Interweaving philosophies of dance teaching and dance-making: What can one practice teach the other?

Abstract

In this article I will address the ways in which my practice and philosophy, as a choreographic artist, inform my teaching methodologies in the Dance Studies programme at the University of Otago. These issues formed part of an in depth auto-ethnographic research inquiry (East, 2006) that traced the threads of eco-philosophical thinking through both my artistic and educational practices. Emergent themes derived from written and video records of my dance-making (a selection of eight dances from the past twenty-five years) were matched with key features of deep ecology as identified by eco-philosophers such as Gablik (1991, 1993), Goldsmith (1992), Naess (1973, 1989), Roszak (1992), Suzuki (1997) and Trussell (1980, 1989). These include: holism; identity and diversity; interrelationship; intuition and spontaneity; transformation; self determination; cooperation; and notions of community or place. They form the whenu (threads) that weave themselves through both my creative and educational processes and practices. For the purposes of this article I will very briefly discuss the implications of these eco-philosophical principles for my teaching, and in relation to my art making. I have termed this educational approach an eco-choreography pedagogy.