Competition and Cognition: Theorizing an Autopoietic Pedagogy of Performance within Competitive Dance

Abstract

ABSTRACT Acknowledging criticisms of the values supported by competitive dance, this article seeks to develop and advocate a pedagogical reframing of the event in terms of situated learning and mediated learning experience. Making sense of the competitive experience with the contributions of 4E (embodied, embedded, extended, and enactive) cognition theory, understandings of the potentially transformative phenomena of performative impulse and performative affect are advanced. Employing theoretical frameworks from 4E cognition including autopoiesis, affective scaffolding, skilled intentionality, and meshed architecture, competitive dance is presented as a site of situated cognition that enhances the intensity, and therefore the transformative potential, of performative affect. Examples of reframed situated and mediated learning experiences are presented to explicate the theoretical underpinnings of a pedagogy of performance developed for the competitive context with applications extending beyond it.