Best Practices in the Performing Arts: Transformation and Flourishing in a Progressive Summer Dance Theater Program for Adolescents

Abstract

The idea of best practices in the performing arts is introduced as a set of progressive educational values and pedagogical strategies that attempt to not only train youth in the performing arts, but also to be transformative. This article builds on the work of educational reformer John Dewey to describe progressive performing arts instruction and introduce the principles of transformative pedagogies as grounded in the progressive education and best practices movements. By presenting a theoretical lens for understanding and interpreting such concepts as Mezirow's “perspective transformation” and Seligman's “flourishing,” the article uses a summer dance theater intensive program as a case study in which progressive multidisciplinary practices produce indicators of meaningful transformation and flourishing in its students. By illustrating the program's particular set of methodologies, values, and daily practices, the article substantiates transformative events as a particular phenomenon of progressive performing arts for youth and offers these pedagogies to other educators.