci 2009, 28). On company design Pellucid writes, "Zollar knew she wanted to
create a company that could wed artistic expression with social activism. She cites as
influences Pearl Primus, Anna Halprin and [Diane] McIntyre, who helped shape her
vision of how a dance company should look and the role its dancers should play"
(Vellucci 2009, 28). Elaborating on the role of a dancer, Vellucci quotes Zollar who
states that "[McIntyre] did not want cookie-cutter dancers who looked or danced a certain
57
way... She wanted them to have their own sense of style and figure out how that would
merge into the group's style, like the way jazz music is structured" (Vellucci 2009, 28).
Zollar views Urban Bush Women company members as "collaborators and co-
creators of the work" (Vellucci 2009, 28). Again Vellucci quotes Zollar, who states:
"Dancers are still trained to duplicate steps, and being in a collaborative, investigative
process is for the most part a new experience for many of them...particularly if they
come from a classical background" (Velluci 2009, 28). Urban Bush Women members
describe Zollar's choreographic process as "very research-oriented" encompassing both
academic and experiential processes (Velluci 2009, 28). "Listening and being open" are
noted facets inside Zollar's creative process (Velluci 2009,30).
In addition to problem-solving practices in the choreographic process, Zollar and
Urban Bush Women are invested in collaborative problem-solving practices. "The
company's two primary programs are community engagement residencies and the
Summer Institute" (Vellucci 2009 30). The language Urban Bush Women use to describe
their collaborative practices is specific. "The dancers insist that what they do is
engagement-not outreach. Outreach, they say, implies that the recipient is helpless on
its own. Engagement is about putting power in the hands of the community itself'
(Vellucci 2009,32).
Urban Bush Women's annuallO-day Summer Institute conceptually mirrors the
guiding principles of the company's community engagement residencies. Vellucci
provides context about the 2008 Institute agenda.
Last year, 57 people from 18 U.S. states, as well as Kenya, Brazil, Canada,
Venezuela and the UK, came to Brooklyn to take part in the Institute. In addition
58
to daily dance and conditioning classes, they attended workshops in asset
mapping, creating public dialogues, principles of effective community organizing,
undoing racism and generating choreography, text, and music. Some company
members teach movement classes, while others like [Paloma] McGregor and
Marian Bauman, lead workshops on f('{cilitating dialogue. (Vellucci 2009, 32)
Urban Bush Women company member Paloma McGregor speaks about the Summer
Institute in her own words.
'The Institute takes legislative, social and justice issues and finds artistic ways to
address them from a lot of vantage points, and those vantage points come form
the people who are in the room.... Seeing how the Institute opens people's eyes to
the ways in which they can use artistic tools to draw more out of their
communities is really amazing. Even though I know how it works, and I've done
it for the past four years, it's still magical every time.' (Vellucci 2009, 32)
Vellucci notes that the 2009 Urban Bush Women Summer Institute would take place in
New Orleans, LA.
Vellucci concludes her article with a survey of Urban Bush Women's upcoming
performance calendar and a list of their 25 th anniversary events. She quotes Zollar as she
speaks on the subject of dance and community. Velluci writes, "'Dance is by nature a
communal form,' says Zollar, 'And dance is part of community building. It's part of
keeping the cultures of communities connected'" (Velluci 2009, 34).
This article on the Urban Bush Women compelled me to apply for the 2009
Summer Leadership Institute in New Orleans, LA. It was an honor to attend. Being a
part of the 10-day Summer Institute community enriched my life and fueled my interest
in exploring collaborative practices in dance. Experiencing the collaborative processes
inside the Urban Bush Women's 2009 Summer Leadership Institute invaluably prepared
me, as researcher-facilitator, for project implementation. Jawole Willa Jo Zollar and
Urban Bush Women's principles and practical knowledge developed from their vast
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community engagement experience partnered with the Summer Institute community's
powerful cultivation guided me, as researcher-facilitator, and the community of dancers
as we began, lived, and reflected on our shared journey. The significance of my
experience as a 2009 Urban Bush Women Summer Leadership Institute participant
informed and supported all phases of my research. A copy of this article was given to
each community member early on in the project gatherings in order to provide additional
context. Sharing resources was an important part of the research practice.
Urban Bush Women company member Paloma McGregor's 2009 Dance
Magazine article entitled "From the Heart: Why I Dance" discusses her personal artistic
journey as a dancer. McGregor, originally from the U.S. Virgin Islands, has been a
dancer with Urban Bush Women since 2005. She boldly asks and answers her own
question:
Why I dance changes constantly. On my best days, dancing-pushing myself to
my physical and emotional limits-lets me express my deepest truths. Sometimes
I dance to be the center of attention. And on those increasingly rare occasions
when I make it to a club, I dance because they're playing my jam.
Through it all, I dance for moments like the one I had recently at a university. I
met an undergraduate student who recognized me as a dancer with Urban Bush
Women. 'That's what I really want to do,' she said, 'but. .. '
I don't recall how she finished the sentence, perhaps because my mind drifted
back to a time when I was much like her-before I learned to value my voice and
live without regrets. (McGregor 2009, 114)
Her narrative contextualizes her path as both a dancer and a writer. She identifies
dance as her first love and talks about the intimidation and discouragement she felt as a
young dancer. As a result, McGregor writes, "I replaced dance with my second love:
writing. Both satisfied my deep desire to tell stories" (McGregor 2009, 114). Although
she studied journalism, wrote for a newspaper, and was interested in becoming a reporter,
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McGregor was dissatisfied. "But writing for a daily newspaper didn't match the spiritual
experience of dance, of embodying the ecstasy of sunset or the hardship of
sharecropping. I watched performances squirming in my chair, leaving feeling dejected.
I longed to be onstage" (McGregor 2009, 114).
Acknowledging her life decisions in empathy to the story of the college student
she had recently connected with, McGregor divulges her determination at age 25, with
little formal training, to pursue dance through graduate school. After rejection letters and
work as founding member of Cleveland Contemporary Dance Theatre, McGregor
pursued an MFA in dance from Case Western Reserve University at age 27. Her
university dance studies fostered personal revelations. "I discovered my skill not only for
embodying, but envisioning dance. I realized, through sweat-soaked hours alone in the
studio, that there were stories only I could tell. As a choreographer, I learned to combine
my two great loves: writing and dance" (McGregor 2009, 114).
At 30, McGregor moved to New York and a year later she competed with over
one hundred women in the Urban Bush Women audition. She earned the only open spot
in the company. Reflecting on her journey, she writes:
I have become what I have always been, and more than I could have imagined.
And now I dance for that student, for what she could become and for the
reflection of myself in her.
So I told her my story, because when I was her age I could have used
reassurance that my passion was not lunacy. I would have loved to know what I
know now: Your greatest love will never let you go. (McGregor 2009, 114)
Paloma McGregor is a dancer, no doubt about it.
As a participant in the 2009 Urban Bush Women Summer Leadership Institute, I
had the honor or learning from and with Paloma McGregor. She, along with Urban Bush
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Women Catherine Denecy and Marjani Forte, led the movement classes I attended during
the Institute. Reinforcing the Urban Bush Women concept of "journey over arrival,"
McGregor shared a movement phrase that challenged dancers to find their own impetus,
to create their own phrasing, and to travel across the space honoring the journey. Her
dynamic presence, the way she danced and talked about movement with boundless
passion, made an impression on me.
I found her article on the Urban Bush Women company website,
www.urbanbushwomen.org, after attending the Summer Leadership Institute. I decided
to incorporate it into the early gatherings for my research so each dancer in the project
community received a copy. After giving each dancer time to read the article during a
project gathering, I taught the movement phrase I learned from McGregor during the
Summer Leadership Institute. Inside the active investigation research phase, McGregor's
movement phrase became a part or our regular community practice, as it related to both
skill training and art making. For me, it was important to present the context and to give
credit to the source in words, actions, and with direct access to the resource itself.
