Shrinking the Size of the State with One Choreography Collaboration at a Time!

Abstract

Since 2016, New Jersey dance educators have requested more opportunities to collaborate beyond professional development workshops hosted by Dance New Jersey (DNJ) resulting in a question: How can DNJ support more collaboration among its members? While exploring ideas and imagining possibilities, the executive director at the time, Cristina Marte, discovered Video Collaboratory, a web-based, private application designed for group collaboration around video documents. With this tangible option, she constructed a pilot program enlisting two high school dance programs from different parts of the state to engage in the process of dance making, sharing, and communicating through a virtual platform. The intent of the collaboration during the student feedback process was to provide students with additional support from distant “choreography pals” to enhance the creative experience. The successes of the project revealed the advantages of unforeseen collaborations, the possibilities in technology, and the enhancement in the creative feedback process.