Dancing toward each other: Dance in the

primary school classroom

Miriam Torzillo and Reesa Sorin

Abstract: In Australia, dance and the Arts in general are under threat from the pressure of high-stakes testing and a focus on literacy and
numeracy. Many schools and school districts are mandating prescriptive models of teacher-directed pedagogy and putting emphasis on
digital technologies. In this context, dance education could provide an alternative space for learning. Creative dance is based on
collaborative, physical and creative problem solving. It is an opportunity for children to learn together, unmediated by digital tools or the
teacher’s direction. A multiple embedded case study exploring teacher and student experiences of dance in the primary classroom used
diverse sources of data to build a picture of the impact of teaching and learning in dance. The paradox of increasing digital connectivity
between citizens is an increase in physical distance and understanding. Dance could have a role to play in bridging that gap.

Keywords: Dance education,

Introduction
There is a bit of insanity in dancing that does everybody a great deal of good. –

Edwin Denby

is tactile and kinaesthetic; it involves many kinds of thinking, both individual and collaborative. It is a
ance
D space for fun and hard work; a kind of joyous resistance to the prevailing paradigm in education which is
prescriptive and sedentary, bound to the desk, competitive and mediated by technologies (Hardy and
Boyle 2011; Lingard 2010, Polesel, Rice, and Dulfer 2013). In dance, there is an opportunity to explore the self,
and the self in relation to others, through the body and in the body (Gard 2003).

Dance is often taught in schools exclusively as social dance; but creative dance offers the opportunity to build
personal and social capabilities (Ministerial Council on Education, Employment, Training and Youth Affairs
[MCEETYA] 2008) from the ground up (Alito Allesi, pers comm August 29, 2015). Learning in dance is social,
physical and expressive, as well as being an opportunity for physical exertion and the development of increased
body awareness and control. Creative dance involves ‘meaning making’(Wright 2012), the intentional creating
of symbolic expression through movement. Teaching dance in this way challenges traditional roles and
relationships between teachers and children in primary school classrooms (Craft et al. 2013, Windschitl 2002),
as well as performative and gendered meanings associated with dance (Buck and Rowe 2015). It is very
different to the technical or craft approach that reduces dance to the functional mastery of a certain set of
physical skills or techniques (Dimondstein 1985).

Arts education, in Australia at least, has by default been relegated to a third space, where it can benefit the
school when needed but otherwise sits outside what counts as learning. In primary schools in particular, dance
exists at the edge of the accountability culture and the controls that exist in schools (Lingard 2011; McArdle
2008). This is a curious situation, where, as the result of their very marginalized position, the Arts, and dance in
particular, have a kind of freedom, existing as they do in a ‘liminal’ space (Atkinson and Scott 2014). This
might be an opportunity to advocate for dance as a site for critical and creative thinking and moving. However,
if dance is to take its place in school, some systemic challenges need to be overcome, including: the impact of
neo-liberal policies on education; increasing use of technology in classrooms; and the outsourcing of dance.

A multiple embedded case study (Yin 2011) exploring teacher and student experiences of dance in the primary
classroom used diverse sources of and kinds of data (classroom observations, teacher interviews, conversations,
mind-mapping, video and photographic documentation) to build a picture of the impact of teaching and learning
in dance. It reveals the potential of dance to be a ‘somatic (Ross 2000) to traditional art lessons, fitness programs
or well-being projects. In dance education, ‘somatics’ refers to the development of understanding and awareness
of one’s own movement, as opposed to learning a skill or technique (Hanna 1988). The case of dance education
in primary schools, in particular dance that is taught according to the intent of the curriculum, was investigated
to understand the nature of the dance experience for teachers and students.
 The title of the paper refers to the relational nature of learning in dance; a ‘towardness’, implying direction,
progress and turning to. It also relates to the movement journey of both teacher and student as they discover
dance. The implementation of dance by generalist teachers involves willingness to become co-learners with their
students. In this interpretation, “the efforts of teachers and students are defined as imaginative, innovative, and
collaborative endeavours” (Connery and John-Steiner 2012, 130). This requires a re-negotiation of “power
relationships” and a change from “a telling to a learning orientation” (Klenowski 2012, 186). Teaching dance
differently might be unsettling or de-stabilising (Atkinson and Scott 2014). Changing pedagogy changes the
relationship between teacher and student, as different issues are confronted, such as students talking to one
another rather than to the teacher (Windschitl 2002). Yet change can bring “greater opportunities,” such as the
ability “to move around the class more easily and the different classroom dynamic of getting down to the
children’s level” (Atkinson and Scott 2014, 86).