Paloma McGregor's narrative article connected with me on a human level. She
writes about dance in a way that describes how she feels about dance. McGregor
articulates some of dance's intangible presence, she shares what dance means to her, and
she offers a lens that is accessible. Sharing her words and the movement she presented at
the 2009 Urban Bush Women Summer Leadership Institute with the dancers in my
research project community was special. After the research culmination and reflection, I
continue to share both McGregor's article and the movement I learned from and with her
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in my dance teaching practices. The common language, in words and in movement,
crafted through personal experience and shared experience promotes relatability and
supports diverse application.
Dance Language Practice
With dedication to discovery and a desire to share artistic resources, Liz Lerman
Dance Exchange operates an interactive website, http://www.danceexchange.org/toolbox,
with free access to Liz Lerman's "Toolbox." Lerman describes the intent of this unique
resource authored by Lerman and John Borstel:
This Online Toolbox is an ongoing, expanding effort to share the body of
knowledge developed by Liz Lerman Dance Exchange since its beginnings in
1976. It includes practice (how to do things), theory (why they work and what
they mean) and history (where they came from and what happened when we did
them). (Liz Lerman Dance Exchange 2004,
http://www.danceexchange.org/toolbox/)
The Liz Lerman Dance Exchange online "Toolbox" website provides three guided
pathways to information exchange. The first pathway, "Browse," connects directly to Liz
Lerman Dance Exchange "tools, foundations, and essays" (Liz Lerman Dance Exchange
2004, http://www.danceexchange.org/toolbox/). The second, "If/Try," guides users to
tools designed to directly match their needs. The third pathway, "Tools in Action," takes
the user directly to experiential examples of Liz Lerman Dance Exchange tools and
principles discussed from shared practice. The "Toolbox" also includes an extensive
glossary of terms.
The strongly developed, cohesive framework and resources of Liz Lerman's Liz
Lerman Dance Exchange makes them an excellent model for my research. Their user-
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friendly and articulate online "Toolbox" is a revolutionary resource. It promotes
accessibility and supports active investigation in the field of dance. In scope, the
"Toolbox" is a global invitation for feedback exchange in dance. The tools themselves
are concisely described. As a researcher, I am impressed with the depth of Liz Lerman's
practices and her willingness to share. The "Toolbox" is a resource with vast practical
applications. The information is palatable and open for customization. It is clearly a
testament to Liz Lerman and Liz Lerman Dance Exchange trials, practices, and
reflections. It is also an example of their evolving vision and continued progression. I
found great comfort in finding this resource during my research inception and design
phase.
Liz Lerman and John Borstel co-authored the 2003 text Liz Lerman's Critical
Response Process: A Methodfor Getting Useful Feedback on Anything you Make, From
Dance to Dessert. Motivation for the text came from Liz Lerman's experiences as artist,
educator, and community participant. Her investigation into the development of a system
of peer response began around 1990. Lerman's Critical Response Process is intended for
diverse applications. Lerman and Borstel write:
The Critical Response Process enables a group ofpeople to uncover their various
aesthetic and performance values and, by being patient, apply them to a creative
work-in-progress in a way that pushes the artist's thinking forward. The Critical
Response Process can be applied to almost any kind of creative product: new
works or interpretations of existing works in dance, theater, and other performing
disciplines, not to mention writing, visual art, design, planning, public speaking,
curriculum development, teaching processes, almost anything a person
makes ... even dessert. (Lerman and Borstel2003, 11)
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The three roles identified in the Critical Response Process are the artist, the facilitator,
and the group of responders. In addition to these roles, Lennan and Borstel outline the
four core steps with context on the inner working progression:
Step One Statements of meaning: Responders state what was exciting,
compelling, meaningful, memorable, evocative.
Step Two Artist as Questioner: The artist poses questions. Responders answer.
Step Three Neutral questions from Responders: Responders ask questions,
phrased neutrally. Artist responds.
Step Four Responders ask pennission of artist to express opinions about their
work. If artist accepts, responders state opinions. (Lennan and Borste12003, 41)
Preparations between Process steps and specific to roles of artist, facilitator, and
responder are also outlined in the text.
Lennan's Critical Response Process addresses its own limitations and encourages
active learning trials.
This publication is intended to offer a detailed (but by no means exhaustive)
introduction to the Critical Response Process. We present it with an awareness of
limitations of the written word to impart a process as elastic and nuanced as this
one often is. Since the Process is dialogic and experiential in nature, it is perhaps
best learned by doing, so we urge people interested in applying Critical Response
to take advantage of the opportunities that the Dance Exchange offer for training
in the Process. (Lennan and Borste12003, 11)
As a result, particular attention is given to the facilitator role in the text. Lennan and
Borstel wrap up with a survey of the practical variations to which the Process has been
applied. Sample dialogue sessions with navigational tips are also included at the end of
the text. The conclusion, written explicitly by John Borstel, reinforces three of Lennan's
ideas. Sourcing from his experiences, Borstel writes:
Those of us who've had a chance to learn the Critical Response Process directly
from Liz Lennan have had the benefit of her remarkable insight into art and
human nature. From all the coaching and reflection she has offered, I can think of
no better final words for this primer than three simple but profound ideas that she
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often states and constantly puts into action. Remember: Nothing is too small to
notice. When defensiveness starts, learning stops. Tum discomfort into inquiry.
(Lerman and Borste12003, 55)
Liz Lerman's Critical Response Process: A Methodfor Getting Useful Feedback
on Anything you Make, From Dance to Dessert revolutionized my perspective on
feedback and dialogic exchange. How Lerman and company implement this Process and
its invaluable design, including succinct charts, informed the design phase of my research
as well as the active practices inside the project community choreographic processes.
During the project, the community worked in duos or trios to craft movement
incorporating contact, physical sharing of weight and/or support. Time was given inside
the gatherings for collaborative generation; however, the duos and trios also worked
independently. The time spent practicing Liz Lerman's Critical Response Method
reunited the community of dancers during these working processes. We all participated
in the dialogic exchange and it was fascinating to practice forming and asking questions,
to engage fellow artists about their work, and to observe the feedback responses.
The working framework this text provided guides discussion that celebrates the
multiplicity ofvoices. The facilitator's role is particularly important and the text lends
extra support and practical considerations specific to the navigation of this role inside the
Critical Response Process. Liz Lerman's Critical Response Process: A Methodfor
Getting Useful Feedback on Anything you Make, From Dance to Dessert provides a
supportive framework, based on many lived processes, that guides multiple voices and
perspectives; however, it remains fluid enough to encourage new discoveries. The
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thoughtful language and the process-based design of this text makes it an applicable asset
in any artistic and community related field.
Cynthia J. Williams' 2002 Journal ofDance Education article entitled, "Beyond
Criticism: Lerman's 'Critical Response Process' in the Dance Composition Classroom,"
advocates for the use of Lerman's text in dance pedagogy and art making. Based on her
own experience as a dance educator at Hobart and William Smith Colleges in Geneva,
New York and information gained directly from Lerman Dance Exchange Humanities
Director John Borstel and company member Peter DiMuro, Williams specifically
addresses the challenge of facilitating feedback as mutual exchange in dance composition
classes. "I have sought methods to make the giving and receiving of critical feedback an
educational and inspiring process rather than one that demoralizes, and have looked for
ways to encourage my students to participate more fully in the process using their
intellectual, aesthetic, and technical knowledge" (Williams 2002, 93).
In reference to Lerman's Critical Response Process Williams states, "I have found
a method that addresses these concerns while providing an elegantly simple model that is
easily adapted to the college or university dance composition classroom" (Williams 2002,
93).
Williams discusses the four core steps in the Critical Response Process, offering
insights from her own experiences in practicing Lerman's Process. She states:
One of my main goals as a composition teacher is to help the student find
choreographic realization for her intentions, which often take a very different
aesthetic form than my own choreography would. Only by recognizing my own
artistic preferences and consciously setting them aside can I truly help the
students realize their own. Neutral questions [a facet of Lerman's Critical
Response Process] facilitate this process and encourage a spirit of equal
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participation from all present. In this regard, I 'model' this process for the
students so they too learn to distinguish their aesthetic preferences from their
perception of the choreography presented. (Williams 2002, 96)
In addition to the four core steps, Williams also mentions the additional steps outlined by
Lerman in her text.
