Voices of Young Women Dance Students: An Interpretive Study of Meaning in Dance (1990)

Abstract

This frequently cited work was one of the earliest examples of research in dance education that draws on qualitative data from dance students. The researchers observed seven 16–18-year-old participants in their dance technique classes and conducted extensive interviews following the classes, seeking to understand how these young women were making sense of their experiences in dance; the analysis drew from procedures in participant hermeneutics and phenomenological inquiry. They found that, for these participants, the meaning of dance was intertwined with the identity of the students; the students perceived dance as either discipline and structure, with a goal of “getting it right,” or else as a transcendence of structure, a release and/or an escape from the everyday world. At the same time, the students saw themselves as outsiders in terms of the professional dance world, perceiving it as consisting of fixed values with little chance for change. The researchers discuss their findings in the context of socio-cultural structures and draw implications for teaching young women dancers.