Methodology
Research Questions

This paper is based on a case study of Dance education in two Queensland primary schools and is framed by the
question:

How do students and teachers experience dance in their classroom?

The findings detailed in this paper come from a significant body of data collected from two sites. At one
school the first author taught as a visiting specialist teacher, having built an ongoing relationship with the school
and teachers (Snook and Buck 2014). Classes were observed, and focus group interviews conducted with
children. In a second iteration at this site, observations were followed by guided reflection, discussion and
mind-mapping (Whyte et al. 2013). In addition, responses to a guided reflection were gathered from three other
teachers who had taught or observed these units of work with their students. At another school, observation and
video documentation of dance classes were conducted over two school terms; individual teacher interviews,
small group and whole class interviews were conducted and children’s reflective writing and drawing collected.
The research also charts the personal teaching journey of the first author, in line with a self-study methodology
that regards research as an extension of the researchers’ life (Ngunjiri, Hernandez, and Chang 2010).

The research takes an ontological stance, that recognizes the body as an active contributor in thinking and
interpreting and values the body's ability to make meaning (Foster 1995). In contrast are the impacts on
education of technologies that lead to a “repelling of the ‘real’ or physical world . . . producing a distancing . . .
impacting not only on our spatio-temporal actions ‘in-the-world’ but also on our emotional ‘with-the-world’ and
‘with-others-in-the-world” (Thwaites 2011, 4). Therefore, observations and videos of children dancing form an
important part of the data that tell the story of dance.

Data were analysed using a socio-kin-aesthetic theoretical framework that includes the relational, physical and
expressive aspects of learning. The socio-kin-aesthetic framework values the central role of relationships within
the dance class (Buck 2009); seeks to bridge the divide between body and mind (Bresler 2004) and places
importance on the expansion of a child’s perceptive and expressive capabilities through education. Childrens’
and teachers’ written and spoken responses to dance and video documentation of dances and dance-making were
examined to seek their understanding about each of these aspects. Student and teacher descriptions and
narratives about dance were further considered in the light of recent or current pedagogic approaches to the
teaching of dance in primary schools in Queensland, Australia.

Two methods of encoding and presenting the data are used in this paper: InVivo and Holistic (Saldaña 2012).
InVivo coding uses the direct language of participants as codes (ibid,) as a way of foregrounding their
perspective. Children’s words are combined to present a picture of their thinking; echoing the rhythms and
patterns of their written and spoken responses “that may not be reflected in the often sparse language expressed
by an individual child or in a single instance” (Bond and Stinson, 2000, p.55). Holistic coding is a ‘broad brush
approach’ suited to revealing the essence of the varied examples of ‘self-standing’ data such such as the
anecdotes from the first author’s collection of dance teaching stories (Saldaña 2012).

Background

The situation of dance in education is threatened by broader changes taking place in education in globalized
times and the effects these changes have had on pedagogic practices (Ward 2012). These changes include: the
impacts of neo-liberal agendas, technology and the outsourcing of dance education. A strength of dance is its
potential to enhance children’s collaborative, physical and creative skills and understandings. Yet this is also a
challenge. Teachers and students may associate the architecture of the classroom with “the idea of structured
learning” and find the open space and freedom of movement in dance classes confronting (Atkinson and Scott
2014, 85).

Impacts of Neo Liberal Agendas

Neo-liberal agendas worldwide have constrained education; conflating teaching, learning and assessment and
providing a pedagogic paradigm of instructive teaching that has drained it of its professionalism (Connell 2009).
This has implications for Arts education in primary schools, as instructive teaching methods form the basis of
most school-wide pedagogic frameworks, required in schools (Conway and Abawi 2013).

External, high-stakes testing seems to have the effect of shrinking the available time for the arts (Ewing 2012).
In Australia this is the case in many schools where literacy and numeracy account for the majority of the school
week (The Queensland Curriculum and Assessment Authority[QCAA] 2014). Teachers are mandated to use a
particular pedagogic approach across the curriculum including in the arts. This is a threat to the more student-
centred, participatory and constructivist approaches common in arts classrooms (Holland and O’Connor 2004).