Williams addresses potential downsides and positive outcomes from using
Lerman's Critical Response Process. The major downside acknowledged is the "amount
of time that each step can take ifall class member are involved in each facet of the
discussion" (Williams 2002, 97). This could be a concern in a larger class context.
Williams also suggests it may be helpful, if personnel can support the task, to have an
outside person act as facilitator inside the classroom versus the teacher in order to provide
neutral context. Williams describes a positive outcome from her experience with
Lerman's Process. "The use of the Critical Response Process in the dance composition
classroom fosters an environment of respect and engages the students in critical thinking
and creative problem solving" (Williams 2002, 97).
Williams concludes by advocating for the text, specifically recognizing the
importance of increased dialogue exchange and practice in dance composition classrooms
and beyond. Her testimonial, as scholarly support for the resource, also focuses on
community impact. Williams writes:
Liz Lerman's Critical Response Process creates a valuable dialogue between artist
and audience and offers guidelines intended to keep that dialogue constructive
and informative. I have found it to be exceptionally well suited to dance
composition and theory courses in academe, but its applications extend far beyond
to create bridges between artist and audience, student and teacher, individual and
community across many disciplines. The Critical Response Process engages and
energizes the community in interactive dialogue. Its mediated use of language
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opens multiple levels of creative and critical discourse, which in tum inform and
enhance the community's conversation. (Williams 2002, 99)
I discovered Williams' article following the conclusion of my research project
community gatherings. I was interested in knowing how this resource impacted another
practitioner in the dance field. Her insights align with my lived experiences as
researcher-facilitator inside my own work. It is refreshing and encouraging that this
resource is highlighted, not only for dance educators, but in a more universal sense for
people who work together. Community conversation, dialogue that gives space for
multiple voices and respects diverse perspectives, is imperative to our collective success
as artists, educators, and members of communities. Communication is a practice.
Nancy Stark Smith's 2008 article for Contact Quarterly entitled "Interview with
Liz Lerman: On the Critical Response Process" gives voice to Lerman's more recent
thoughts about her own work. Smith's interview with Lerman took place at the Bates
Dance Festival in Lewiston, Maine on July 24,2007. Smith addresses Lerman:
"Let's talk about your Critical Response Process-historically, and what is happenings to
the Process as you understand it right now" (Smith 2008, 21). Lerman responds:
Something that continues to disturb me is the question of being understood or
misunderstood.
And it still surprises me that some people equate honesty with negativity-that
you are most honest when you are really being brutal. If you are getting 'good'
feedback, by which I mean compliments, it can't possibly be true. It doesn't feel
like feedback unless I am passionately telling you everything I think or feel about
the work. The Critical Response Process is set up so that by the time you may be
giving someone an opinion, that opinion may have been affected by the
conversation. It may still be negative, but now it has a context, and it might not
be delivered in such a passionate voice. That makes it able to be heard by the
artist because of where you have gotten in the discussion. (Smith 2008, 21)
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Lerman shares with Smith that as the process continues to develop in practice, she and
fellow Lerman Dance Exchange artists "see the value in each step-that there is
something very powerful within each of the four steps and that the sequence is very
useful" (Smith 2008, 21).
Nancy Stark Smith inquires about variations or adaptations in the sequence of
Lerman's Process. Lerman shares a shortcut variation she calls "mutual coaching," a
variation she formulated prior to formulating the Critical Response from her experiences
teaching dance technique. "I was very frustrated that there were so many good eyes in
the room but everyone was depending on mine. We dance next to people for months: we
all know this stuff about each other" (Smith 2008, 21). Lerman articulates the step-by-
step process of "mutual coaching" to Nancy Stark Smith.
Let's say you and I were partners-I would do the phrase, you would watch, and
then you would essentially do step one from Critical Response-you would tell
me something that you saw me do that you thought was cool or interesting. Just a
little thing. Before I did it again I would tell you one thing I was going to work
on in the phrase-it could be technical, or about the quality or focus. You watch,
and when I'm done, you tell me all about that, using your best eyes, bringing your
full intelligence to the problem. In the third step, I do it again, but this time you
would add something that you wanted me to work on. And then we'd reverse
roles. (Smith 2008,21)
Smith wraps up her interview with Lerman with a focus on exchange and application.
Lerman describes the duality of awareness the Process promotes, specifically from the
facilitator's point of view. Lerman states, " ... you're aware of the content of the
exchange but also aware of the framing of what you have to say....You really have this
hyperstructure in your mind as you are navigating the conversation" (Smith 2008, 23).
The practice is ongoing. Smith asks: "Is the Process still fresh and useful to you" (Smith
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2008,24)? Lennan responds: "As with all good processes, you deepen your relationship
to it. I am really happy that many people teach it and use it. John Borstel at the Dance
Exchange does most of the education about the Process" (Smith 2008, 24).
The accessibility and evolution of Liz Lennan' s Critical Response Process is
evident in her conversation with Nancy Stark Smith. The working methodology is still
relevant and reflective of the values she and her company uphold and practice. Even in
process, Lennan's model acknowledges both reflexive and shared experience. Following
the project culmination and reflective phase of my research, I wanted to know what Liz
Lennan had to say about her own research. What conclusions or questions, new or
restated, were significant to her at this moment in time? Lennan's perspective, made
accessible by Nancy Stark Smith in this interview, supports continued practice in
feedback exchange. I believe her work continues to propel and infonn how we
individually and collectively practice this communication exchange. Lennan has
significantly contributed to the generation of language and to the value of its practical use
in the dance field and beyond.
Candace Feck, Assistant Professor of Dance at The Ohio State University, tackles
language head on in her 2008 Contact Quarterly article, "Against 'ON': A Dance Writer
Weighs in on Words." Feck is concerned with the language being used by artists and
practitioners in the dance field. She writes:
.. .in the jargon of dance among English speakers, a conspicuous habit of insider
speech threatens to contradict the very notion of embodiment-ofwhat is known,
felt, and experienced in and through the body.
Words are important. ...Though language about dance often feels inadequate, it
is one of the ways we communicate among each other and with those outside of
the dance community. (Feck 2008, 42)
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Interspersed in Feck's article are emboldened definitions of the prepositional
word "on" from the 1994-95 edition of The Worldbook Multimedia Encyclopedia. Feck's
question alerts readers to her concern: "Is it possible that those diminutive but ubiquitous
prepositions may quietly gather the momentum to ambush our discipline from within"
(Feck 2008, 42)? Stating examples, she writes:
Passing by the studio, I pause to listen to students in rehearsal discussing the new
work a visiting choreographer has come to put 'on' the company. Reviewing a
graduate research paper at my desk, I read that a venerated choreographer has
decided to set her signature solo 'on' a younger performer. The afternoon
concludes with a meeting, where a group of frustrated dancers has come to
describe the difficulties of putting the artistic director's movement'on' their
bodies. At the same meeting, a colleague casually mentions that her students are
busy searching for music to put 'on' their dances. (Feck 2008, 42)
To Feck the use of "on" in these contexts devalues the heart of the work and implies a
level of superficiality. "When did movement become like clothing... something
decorative but non-essential, easily slipped on and off' (Feck 2008, 42-43)? In addition
to prepositional use in dance language, verb choice is examined in the same critical
parallel. "Of course, it is the associative character of words and the relational properties
of syntax that are essential to meaning-making in the first place: like dominoes, as the
prepositions and then the verbs go, so goes the rest" (Feck 2008, 43).
Feck makes a case for dance, both in regard to language and movement.
"Ultimately, to speak so speciously about the movement of dance as a thing dispensable,
disposable, removable, could well be to prefigure its demise. I believe that as dance
professionals, we must take a stand against 'on' and, in so doing, find words that are
worthy of the living, breathing actions we choose to call dance" (Feck 2008,43).
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The integration of crafting in both respects, word choice and movement choice, is
necessary to further growth in the field and to validate the work in meaningful context.
Feck's astute insight caught my attention as a new researcher in the field. I
discovered her article after my research processes with the community culminated and at
the onset of my independent writing process. Before reading Feck's article, I was not
aware of this tendency in our field. However like Feck, I think it is imperative that
language practices in dance are more conscientiously and artistically crafted. With
increased language practice comes increased knowledge. Without heightened awareness
and new knowledge, we will not be able to communicate in a way that best represents the
value and meaning of the work and that celebrates the people in the dance field.
