Combining traditional forms of research to fit unique populations contributes to understanding broad phenomena within the discipline of dance. This paper describes a methodological approach for understanding separate, but interrelated, case studies which illuminated a particular approach to teaching and learning about the body. In each case study the participants explored factual information about the body through movement using a somatic approach. A multi‐case study design with ethnographic and phenomenologic lenses was used in the data collection; a grounded theory analytical process was used to understand the data. The specific procedures in a grounded theory methodology provide a rigorous yet productive means for developing a theoretical perspective from differing sources of data about how dancers come to ‘know’ in their bodies.