Impacts of Technology

A very powerful orthodoxy in education today is that education needs to adapt to the inevitable and embrace the
educative potential of technologies (Buchanan 2011, Postman 2011, Facer 2011). The idea that, “teaching is not
effective without the appropriate use of information and communication technologies (ICT) resources to
facilitate student learning” (Ertmer 2010, 278), has been incorporated into the Australian Professional Standards
for Teachers (Lynch 2013). In Australia as in the UK, the “raising of standards” of teaching and learning has
become synonymous with the use of ICTs” (Watson 2001). This had led to a concern that the body and its
movements will become even more constrained, with classrooms dedicated to the improvement of test results
and the production of ‘good data’ (Connell 2009; Ball 2000).

Literature in Dance, Arts in general, Physical Education, Environmental and Place-based Education warn of a
potential narrowing of education, as it becomes more desk-bound and constrained by accountability. If children
need to move to learn (Ainley, Banks, and Fleming 2002; Kentel and Dobson 2007; Leonard, Hall and Herro
2015; Somerville and Green 2011) then dance can provide that space. As Lakoff and Johnstone propose, it is
through our movements in the world that we categorise and structure our understanding of that world and the
concepts that organise it (1999). There is evidence that it is attention in particular, as a disposition, that is being
reduced by over-use of technology (Greenfield 2004), which is precisely the disposition or type of thinking that
brain research shows is enhanced in dance (Grafton 2009).

The easy availability of technology has enabled the teaching of dance, albeit in non-challenging and reductive
ways; further establishing it as extra-curricular activity. A popular approach that is gaining ground is the use of
online video programs, which require little planning or consideration by the teacher (Fitzgerald 2012). Using an
interactive white board or video projector, students watch and copy the dance sequence on the screen. This
strategy is often used as a transition activity; an opportunity to physically release students and get them ready
for another bout of desk-work, or as a reward. Anecdotal comments from pre-service teachers, along with the
literature, confirm that teachers use this approach (Maher, Phelps, Urane and Lee 2012) because of their lack of
confidence, stemming from their performative understandings, associated with “femininity, ability,
performance, mastery of skill and elitism” (Buck 2005). If teachers believe that dance is about the acquisition of
technical skills and re-creative learning of teacher-designed choreography, or in many cases choreography
copied from internet sites, they might believe that they don’t have the skills to teach dance (Buck 2005). A
focus on skills and particular dance techniques can be a divisive and exclusionary approach, favouring children
who attend dance classes outside school. An open-ended approach, that focuses on meaning-making, can
include and connect with all students, whatever their training or experience (Gard 2003; Trotman 2005; Meiners
and Garrett 2015).

Outsourcing Dance

There are also concerns about the takeover of education by private providers (Powell 2014; Etherington, 2008).
In Australian and New Zealand primary schools, outsourcing is changing the way Health and Physical
Education is provided in schools (Leonard , Evans and Davies 2014). Since many of the providers include dance
in their offerings, some schools and principals have been ‘ticking the arts/dance box’ by outsourcing (Pope
2013). In North Queensland, Australia, private providers have become a popular choice, for dance education In
North Queensland, Australia, private providers have become a popular choice, for dance education. The nexus
between the provider and the schools has been further tightened through sponsorship of professional
associations (Early Childhood Teachers Association [ECTA], 2015; Australian Primary Principals Association
[APPA], 2015).

Unfortunately, these outsourced programs are based on a more ‘functional’ purpose of dance and do not teach
dance as a creative process, incorporating student’s unique ideas and expressions. Dance, if taught as intended
by the curriculum however, positions children as artists and audiences; foregrounding the primacy of making
dance (Schiller 2003). The assumptions of outsourced programs, dominated by Eurocentric dance techniques
and social constructions of dance, are unable to take account of the life experiences of children and young
people (Meiners & Garrett, 2015). Outsourcing is also a missed opportunity for the teacher to learn more about
and with the children in their care, by participating with them in embodied expression, and for teachers to
expand their understandings of the potential of their diverse individual students in a different context (Buck
2005).

Learning in Dance

According to Hanna “All youngsters may benefit from the creative process of dance-making and dance-viewing
and learn to ‘write’ and read the non-verbal, which is critical to human survival” (2008, 95). Learning in dance
is physical, social and expressive; it is about connection. The following sections explore the socio-cultural,
embodied and creative aspects of dance education.