Stephanie Skura, Seattle-based dance artist and educator, describes a practice that
simultaneously explores movement and text as it emerges via process. She developed the
practice in conjunction with friends, poets, and interdisciplinary artists. Her article,
"Distillation: A MovinglWriting Practice," appears in the 2010 Contact Quarterly annual.
Skura mentions a compositional method she began experimenting with approximately 10
years ago. She calls it "flux." In more detail, she writes:
In flux, you follow your physical impulses without judgment. You don't stop or
think about how to shift, you just tune into the body and follow another impulse.
Sometimes it's an abrupt change, sometimes a melt or a dissolve. It's a continual
going-off-on-tangents, thinking out loud with the body. I also call it 'kinetic
stream-of-consciousness,' and liken it to the approach to writing taken by such
twentieth-century innovators as Virginia Woolf and James Joyce. (Skura 2010,
33).
For Skura, the moving/writing practice and is constantly evolving. She states,
I'm amazed at the myriad ways that moving and writing not only are related but
can activate each other. I've heard 'consciousness' described by poets as
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'physical and athletic' and have long sensed that dance is not so much about the
physical body as about consciousness-with the body's language as the medium
through which consciousness is expressed. (Skura 2010,34)
Building on her "flux" concept, Skura and Seattle-based interdisciplinary artist
Vanessa DeWolf collaborated to refine a "moving/writing practice they call Distillation"
(Skura 2010,34). Skura adamantly clarifies that the practice of Distillation is not static
or finite. In reference to her collaborative exploration of Distillation she writes, "As we
find more depth and clarity, we continue to let it evolve into other forms" (Skura 2010,
34). Outlining the seven-steps in the Distillation process for partners identified by letters
A and B, Skura writes:
1) A moves for about five minutes (and may speak while moving-whatever
comes to mind). B writes/rom A's moving-including descriptions, free
associations, perceived subtexts in the moving, words that A might speak, and
associations with those words.
2) B reads out loud what she just wrote, while A writes/rom that reading: quickly
extracting from what she's hearing, making it into a compact form, and taking
liberties spontaneously. This is a quick process!
3) A reads her 'extraction' out loud.
4) A repeats her reading while B moves.
5) A repeats her reading again, while B does a moving extraction from what she
remembers of her own movement. Rather than being a repetition, this is an
extraction of essence and possibly a fleshing-out of that essence.
6) A repeats her reading one last time as B continues to distill and develop the
essence of her movement.
7) A and B switch roles and repeat steps 1-6. (Skura 2010,34)
Skura acknowledges the multiplicity of possible options that could follow the Distillation
process exchange. Skura includes written examples of the Distillation process she and
DeWolf refined. She concludes with a statement addressing improvisation and
refinement in relationship to movement and words. Skura states, "One of the things that
keeps me interested in this process is that it exercises my need to improvise rigorously
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with both movement and words, as well as my need to refine improvised words and
movement, all in a single session" (Skura 2010,34).
In the midst ofmy research project's active practices and directly following the
culmination and reflection phase of my research, I continued to contemplate "distillation"
practices, like Skura and DeWolf's, which explore the action of paring down to some
essence. Essence, in this instance, is the most concentrated representation of the lived
experience in context. It brings me to ask this question: Can this joint practice, a form of
distillation in words and in movement, help us as artists, educators, and audiences to
communicate more clearly about our work and its value? From my experiences: before,
during, and following my project research, I believe in the joint practice of moving and
crafting language, whether writing or talking. Moving together and writing/talking
together can bring forward common language and shared meaning. The simultaneous
nature of distillation practices emphasizes the actual process as it evolves instead of after
it comes to fruition, or yields a product. The spontaneous element that Skura mentions,
may aid in capturing essence in a way that promotes decision-making and understanding
in dance.
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CHAPTER III
DISCUSSION
One story, in particular, illuminates discoveries that became undeniably poignant
in our shared experiences during the Master of Fine Arts Movement Project. As this
story and discussion progress in tandem, I offer language examples as rolling landmarks
describing our collective journey. The narrative moves through active processes of
crafting, distilling, and articulating; therefore, I present these unfolding concepts in this
processional order to give context to the work and to the people who contributed to the
work.
Crafting
As researcher, one of my aims was to bring the Master of Fine Arts Movement
Project dancing community forward in shared action. Crafting spoken, written, and
danced language of shared experience via collaborative processes was foundational to the
community's active progression. In regard to crafting and word choice, "skill training"
and "art making" were identified as focus areas in place of "technique" and
"choreography." The project community applied this language during the first four
gatherings to discussions on traditional operational facets, assumptions/expectations, and
personal experiences/preferences. The use of this intentional vocabulary heightened
community awareness and presented opportunities to redefine parameters through shared
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exploration. The project community's continual exchanges began to reveal fresh
trajectories.
Moving through unknown processes, I knew I would need to identify some
strategies both for myself and for the project community. As a personal language
practice and in preparation for collaborative exchange, I crafted five guiding principles
for this research journey. They were:
1. Address the way we are working.
2. Use individual and collective voice.
3. Move together.
4. Exchange dialogue and feedback.
5. Confer on decisions.
Even with these guiding principles, navigating my own learning inside the
complexity of the community proved to be an active challenge. Moving through this
project's processes, I anticipated the presence oflearning curves, and I often navigated
using instinct over knowledge. I strived to provide some balance in personal and
collective ownership inside the project community, especially in regard to concept
explorations in movement and words. More than a system of checks and balances, the
guiding principles promoted a reflexive undertone with traceable links to personal
accountability and group connectivity. These principles exemplify how language can
support emergent work; they provide a baseline people can use and reference.
Referencing our early project gatherings, considerable time had been spent
discussing, mapping (creating written charts and lists), and analyzing traditional dance
technique class models and choreographic process models. The majority oftime, at this
point, had been spent talking, listening, and writing versus dancing or creating
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movement. The agenda I plamled for Day Five started with another conversational or
discussion activity. Branching off the idea of "Asset Mapping" used by 1awole Willa 10
Zollar and faculty at the Urban Bush Women Summer Leadership Institute, I opened the
floor to the group asking them to throw out responses based on two criteria: 1. Things
you enjoy and practice (i.e. yoga, baking, gardening, etc.) and 2. Interests or concerns
you have and want to investigate (i.e. subject of anatomy, languages, history of New
Orleans, etc.).
The framework of the Urban Bush Women Summer Leadership Institute "Asset
Mapping" experience, a traceable language and experience-based reference point,
inspired me to try something similar in my own research. My intention in generating lists
of enjoyable practices and interests was to provide an explicit opportunity to learn about
the individual and collective interests in our project community. In crafting, there is
tremendous opportunity to generate information and to identify commonalities. It was
important to me that I did not dictate the responses so I asked for a volunteer to notate the
lists on our community notepad. I wanted the group to feel like they were reporting what
came to them without filtering their response through me and I wanted to be present in
witnessing the crafting exchange as it happened live.
In an attempt to maximize opportunity and possibility, each Master of Fine Arts
Movement Project gathering progression was fresh, never repeated in the same sequence.
Elaborating on language in the project context, the exact wording the project members
and I used in each gathering is not recalled nor preserved with exactitude. Each person
involved in the project community carries remnants of the discussions, investigations,
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movements, and written reflections and I believe these remnants directly correlate to the
things that were most provocative, meaningful, or useful to the person. As a collaborator,
each community member crafted personal and collective language simultaneously.
Similarly, each community member responded to language with both collaborative
understanding and unique individual takes. It is important to note that common language,
or language of shared experience, does not dismiss individuality for the sake of
community. Instead, it is the sharing of varied personal perspectives that mutually
informs and enriches the community's communicative exchange. In this sense, language
can be a tool that is both crafted and strategically applied in dance environments.
Distilling
As crafting brings awareness to individual and collective responsibility and
accountability in dance language practice, distilling acknowledges the challenges of
describing dance processes in words. Distilling, a simultaneous movement and word-
driven practice, strives to best represent the substance of dance experiences in context.
