Everyday Dance Narratives: Visual Biography and Creative Movement Pedagogies with Refugee Youth

Abstract

ABSTRACT This practice-based article illustrates how dance education pedagogies can help refugee youth adjust to new settings. To support refugee youth in narrating aspects of belonging in their everyday lives, this article offers pedagogies for creative movement that unfold through multiple stages. As developed in the first author’s dissertation study and shared here, the teaching exercise includes walk stories, storyboarding, still frames, sequencing, music, props, and dance. The different elements come together into visual autobiographical narrations, or finales of created movement. By creating movement that is meaningful, children and youth are able to shape curricula in relevant ways that respond to and reclaim their lived experiences. Significantly, this pedagogical exercise offers opportunities for children and youth to explore local communities through creative movement.