Socio-cultural – Connecting to each other

Students might not have the skills for collaboration, but when “they are encouraged to explore movement
concepts through structured improvisation, creative problem solving, sharing, responding and reflecting” they
“take ownership of their learning and shared meanings are constructed” (Melchior 2011). In creative dance,
students practice a range of ways to make dance, including: individually within a whole class, in pairs and in
small groups. Collaborative skills are advanced as students create and solve choreographic problems (Minton
2007). As students work together to refine work, they further develop their observation and attention (Lord
2001). When students engage in structured improvisation exercises (akin to co-construction of texts); practice
and then share their work; they also develop physical alertness and confidence, as they tune into each other in
dance (Chappell 2007). Simple dance structures, activities and tasks based on copying (mirroring and
shadowing, follow the leader, call and response) are an opportunity for the teacher to share the creative process.

The most commonly used approaches to teaching dance are teacher directed (Fraser et al. 2007), which not
only misses the opportunity for children to construct their own understandings, but puts pressure on the teacher
as the fount of all knowledge (Buck 2005). If teachers “can see dance as springing from the children’s own
movement ideas, rather than from preordained steps, then including dance education in their classroom will be
more approachable, achievable and inclusive” (Ashley 2005). In creative dance there is no standard to be
reached. Teachers therefore have a greater freedom to explore the nature of relationships in teaching and
learning. In creative dance, “a balance between structure and improvisation’’, allows for teaching to be “more
emergent, participatory, and improvisational” (Burnard and Dragovic 2014, 340). Rather than relying on
“teacher as model” or “student as imitator” (Ashley 2005, 10), collaborative strategies utilize the contributions
of students and teachers.

The experience of co-creating dance with children can help to change teachers’ foundational understandings of
important threshold concepts, including more inclusive definitions of dance and the dancer (Buck and Rowe
2015). The collaborative processes in ‘creative dance’ favour inclusion. According to state and national quality
frameworks, teachers in Queensland are bound to foster inclusive practices in their classrooms (Berlach and
Chambers 2011). Creative dance is inclusive because all children, no matter their experience or physical ability,
can participate and contribute. Therefore teachers need to be attuned somewhat to the potential in even the most
minimal offering; to offer the possibility of success and completion of the task, and to encourage enjoyment in
the act of being physical and creative with peers, through choice and challenge. Dance, with its blend of social
and physical learning, constitutes an “important dynamic experience of the social” (Gardner, Komesaroff, and
Fensham 2008, 17).
 Principals and teachers have responded positively to the success of outsourced programs in social dance,
commending the programs for having “brought the spirit of our school together” or for “producing a high
quality product that is affordable and accessible to all students” (Dance Fever 2014). Yet in a creative dance
class, the impacts are more diverse and cater more for diversity (Amans 2008). Individuals experience dance
differently and therefore there are many unique achievements and breakthroughs. At the same time, there is a
sense of achievement and joy (Bond 2009), discovered by the group when they work collaboratively on a
creative process. The group dynamic and feeling of unity is built from the ground up, in that class and by that
class.

The researcher’s journal documents the easy engagement in dance making of one Year 6 class (11 year olds).
Prior to the creative dance class they had been led by their teacher in a regular movement activity, where
students took turns to demonstrate and lead exercises and dance movements for an aerobic warm-up. The
teacher had also taken the opportunity to use dance language when naming or describing movements, as well as
suggesting ways the movements could be varied, i.e. by speeding them up. They had become used to turn-taking
and positively supporting all ideas and this became the basis for more productive dance-making in the
subsequent creative dance sessions. Teachers can encourage children to work together creatively by using clear
dance tasks and structures to ensure collaboration and enable students to establish their own learning
interactions and become self-motivated and directed learners. Collaboration does not just come naturally, but it
can be learned.

Embodied – connecting to the physical

In the dance classroom the teacher student interaction is transparent; stripped back to its essence without the
props and ephemera of a classroom. “The desk as a technology for learning is a contrivance aimed at controlling
movement and attention in whichever setting it inhabits. As such, it points to the premise underlying education
in many cultures: to learn we must be still” (Adele Kentel and Dobson 2007). Where there are no chairs, tables,
whiteboards or electronic gadgetry, there is only the dance, which even for the committed constructivist could
be confronting. However, without reference to the screen and an ideal to copy or follow, there is the opportunity
for the creation of original and personal movement vocabularies and through collaborative pedagogy the
development of a group movement vocabulary and learning that is driven by a ‘we’ paradigm (Glăveanu 2014).