Distilling the language of shared experiences in the Master of Fine Arts Movement
Project community proved to be a fruitful challenge. In most instances, the project
community pressed beyond the familiar through the uncomfortable to arrive at new
possibilities and considerations. As a result, the Master of Fine Arts Movement Project
environment was charged with negotiations of various natures: personal, collective,
grand, and small.
The story continues with a distilling practice example from the Master of Fine
Arts Movement Project community gathering on September 2,2009 from 7:30-9:30 p.m.
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at the University of Oregon Department of Dance in Gerlinger Annex Room 353. The
language used to identify the items on our "agenda" is synthesized from my personal
research journal. The agenda was written prior to each project gathering; however, the
gathering on this day inspired shared experiences that presented themselves in the
moment. As a result, the last two items noted in the agenda, identified by numbers five
and six, were written after the original agenda. The description that follows is sourced
from my recollection of the community's shared experience. A copy of my journal entry
for Day Five is included in Appendix A of this document.
Day Five Agenda: 1. Schedule Business: Discuss Fall 2009 Meeting Times
2. Vision Sharing and SkilllAsset Mapping- Working in scope
from grand to focused, write two big lists in the community
notepad generated by the group's responses to these areas:
A. Skill Mapping, referred to as Enjoy/Practice in the
listing process- something you enjoy and practice (i.e.
Yoga, Baking, Gardening, etc.)
B. Interests/Concerns- something you want to investigate
more (i.e. Anatomy, History of New Orleans, Jazz
Funerals/Second Line, Languages, etc.)
Honing in further, pare big list ideas down and create subject
headings based on the most prevalent/associated items in both the
Skill Mapping (Enjoy/Practice) and Interests/Concerns lists.
Transcribe headings on notecards, separating Skill Mapping
headings from Interest/Concern headings.
3. Share Dance Magazine's June 2009 article, "From the Heart:
Why I Dance" by Paloma McGregor, Urban Bush Women
Company Member. Give the community of dancers time to read
this article while I set up the heading notecards on the floor in the
studio.
4. Heading Inspired Improvisation-Process of paring down, from
words to movement. Each person draws one idea/concept from
each side of the room (one side Enjoy/Practice and the other side
Interests/Concerns), and spends the remaining 25 minutes
investigating and creating movement inspired by their chosen
combination of ideas.
In the moment agenda additions:
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5. Directly following the creative workshop time, I asked each
dancer to write down two words on a notecard describing their
connection to the movement ideas they explored in relationship to
their chosen Enjoy/Practice and Interests/Concerns headings.
6. Food for thought for next gathering: I asked everyone to think
of one experience that impacted their life and to remember it for
our next gathering.
In response to the two criteria, these lists were generated on our community
notepad.
1. Things you enjoy and practice:
Dance Specific: Ballet, African, Jazz-Pop and Lyrical, Hip Hop, B-boy/B-girl
(Breaking), Modem, Contact Improv, Club Danz, Hula, Tap, Congolese, Balinese, Salsa,
Musical Theater, Ballroom, Tango, Rara, Ibo
Open: Organize music, Poems, Singing, Scat, Teaching, Organizing, Cello, Piano,
Accordion, Djembe, Care Provider, Editing, Mentor, Bead Work, Language, Color guard,
Cheerleading, Hiking, Cooking, Writing, Necklace creating, Yoga, Pilates, Body Mind
Centering, Biking, Swimming, Cliffjumping, Martial arts, Interior design,
Card/Scrapbook, Sewing-Knitting, Drawing, Painting, Coffee, Baking, Sleeping,
Dreaming, Meditating, Photography, Feng Shui
2. Things you are interested in or concerned about:
Language, Cultural heritage and background, Religion, Food resources, Agriculture,
Travel, Gymnastics/Arial work, Medicine, Healing, Nutrition, Western Philosophy,
Music, Burlesque, Anthropology, People watching, Body language, Theatre, Acting,
Research, Astrology, Astronomy, Human Physiology, Teaching, Graphology, Wilderness
survival, Forensics, "Disabilities," Computers, Internet, Metaphysics, Folklore, Books,
Racquetball, Sociology, Community Map, Urban vs. Rural Space, Politics, History,
Photography, OUR WAR, Spirituality, Globalization, 2012, Spirals, Environmental
consciousness, Sustainability, Health, Entertainment, Love, Architecture, Visual
Art/Drawing, Film, Gardening, Mental re-patterning, Neuromuscular re-patterning, Earth,
Disney, Aliens, Gender Roles, Human behavior, Perception, Sex, Reproduction, Family
tree/History, Aging, Ritual healing, Joy
Honing in further, we pared down these big list ideas into subject headings based on the
most prevalent and associated items from each list. For organizational purposes, the
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Enjoy/Practice list headings were written on green notecards and the Interest/Concert list
headings were written on graph notecards.
The Enjoy/Practice headings are as follows: Music, Design, Athletics, Science,
Language & Composition, Centering, Social Relations, Arts & Crafts, and Food. The
Interest/Concert headings included: Human Nature (which was debated by a few
community members as the sole heading we needed to identify), Technology,
Environment, Culture, Educational Growth, Abstract Study, History, Society, Human
Body, Arts & Design, Science, Lifestyles, and Language & Communication. After
reviewing the headings with the project community, I placed all the Enjoy/Practice
heading notecards on one side of the room and all the Interest/Concern heading notecards
on the opposite side of the room.
This process of distilling, examining generated infonnation and identifying
commonalities or points of intrigue, took the majority of our gathering time. I began to
sense the need for a shift in the group dynamics, incorporating movement and non-verbal
exploration into the mix. The verbal and written sharing we collaboratively invested in
became an immediate source for movement development and improvisation. Working to
distill our list, ideas, and shared vision from words to movement, the last 25 minutes of
our gathering (refer to Day Five Agenda) were spent working improvisationally and
individually. The task was to draw a concept from one heading on each side of the room
and to create movement inspired by your chosen combination.
Directly following the creative workshop time and inspired by the way the
community was working, I asked each dancer to anonymously write down two words on
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a notecard describing their connection to the movement ideas they explored in
relationship to their chosen headings. Here are their dual-word descriptions:
momentum/structure, research/mirror-neurons, hunger/energy, struggle/moment,
embracelbellows, expectation/imbalance, sudden/grounded, pattern/freedom, love/line. I
participated in the improvisation and generation with them witnessing their choices and
navigations as I moved through my own. My dual-word description was
imprint/privilege.
This gathering's progression represents a grand scale practice in distillation,
paring down, both in language and in movement. We focused a plethora of wide-
reaching practices, interests, and concerns via shared discussion and we generated
specific movement via decisive exercise. The practice of distilling, using both language
and movement to describe what is most important or resonant in the moment, is
applicable in educational and artistic work. I believe it is an imperative practice both in
skill training and in art making. Distilling zeros us in on what matters to us as a means to
propel our actions, decisions, as well as how we communicate them.
As an isolated distilling practice, this series of events seemed to be collectively
fruitful. Consequently, I can attest to the profound impact it had on my entire research
project working processes moving forward from this point. Prior to our Day Five
gathering, I had been extensively preparing and planning each agenda as an independent
practice, writing the plans and reflections from each project gathering in my personal
research journal. As a language practice, it was very prescribed and detailed; however, it
failed to capture the processes unfolding during each gathering from a collaborative
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perspective. After the Master of Fine Arts Movement Project community participated in
this particular distilling practice our working dynamic gained collective momentum.
At the end of our Day Five gathering, the last task I offered to the community was
to think about one experience that impacted their life and to remember it for our next
gathering. I was compelled to offer this task because I was in awe of how each
community member distilled voiced concepts into embodied movement. The clarity of
their movement vocabulary, how intent and expressive they were with their bodies,
moved me to present another opportunity for exploration and sharing. Distilling,
investigating information while translating personal and communal connections, can be a
vividly energetic and creative process.
