Reimagining dance and digital media training in an era of techno-neoliberalism: collective pedagogical models for digital media education in dance

Abstract

In this paper we reflect on our collective efforts to co-create Wayne State University’s first student-led dance company dedicated to digital media creation – the Virtual Dance Collaboratory (VDC). VDC was created in Fall 2020 when the dance program learned it would conduct most of the academic year remotely. Despite institutional pressures to build VDC as a techno-centric solution to student retention, we designed VDC as a provocation toward ethical approaches to digital media training that prioritises student well-being, student-led leadership, and collective learning. Our co-created learning environment evades techno-neoliberal ideology and instead prioritises student-led, artist collective pedagogical models in which technology expands artistic potential based primarily on student needs and desires. Our pedagogical approach accounts for technology’s role in the classroom but is not techno-centric. Similarly, our reflective process used for this paper considers how technology functions within systemic, neoliberal and neocolonial institutional practices that coerce students into producing on behalf of the institution. To discuss, we review the course’s design and structure and then spend the remainder of the paper reflecting on course activities using three pedagogical themes: (1) acknowledging technology as a cultural object, (2) questioning relational and transactional roles in/as industry professionalization, and (3) cultivating security and relational trust. Our writing process reflects the structural ethos of VDC by adopting a collective writing praxis, allowing each author to enter into the writing on their own terms. As such, this essay is intended to provoke further inquiry into ethical practices, rather than provide simple solutions.