Children sometimes resist dance because it disrupts a classroom culture in which they have excelled,
especially when teachers focus on explicit teaching of dance elements; during which time they have to sit on the
floor and do written work that would be easier done at a desk (Atkinson and Scott 2014).The pedagogic
strategy of ‘move first, talk later’ is powerful because many children seem to become engaged and excited by
this sudden change from “business as usual’ (Torzillo 2015) (Torzillo 2015). Allowing children to ‘play’ with
dance ideas engages the mind as well as the whole body since play is a cognitive process (Vygotsky 1978).

Dance is akin to the form of physical activity young people prefer outside the formal school curricula (Hunter
and Macdonald 2005). Research supports the view that students enjoy learning kinaesthetically (Sparkes 2007).
Because dance is fun, active, challenging and free, students gain skills and connect to an approach to dance with
which they would not normally come into contact. Neuro-science has demonstrated the ‘importance of including
physical learning in the classroom; to stimulate creativity, increase motivation and bolster social intelligence”
(Grafton 2009, 1).

The structured school day may be the only period of time in a child’s life when she or he might be
introduced to the sort of active unstructured play . . .[that]? engages the whole individual. Rather than
removing periods of free play from formal education, we should focus on preserving and extending this
valuable time. (Adele Kentel and Dobson 2007, 146)

Dance has the potential to be liberating and empowering because it is an opportunity for students to exercise
agency and experience pleasure and control in physical activity (Wellard, Pickard, and Bailey 2007). Children
and young people have spoken of the fun, pleasure and experiences of the ‘superordinary’ that they get from
dance (Bond and Stinson 2000). This is because it is physical and so is able to engage the kinaesthetic learner,
and increase all students’ understanding of non-verbal communication. There is evidence that children enjoy
dance and it appears that “happiness also makes us more disposed to engage in creative endeavour, which is
itself another source of fulfillment” (Scoffham and Barnes 2011, 1). Students will engage in tasks they find
interesting, challenging and important (Bond and Stinson 2007; Holland and O'Connor 2004; Zyngier 2007;
Fullarton 2002).
Creative – connecting to the expressive

Confidence in the movement of the body is enhanced in creative dance because it is based on personal and
idiosyncratic movements and translations of movement. The teacher’s job is not to enforce a particular style or
technique, but to encourage creative responses. This is not to say that the teacher at the same time should
encourage safe practice and incorporate movement tasks, games and activities that help children to develop
fundamental movement skills, strength, balance, coordination and body awareness (Cameron 1986).

When teachers aim for creative teaching, tensions and dilemmas are inevitable (Chappell 2007, Fraser et al.
2009). Qualitative research in the UK uncovered the teaching practice of expert specialist dance teachers
working in primary/elementary schools. The findings show that the important feature of the teaching lay in its
flexibility and the teachers’ ability to tune into the students and the context in order to establish the right
conditions for creative learning; where students were provided with enough information and structure as well as
enough freedom to create (Chappell 2007). In Arts learning contexts teachers are able to utilize pedagogical
approaches as needed, without being limited to constructivist or teacher-centred methods. In a way, they are
subverting the binaries of control or freedom normally associated with academic learning, as opposed to
learning in the Arts (Resnick 2007).

Choice, freedom and agency are important to children. Children gain self-esteem when they are empowered
through “supportive statements” and “decision-making” (Burnard and Dragovic 2014, 354) and this enhances
their well-being. Opportunities to ‘play’ with ideas in dance can contribute to positive self-perception, body
image, and esteem (Hanna 2008). They also enhance health and holistic well-being offering “agentic
experiences” in supportive social contexts, as “crucial protective elements mediating children's socio-emotional
well-being” (Kumpulainen et al. 2013, 1) Nonetheless, children need support to handle the unfamiliar freedoms
of the dance class. Creative dance and constructivist approaches to dance do not mean that teachers abandon
their responsibility to protect and manage the dialogue and the interaction that results (Buck 2005), as well as
supporting their students to look critically at their own and others’ dance (Stinson 2010).