Our Day Six gathering took place the next day, on September 3,2009 from 8-10
p.m. in the University of Oregon Department of Dance Building, Gerlinger Annex Room
353. As a result of the previous gathering, I chose not to prescribe the community agenda
for Day Six in advance. The language in this entry is more descriptive and the form is
more conversational, agenda items and reflections simultaneously take shape as the entry
unfolds. Consequently, my personal research journal entry for Day Six is presented close
to its original form with some language adjustments and translations added for increased
clarity. I understand what my language means; however, it is important to me to
communicate my language as a depiction of processes that are accessible beyond my own
recollection and representative of shared experiences.
Day Six Agenda: 1. Snack Time in hall
2. Personal Warm Up Time in studio- Group Warm Up Time in
studio for two-three songs
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3. Taught my Choreographic Phrase to "Wanderlust" by Bjork.
Descriptive words for the phrase include: hurricane, billows,
tornado, reckless, momentum, core driven, resistance, tomahawk,
frantic, thrashy, slice through own self-imposed barriers.
4. Task: 15 minutes. Individual. In movement, take the
"experience that has impacted your life" and create material. Be
able to pare down, distill down, synthesize into one "NUGGET"
one (short) movement(s), gesture, etc. that captures/represents the
essence of your experience and your feelings about it.
5. In circle, half the group (four or five people) shares their story
through movement, each person moving/conversing one at a time.
"NUGGET" Tableau-"Essence Captured Experience." The
observing group moves freely around the periphery of the sharing
group's circle, participating by watching. Switch groups and
repeat the solo "essence" share.
Next, group one makes another circle and begins to share
the "essence of their impactful experience" movement in
simultaneous conversation, fitting together, listening,
relating to, and reacting to each other in interactive tableaux-which
actually evolved into moving vignettes.
The observing group moves or stands around the periphery
witnessing. Switch groups and repeat the interactive group "talk"
share.
The above itemization represents the Day Six Agenda, with a few expanded
descriptions, outlined prior to the community's shared experience. A copy of the agenda
portion of the Day Six entry is included in Appendix B. My personal research journal
includes more detailed observations following the original Day Six Agenda. One of these
observations was that development does not always follow a linear process. Therefore, in
the context of my personal research journal, writing the order that things happened
followed by what resonated from the experience post captured reflection is not always
linear. Similarly, the practice of distilling is not always linear or able to be prescribed.
As ideas and plans flesh out in the moment, they have the potential to veer off in ways
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that encourage us to trust our instincts. For me, in these exciting moments, doors may
open and people may open their receptiveness and ownership inside the experience.
Honing in on the exciting moments from the community's Day Six gathering in
my personal research journal, I noted how the first group "riffed off' of the tableau,
moving and interacting more than I thought or anticipated. Instead of stationary tableaux,
they created moving vignettes. I thought each group would cycle through their individual
movement one time, giving each person one tum. Instead, they chose (non-verbally and
collectively in the moment) to cycle through their personal movements repetitively and
inventively. They shifted their responses and changed how they shared, responded to,
and listened to each other's movement. They were "tuned in" to one another, to the
language being communicated. I had to give a 10 second countdown to signify a "close"
because I think they would have continued indefinitely. Without giving the cue to
interact or collaborate, they instinctually, via movement, decided to move together, in
support of each other.
Following the group sharing, I vocalized my amazement to the community
regarding their tendencies to "riff off' of each other's movements in astute, supportive,
and inventive ways. In response, one of the dancers proclaimed, "we had a lot to say." I
remember pausing and treasuring the moment. Their responsiveness was a delightfully
positive surprise. It signified that they were in the moment moving together because they
wanted to, not because I wanted them to. The shared experiences were taking flight
based on collective interests and cultivated trust.
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In response, and trusting my instincts, I charged forward with an impromptu plan
for the remainder of our Day Six gathering. I played a song that was new to the group
and presented the community with the task of moving with the impact of the music. I
expressed that it was okay to allow the reaction or impulse of the music to drive their
movement investigation. While they were improvising, I noticed how engaged and
easefully in tune with their bodies they all were. It was so exciting to see each stunning
individual making their own movement choices and moving in relationship with one
another.
Building on distilling practices, I created a "Meaningful Music" list on our
community notepad, including the song I just shared with them. Following the music
impact group improvisation, I asked each community member to add a song with special
personal meaning to our community notepad. Similar to the final community practice on
Day Five, each community member was asked to write two words on a notecard. Per my
directives, the first word described the depth of their own distilled movement nugget
shared earlier in the circle (in two groups). This movement was sourced from one
impactful experience in their life. The second word related to an experience that had a
meaningful musical connection in some way, perhaps a memory linked to a song.
However, the word chosen did not need to be related to the song they had written on our
community notepad.
After distilling both in movement and in written words, we gathered in a big
circle to begin sharing with our voice. I started by sharing why I had played the previous
song during the group improvisation. The song was personally meaningful and I wanted
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them to know why I selected it in the moment. I wanted to share my narrative and my
process with them. I continued by inviting anyone in the collective to share either their
impactful life experience or their meaningful music experience. I stressed that this was a
no pressure invitation. It was not a requirement to share. Each person shared something
of personal meaning with the community.
After our collective sharing, I sprinkled the notecards with each person's selected
words out on the floor for everyone to see. The community's notecards read:
friendshipllove, confrontation/flighty, humility/spirit, move/peaceful,
auspicious/measure, freedom/rejoice, selflessness/mortality, broken/friends, and
dream/fear. With 10 minutes left in our gathering time, I got out the community notepad
and we brainstormed ideas about our vision for the culminating community sharing. The
notepad header read: "What is important to you... to us?" The list read: authenticity,
healing, translation-relating to self and audience, individual and group meaningful
experience, common threads, talking-conversation, interconnected phases in movement
and language, developing ideas, hair-braiding on stage, VIP invitation, and float
construction (parade float).
Retracing the processes from these two rich community gatherings reinforces the
need for increased movement and language exchange. In dance, so much transpires in
the midst of shared experience; and, the people who participate in the experience
indelibly impact the scope and trajectory of the experience. As I mentioned in response
to Stephanie Skura's 2010 Contact Quarterly article entitled, "Distillation: A
Moving/Writing Practice," moving, writing, and talking together can bring forward
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common language and shared meaning. The simultaneous nature of distillation practices
emphasizes the actual process as it evolves instead of after it comes to fruition, or yields a
product. Similarly, the practice of working from grand to focused perspective with
peoples' interests and input in mind presents a forum for collaborative opportunity rooted
in shared vision.
Distilling propels investigations that describe the most meaningful and valuable
component(s) of the lived dance experience both for an individual and for a community.
Ifwe continue to practice identifying and describing what is most present and meaningful
in dance with our language, it has the potential to change how we advocate for our field
and how value is translated in our field. I believe increasing language in dance through
varied practice can positively impact communication and accessibility to broader
understanding.
Articulating
Crafting and distilling language in dance through joint practices in movement and
language exploration are important, however, articulating is the declarative element that
grants accessibility to invaluable resources. The way the project community shared and
listened during Day Five and Day Six set the course for the entirety of our experience.
The vocabulary, both movement and words, began to relate to the people in the project
community. As a result, I witnessed the project community's clear articulation of needs
and desires inside the collective process. This shift in ownership partnered with
development of trust paved the way for collaboration.
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On Day Seven, I had crafted a plan but the project community expressed interest
in building on the "impactfullife experience" movement material. They asked to work
with their original "vignette" groups from Day Six so they could teach each other their
individual impact experience movement. After each group learned movement from every
person in their group, two members of the community proposed combining groups and
accumulating each person's original impact experience movement into one unified
movement phrase. The movement articulated by each individual, once shared, became
the dance of the entire community. In that moment, things came full circle. The
movement and the way they chose to communicate with one another became their work
and their unique process. The project community was actualizing the principles I
outlined during the early crafting of this shared experience. At this moment in our
collective journey they were and we were:
1. Addressing the way we were working.
2. Using individual and collective voice.
3. Moving together.
4. Exchanging dialogue and feedback.
5. Conferring on decisions.
The chance to experience one moment of this magnitude within the 1O-week project run
is a gift. This moment stayed with all of us and it changed me. It prevented me from
wanting to control the group based on my own ambitions and it inspired me to enjoy the
trail we were blazing together. The ownership and responsiveness of the community is
pivotal in collaboration.