Findings

Teachers value the opportunity for creative expression, physical learning and collaborative problem solving.
Students value dance for its difference to the rest of their schooling. In dance, students experience learning
physically; they appreciate the opportunity to work collaboratively, the choice and challenge of dance and the
opportunity to escape from the strictures of the regular classroom. Observations of classrooms, along with
collections of children’s words and writing, demonstrate what engages children and how teachers can design
learning to engage them. Their words and anecdotes have been collated below, according to the three
perspectives of the socio-kin-aesthetic framework; relating to the socio-cultural, embodied and expressive
aspects of dance education and the experiences of children and teachers.

Socio-cultural

When three groups of children talked about dance and what was important in dance, choice and freedom were
strong themes. This relates to notions of agency and the honouring of the dance in each child (Sansom 2009).
Buck and Rowe introduce the idea of threshold concepts, the foundation needed to build further understandings
(2015). In dance education, threshold concepts include that everyone can dance; that there is no one truth about
dance; and that every dance idea matters (ibid) When children are allowed to create their own dance, working in
self-selected groups they can connect to their life-worlds, experiences, cultural values and personal tastes, and
reflect the group/class identity as a group of dancers collaborating and joining together using shared movement
vocabularies, tastes and styles:

What about choice?

Everyone has a choice, if there’s no choice, its like the rules, you have to do it, but if there’s a choice its
easier,
You get to:
Choose your own group
Choose your own moves
Make up your own dance
 Freedom, because when you’re making up a dance you need freedom,
Because if you don’t have freedom, like you’re just doing something you don’t want to do and if you like
dancing you should be able to do it with freedom
This word ‘freedom’ is because all our dance moves that we did, to me it felt like we were free and we were
doing such good dancing
In dance the freedom ‘comes with the territory’, because children are released from the restrictions of the desk
and the ‘choreography of the classroom” (Bresler 2004). The physical, embodied nature of the learning appeals
to them, as it is different to the sedentary learning they experience elsewhere.

A group of children, who were to do a creative dance program, were adamant that they did not want to, this
was based on their last dance experience, in which they learned a traditional Australian social dance or
‘bush dance’. After the first creative dance lesson, they rushed to tell their teacher about the experience,
which was nothing like their expectations.

When talking about what was achieved in dance or what they learned first person plural is often employed to
suggest that it was a group effort. Fun is had together:

We spent so much time in the first couple of weeks learning variations and then at the end we did like our
own dancing, so we didn’t need as much time because we had better knowledge of what we needed

My group worked really well and we all worked as a team and came up with ideas and added to them and I
enjoyed spending time with people
I liked making up the moves with my group
Children appreciate the chance to work with friends, despite the difficulties that may present:

You like working with your friends, everyone agreeing

Yeah cause you get to share ideas with each other
You can learn what other people do,
You make decisions by trying them out
One person says something and the other person adds on
It was really hard for my group, because we wanted to express what we wanted to believe, cause you
couldn’t talk you just had to do do the moves

Sometimes you have to vote

It’s hard
Dancing with people you don’t used to dancing with
With people you don’t know, like they’re not comfortable like touching each other
The difficult thing about dance is that people might not like the comfortable moves of dance
People might not like the groups they are with
A note in the research journal described the way that boys seemed to enjoy this opportunity to work with each
other in a physical way. There was physical contact, but it was not competitive or aggressive. According to a
female student in a Year Four class:

Yeah, like most people in our class think that dance is just for girls, but it’s for boys as well

Like Jo he wasn’t too enthusiastic about dancing, but then once he added to a group of boys he was happy,
he was happy being around boys.

The researcher’s journal describes how dance was an extension of friendship and camaraderie for one group of
Year Four boys (9 year olds),

The group of boys came to find me in the staff room, “can we practice again at lunchtime”. The group had
now grown, from its original 8, to include a couple of extra performers, some intending directors and a few
 side-kicks. The dance story they were creating was a narrative, but one created as it was being made. The
story kept evolving, a movement or tableau looked effective or worked physically and so it was incorporated.
These boys had plenty to do at lunchtime, they weren’t the ones who would spend their time in the library
reading or playing board games, but yet they kept coming back to practice and create their dance. Their
usual lunchtime activity was sport, but this was more than sport, because it allowed them to be expressive
and to collaborate in a non-competitive way. It wasn’t to be performed in a formal context, it was just for
them.

Collaboration, teamwork and sharing are important; children believe it makes the creative process easier and
more enjoyable. Learning how to work together is also offered as a benefit of, or an instrumental value of dance.