As a result of this powerfully shared moment, the movement and related concepts
in the unified impact experience phrase became an integral part of our cultivated work.
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The phrase became known as the "Unison or Canon 'I' Phrase," signifying how it honors
the "I" or individual and the interconnection of the community. This movement material
became both ritual and motif throughout our continued processes.
Experimenting with new communication intentions in the midst of our continued
processes proved to be one aspect of the Master of Fine Arts Movement Project
exploration that was met with resistance by some. For dancers, performance is primarily
communicated through physical embodiment. Talking in more of an impromptu nature
about our process, what we are doing, how we are doing it, and why we are doing it, was
not a familiar practice for this project community. However, as a community, we
explored different approaches and we began to understand the potential of language
practices in dance.
One example of our impromptu or spontaneous language practices took place
during Day Twelve (October 1, 2009), the five-week midpoint, of our project gatherings.
I was interested in the community's feedback in two areas. First, I was curious about the
language each individual would choose to describe our collective processes thus far.
Second, I wondered what each member of the community would like to do more of, or
what they would like to focus on, during our upcoming gatherings. Each person wrote
their response on notecards during our gathering. We briefly discussed these responses
as a group at the front end of our one-hour gathering and I collected all the notecards.
In regard to the first area of feedback inquiry, I asked the community this question: "How
would you articulate our shared experience, to describe what we are doing?" Below are a
few of the community member's articulated responses as quoted from their notecards:
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1. "Dance Extravaganza Time!"
2. "Dance performance art created by a group of artists guided by Marcie."
3. "Exploration of creative process in movement and choreography, performance:
work."
4. "Brainstorming, riffing, open for experimentation, collaborative sharing
individuals."
5. "A collaborative dance project, breaking down common perceptions of what
dance class and creating art are. Through questioning why we do what we do, we
created a presentation of art through un-conventional processes."
The following articulations are individual responses to my second area of inquiry.
The question I asked the community was: "What would you like to do more of or to focus
on more in upcoming project gatherings?" The responses below correlate with the order
of the first set of responses and are quoted from the same individual notecards.
1. "I like what we have, but I feel we haven't put together enough material yet. I
want to dance more."
2. "I feel like I want to do more whole group building of things. That's probably
my realization that we have only five weeks. But I also like working in the
groups/partners but I don't know if our ideas are getting too big or not. Laugh
party."
3. "I would like movement material that's cohesive, memorized: presentable,
second line!"
4. "Not to forget laugh party idea. More movement exploration but also more
talking."
5. "I want to make sure we get to clean and clarify the work we have."
Reviewing these responses almost eight months after the Master of Fine Alis
Movement Project and culminating sharing took place, I appreciate that I asked these
questions halfway through our shared processes instead of after the project conclusion.
Similarly, I believe the community's willingness to share cultivated opinions and
preferences informed the remainder of our working processes. I realized then as I do now
that I was not able to give cues or to present tasks solely based on my wants and desires
for the community. It really was a live navigation by the collective regarding a
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multiplicity of wants and desires. Differences in perspective, if navigated with openness
and respect, can propel language of shared experience toward discovery of commonalities
and understanding of differences. Each person's voice, the language they choose to
express, contributes to the collective experience. Inevitably, descriptions will be varied
and unique to each person, however, communication cultivated through collaborative
exchange does yield common language, language that articulates the salient value of the
community's shared experiences.
Reflecting on the shared experiences inside my Master of Fine Arts Movement
Project community and throughout the scope of my research, it is important to articulate
that language practice in dance, like collaboration in dance, requires time. Similarly,
language practice in dance and collaboration in dance are personalized by the people who
share in the experience. In relation to time and practices in process description,
conceptualizing performance in a way that simultaneously layers verbal description with
physical action was a challenge for the Master of Fine Arts Movement Project
community. More time was needed by all to investigate the use of conversational and
written language in describing process. This realization provided the launching point for
this research on language and associated meanings in dance practice and I hope it will
spark continued investigation and meaningful communication.
The Master of Fine Arts Movement Project community participated in a diverse
sampling of investigative trials. As an example of our collective trials, the culminating
sharing was first described by the title "Trial Order" instead of "show" or "concert" order
and we rearranged the order of the individual works as well as the transitions between
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them throughout the process. Eventually, the list of shared movement works was
articulated in our collectively crafted program as "Our Procession." The term
"procession" was inspired by jazz funeral and second line traditions in New Orleans,
Louisiana. Interest in learning more about these traditions became a part of our shared
experiences throughout the project. The collectively crafted program is a prime example
of our collaboratively articulated language. As a generative exercise in descriptive and
shared language, I asked each member of the project community to draft a potential
"program" for our culminating sharing. More than imitating other program layouts, I was
interested in presenting a collective opportunity to explore writing in ways that best
reflected our shared experiences. Consequently, it was important that the multiplicity of
voices were represented in the culminating sharing program.
Written excerpts from individual program drafts were assembled into a final draft
that was approved by the entire Master of Fine Arts Movement Project community during
one of our gatherings. A copy of the final program is included in Appendix C of this
document. The program's visual design was the idea of one project community member
and the text was crafted with input from fellow project collaborators. The Master of Fine
Arts Culminating Project was titled "We Are the One, I" based on one of the brass band
song selections that anchored our project gatherings. A paragraph description followed
the title and typical logistical information, and it read:
All nine of us, invited by Marcie Mamura to be a part of her MFA research,
gathered together in mid August to begin our infamous journey of collaborating.
Marcie posed many ideas and questions for us to explore through the lens of
dance. We discussed and moved through them collectively. What is unique
about classroom and creative processes in a dance environment? How are classes
and choreographic settings structured? What are the traditions and why? Why do
___._0' _
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we dance? What are our preferences? How do we build, translate, and
communicate meaning? Why is sharing in the process important? The sky was
the limit for us and only three weeks into our shared process, we were crafting
responses to our investigations. Writing on note cards, in our journals, and on our
big note pad were common practices in our process, which is why we decided to
share this integral component of our work with you as well. We have threaded
our journey together and we are honored to share it with you. Thank you for
becoming a part of our community today!
The list of movement works under the heading of "Our Procession" followed this
paragraph description. Another personalized addition in the collaborative program was
the heading, "Community Knowledge: The Way We're Working." Under this heading
were two numbered offerings, which read: "1. Share your voice and 2. Move inside the
space and choose your perspective." At the beginning of our culminating sharing I
invited the new community of participants to feel free to move to a new place when
someone in the community expressed this cue phrase: "It is now your tum to experience
new possibilities." A correlating note was written in the collaborative program. The idea
of shared and active space was important to the project community. Therefore, the cue
phrase and the entire spatial layout including a circular seating arrangement were
elements specifically designed by the project community. All project community
members, including myself, were listed by name under the "Artists/Collaborators"
heading.
The receptive and collaborative efforts of these driven artists deserve mention and
tremendous credit. Because of their willingness and tenacity, I am certainly more willing
to try things inside the dance environment and in broader community settings. I believe
that continuing to invest in simultaneous dance and language practices: writing, doing,
thinking, saying, processing, analyzing, and moving all at the same time, will positively
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impact our ability to communicate about and validate our field. With increased language
practice in dance comes increased knowledge about dance. Without heightened
awareness and new knowledge, we will not be able to communicate in a way that best
represents the value and meaning of the work and that celebrates the people who
participate in and contribute to the dance field.
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CHAPTER IV
CONCLUSION
Language practices in dance, per my experience, are less likely to follow linear or
predictable trajectories. Therefore, it seems fitting to begin this conclusion noting an
epigraph that set the tone for Candace Feck's 2008 Contact Quarterly article, "Against
'ON': A Dance Writer Weighs in on Words." Feck quotes Valerie Preston-Dunlop,
noted consultant and researcher at Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance in
Greenwich, London, in the United Kingdom.
Movement described in words is awful. It is, after all, indescribable as the smell
of a rose and the taste of a good wine. But there are things to be said which I
know can empower the dance people, notwithstanding the hazards, and the
problems, and the inevitable shortcomings. -Valerie Preston-Dunlop (Feck 2008,
42)
I can hypothesize about the comfort this statement would have brought me if I had come
across it before or during my research journey. The fact that I found it after my research
culminated, is both amusing and enlightening. From my recent shared experiences, I
believe movement described in words is rarely awful. It can be frustrating and difficult,
however, movement described in words has the potential to illuminate dance.
Evaluation
Crafting, distilling, and articulating language that can "empower the dance
people" like Preston-Dunlop states, deserves continued investigation in the field. Sharing
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in the experience is the fIrst step to increasing awareness and propelling collective action.
The collaborative practices investigated in this research illuminated a need to enter into
dance communication practices with the same consciousness and artistry we invest in
when we teach, choreograph, or perform.
After working in a community via process and toward common artistic vision, the
most profound outcome I discovered was connecting with people in meaningful ways.
The common language for us, for our project community, was dance; and, the common
denominator was our shared connection as people: talking, moving, and learning
together. Before conducting this research, I recognized how important these connections
were in my life. However, after my research concluded, I understood how important it is
to describe, preserve, and support these connections through preserved language. I strive
to promote meaningful connections with people through my work as an artist and through
my communication as an artist. In addition to promoting meaningful connections with
people, I support increased accessibility to resources.
My research journey outcomes also confIrm the need for increased published
resources representative of the diverse language perspectives in dance. The fIeld of
community-based arts provides valuable knowledge, philosophies, methodologies, and
personal stories, with insightful intersecting applications for the fIeld of dance. Local
Acts, the 2005 text by Jan Cohen-Cruz promotes the arts and celebrates their capacity to
bring people together toward a common goal or for a common cause. Development and
availability of increased resources modeling vocabulary that guides and describes
practice, like Knight and Schwarzman's Beginner's Guide to Community-Based Arts,
98
would benefit the field of dance. Both of these community-based arts texts navigate
diverse contexts with a parallel focus on the multiplicity ofperspectives, pathways, and
outcomes specific to one community and their shared experiences.
It is equally important to champion resource materials (published articles,
interviews, texts, web resources, media etc.) in the dance field that stand out due to their
conscientious attention to practical applications, trial modifications, and experience-based
suggestions. The life's work of1awole Willa 10 Zollar and her company, Urban Bush
Women, and Liz Lerman and her company, Liz Lerman Dance Exchange, is paramount
in our field. The conscientious communication Zollar and Lerman offer applies to facets
of dance pedagogy, dance choreography/composition, dance performance, dance
company practice, and dance research. The models they offer are rooted in process-based
practice and collaborative investigation. Their work, specifically the vocabulary they
utilize to describe their work, is not static or stagnant. The work Zollar and Lerman are
doing continues to evolve, to chase fresh inquiries, and to acknowledge collaborative
community processes. As a result, they continue to provide invaluable resources for the
dance field and beyond and people continue to respond to their work, writing, conversing,
moving, and furthering the communication exchange.
I continue to utilize the 2003 Liz Lerman and 10hn Borstel's text, Liz Lerman's
Critical Response Process: A Methodfor Getting Useful Feedback on Anything you
Make, From Dance to Dessert, in my own dance practices, both pedagogically and
personally. Similarly, I continue to utilize resources on 1awole Willa 10 Zollar and Urban
Bush Women, including Urban Bush Women company member Paloma McGregor's
99
2009 Dance Magazine article, "From the Heart: Why I Dance." These resources
contribute to dialogic and feedback-based exchange in dance. In addition to these
published resources, I continue to utilize movement from the experiences I shared in as a
2009 Urban Bush Women Summer Leadership Institute participant. The movement, like
the thoughtful vocabulary, left an indelible imprint on my experience. This imprint
motivates continued exploration.
Practicing dance language is not only about describing what happens in the active
movement lab, it is also about illuminating what we do before, during, and after the
shared experience. The resources mentioned in Chapter Two "Review of Related
Works" support dance as it unfolds in practice. Language that communicates specificity
and understanding is desired within the field. How we describe the language of shared
experience in dance directly impacts how we advocate for and communicate what we
value in dance. I believe describing the informational and inter-personal exchange and
examining how it integrates dance practices in diverse settings with a specific focus, is
the crux of what collaborative processes can contribute to the field. A constant practice,
shared experience needs to be communicated through shared language experience in
dance.
Crafting, distilling, and articulating the language of shared experience reminds us
to honor personal connections inside the communication exchange. The integration of
these practices cultivates dance descriptions with the potential to capture what is
intangible and vividly present in lived experiences, the depth of their application and
meaning. Increasing movement, conversation, and written communication about specific
100
shared experiences in dance will activate growth and change in the field. The joy and
support exchanged in communities that discuss, listen, write, and move together can
permeate discomfort, uncertainty, and challenge. As a collaborative practice, crafting,
distilling, and articulating community language, is both collective work and collective
accomplishment. Dance is both collective work and collective accomplishment.
APPENDIX A
DAY FIVE AGENGA
(~ij: 9.1. oq T30· cf:3 0 PM hrst~i;;jf,me
(] schR.deJ..Q. Biz - Foil fVle.e-:h n 0 /1'Yl'1JLS,
=====---=--=- Nzx+- WSfh TIME' 'f.8.oq t q.lo.oq
N€jl-r- -ti11'U '1.3.0 'f
ou- 3 i 4 \,rJ ke.nd - Bro's, v-Jedd iY1C?
If5 Re:or<D - VISIoN SHA12..\NE)
ASSET Ml\rPIN<9
- 12.-E:S &A-f<.c I:-t (N\lEST1~AT1 oN
101
APPENDIXB
DAY SIX AGENDA
102
103
APPENDIXC
COLLABORATIVE MFA CULMINATING PROJECT PROGRAM
4IIII-b~-.- "'lIIIIIIq..~_~"&Ii~ • "7
---
We Are The ONE, I
----
........~~
---
University of Oregon Department of Dance: MFA Culminating Project
Sunday, November 1, 2009 2pm Gerlinger Annex Room 353/354
All nine ofus, invited by Marcie Mamura to be apart ofher MFA research,
gathered together in midAugust to begin our infamous journey of
collaborating. Marcie posed many ideas and questionsfor us to explore through
the lens ofdance. We discussed and moved through them collectively. What is
unique about classroom and creative processes in a dance environment? How
are classes and choreographic settings structured? VVhat are the traditions and
why? Why do we dance? What are our preferences? How do we build,
translate, and communicate meaning? VVhy is sharing in the process
important? The sky was the limitfor us and only three weeks into our shared
process, we were crafting responses to our investigations. Writing on note
cards, in ourjournals, and on our big note pad were common practices in our
process, which is why we decided to share this integral component ofour work
with you as well. We have threaded ourjourney together and we are honored to
share it with you. Thank youfor becoming a part ofour community today!
Dirge
Becka & Bekah
Liz, Shannon, & Kat
Group Material
Jason & Kellyn
104
Canon "1" Phrase
Rosanna & Anna
Unison "1" Phrase
Second Line
Program Design by: Rosanna Corona with input from fellow collaborators
Community Knowledge: The Way We're Working
1. Share your voice
2. Move inside the space and choose your perspective
*Note: To enrich and expand our community by opening space to witness
all we have created, we invite you to move to a new place when someone
says: " It is now your turn to experience new possibilities."
Artists/Collaborators
Rosanna Corona
Katherine Davenport
Liz Foster
Shannon Knight
Marcie Mamura
Jason Nicholas
Kellyn Rost
Rebecca Stiehl
Rebecca Swofford
Anna Waller
The project community sends a special thank you to Alonzo Moore for his
contributions to our shared process.
Musical Inspiration
(In Order Played)
Magnificent Sevenths
Jake Shimabukuro
Bjork (Ratatat Remix)
6sdaysofstatic
Troy "Trombone Shorty" Andrews & Orleans Avenue
Hot 8 Brass Band (Natural Self Remix)
Marcie Mamura would like to send a special thank you to her committee: Jenifer
Craig (Chair), Steven Chatfield, and Margo Van Ummersen.
--~-- ~Q
105
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