It would give you more encouragement in a group,

I liked working with a group and being active and physical and I liked learning more about dance, because
me and my friends do dances and now we can use some of the ideas and the different words
Working in a team makes creating dance easier, too:

Teamwork, cause if you don’t have teamwork you’re ‘gonna’ collapse and you’re ‘gonna’ get bored

Teamwork and sharing go together, because when you’re doing something in a group you’re sharing
together If there are two really creative people in a group, they might both have a different idea, and then
you could put that together, but if you are by yourself then you couldn’t do that.

Embodied

The increasing limits on children’s freedom of movement, at home and school, is one of the best arguments in
favour of dance in schools, where all students can benefit from learning through movement, not just those
whose parents have the wherewithal to organize and pay for outside classes. Students notice the difference:

Learning in dance is different to learning in other subjects

Cause you physically do the thing you learn
Maybe cause you don’t have to sit down so much and in Maths its pretty boring
Sitting down and writing
You get to move more
You have more fun
You kind of, like if you feel embarrassed dancing helps, cos once you get into it, you’re not embarrassed.
I’ve seen that happen actually
Can something that you do be fun and serious at the same time?
Yes, Yes, Yes
Dance can be an outlet
You could let your emotions out
Like if you’re angry and you want to punch something just go boom boom (does a sort of punching gesture)
And that’s fair like a dance battle

Expressive

Dance is based in the physical body and the physical world but yet like experiential learning it combines:
experience, perception, cognition and behavior. “Learning is the process by which knowledge is created through
the transformation of experience” (Kolb 2014, 38).

The dances made by children might not fit the ordered or decorative aesthetic with which teachers are familiar
(Message 2009), and the final products cannot always be contained by outcomes statements desired by
educational systems (Anttila 2007). A class of children made dances based on an initial stimulus of a poem
written by a 12 year old, to interpret metaphors of reconciliation expressed as images of the Australian
landscape. After much playful exploration as a whole class they formed groups to devise their own dance,
producing many variations each with its own ‘take’ on the original stimulus idea. One group had strongly
connected to the theme of story telling:

We were sort of like aboriginals and we were making up the story and making up the dances to go with the
story

Another just enjoyed the opportunity to work in a self-selected group:

My group worked really well and we all worked as a team and came up with ideas and added to them and I
enjoyed spending time with people

Another group evolved their own collection of personal and group narratives and images to tell a story about
their relationship to ‘being Australian’:

Well we were doing a story and we used our own sport football and we had to catch the ball, while the boys
kicked it and then we made a whole bunch of waterfalls and hatched out of eggs like birds and stuff

An anecdote from an accidental dance interaction is a micro example of what is possible using a creative
dance approach. At present dance is rarely part of the day to day programs, fitted in here and there, to entertain
or exercise children or to produce a dance event. An example of the latter is aerobic dance or bush dance taught
as part of Smart Moves, a fitness program introduced into Education Queensland schools as a means of
addressing obesity and physical inactivity in children (Macdonald, Hay, and Williams 2008). In the case of the
anecdote, a parent taught the lesson, while teachers focused on management and jollying students along;

We were part of a huge group maybe 300 children and some teachers learning and repeating a simplified
progressive bush or folk dance. I was there as an observer, with a group of visiting student teachers from
overseas, I had another relevant role, lecturer and tutor in pres-service arts education. As a leftover I was
called in to be the partner of an unwilling child. He was looking very unhappy, limiting his participation to
standing in more or less the correct spot and moving in more or less the right direction.

We started off together following the ‘rules’. Then I started to sneak in a couple of little modifications to our
partner dance, a high five here, a shuffle there, a little bit of taking the mickey, a bit of personal
interpretation. He started to smile and put energy into the dance, adding his own touches and moves to the
structure we had been given. He got the message, that just for us two at least, the rules could be bent
somewhat, as long as we more or less ended up fitting in with everyone else. What was it that had engaged
him? In the beginning he was only taking part because he had to. Then the relationship - the opportunity to
add meaning to the dance -, a small moment and not groundbreaking - but yet significant. His attitude went
from avoidance and disengagement, expressed through his downcast body language and posture, to
enjoyment and engagement expressed through relaxed posture, energetic movement, smiles and
involvement.

The significant idea here for dance education, is that the student was positioned as the empty vessel (Tolonen
and Sampson 2014). The parent/teacher was the expert and the teachers the experts on how to behave while
dancing. Once the child was “allowed” to improvise s/he began to play with and between the unknown (the bush
dance) and the known (the variations we were making and adding). It reminded me of the comment of a Year
Four student (9 yr old):

Students might not know as much as adults, so they might have more fun than if they already knew it.

This is the launch into the unknown that the arts invite (Eisner 2002); a dance between structure and
improvisation. This opportunity transformed the experience for that child and showed what was possible beyond
the reductive skills based ‘social dance’ program. The anecdote also illustrates the connection between
emotions, creativity and well-being (Scoffham and Barnes 2011). Stories from teachers and my own
observations show that dance supports children’s wellbeing in many ways. Within the broader picture of the joy
and engagement of children in a dance class, there are many small stories.

Of course dance is not for everyone (Gard 2003) and things don’t always go as the teacher or student planned;
anyone might struggle with shyness or feeling inferior, or lack control over circumstances. Teachers aren’t
always able to skillfully manage everyone’s feelings and fully support students in creative practice without their
own bodily experience. The outside world of the class sometimes intrudes into the dance space and this brings
management issues, embarrassment or shame. Emotions are a little considered aspect of teaching and learning.
Emotion has also been a neglected dimension of the process of educational change, as it influences teachers‘
resilience and willingness to implement curriculum reforms (Hargreaves 1988).
The teacher observed over two terms, found support from the researcher to allow some space for children’s’
own ideas and was able to moderate her expectations, producing pleasing and often unexpected results. She
described the solution of one group of boys who usually struggled with literacy and learning:
T-But they came up with that by themselves, they couldn’t think of an idea so what they decided to do was
they played a follow the leader game and taking turns at doing moves and the other would copy, but he was
strong and the other two were copying him

R –they came up with a solution

T – yeah all by themselves, I didn’t help them and they’re so proud of themselves, proud that they did all this
When teachers take time to really attend to what is going on when their students are creating dance, they
notice all sorts of things. They are often surprised and pleased at what they see:

It is possible to see the difference between the management of the learning by this teacher, new to dance and
the more open and relational quality of compelling dance education. Yet some key themes appear in both
settings: the enjoyment of the physical, the appreciation of choice, the importance of collaboration and the
recognition of creativity in regards to dance making.

The opportunity for children to “manifest their embodiment in connection with the social and physical world”
Anttila 2010, 16), is more likely to be found within a creative and open-ended approach rather than a
commercial dance package or ‘one-size fits all’ technological application.

Conclusion
The benefits of teaching dance as creative practice are many. Dance education goes beyond just aesthetic
education or skills and concepts, but includes “concentration, focus, self-discipline, working hard to achieve a
goal, being your own teacher, being fully alive and present, problem solving, making connections, seeing
relationships, collaboration“ (Stinson 2010, 142). The words and movements of children demonstrate that
through dance they learn in varied and important ways (Anttila 2010).

A creative dance approach does not require costly resources, only space and possibly some music. The teacher
does not need to be a dancer to teach dance, but given the experience of creating dance themselves, using basic
choreographic tools, they can collaborate with children to create dances (Ashley 2005). “If teachers can see
dance as springing from the children’s own movement ideas, rather than from preordained steps, then including
dance education in their classroom will be more approachable, achievable and inclusive” (ibid, 10). Dance does
require energy on the part of the teacher to participate enthusiastically, and a willingness to share responsibility
for idea creation with children. However a modest approach using simple improvisational structures based on
copying and accumulation of movements provides freedom within a supportive scaffold.
Dance can be more than just an opportunity for physical fitness training; more than just aesthetic education;
more than just team building; more than just learning how to fit in. In dance, engagement is visible when
students are active, challenged and energized and their own creativity is being fostered. Dance could be a
means of discovering more about the self, wrapped up in an expressive, physical, collaborative and enjoyable
package. Children value relationships and the acceptance of their own dance ideas. If teachers hand over the
responsibility for teaching dance to an outside provider or interactive whiteboard, they also miss out on the
opportunity to learn with and about their students, and to make connections to learning in the broader sense.
Dance has been the least taught of all the art-forms, in Australian primary schools. At a time when the
curriculum is being constrained by the pressure of performative agendas and the movement of children
restricted, it seems even more necessary.
With so much environmental degradation, human isolation, and body-numbing technology in our lives,
why not recognize and employ dance as a part of the positive, healing, embodying side of the world’s
equation. (Enghauser 2007, 89)

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