Dance Workshop Research Articles

Motivation and Determinants for Successful Engagement among Community-Dwelling Older Adults Participating in a Ballroom Dance Program

ABSTRACT Dance is an enjoyable activity among older adults, but motivations and determinants for successful engagement are less understood. Our aim was to assess these factors among community-dwelling older adults participating in a ballroom dance program. Twenty-one participants (71.4 ± 4.7, 66.7–76.1 years; males: n = 8, females: n = 13) engaged in an hour-long, twice-weekly ballroom dance program over 10 weeks. We qualitatively analyzed (1) field notes, (2) arts surveys, (3) instructor interviews, and (4) focus group interviews post-intervention. Participants enjoyed the workshops and reported the physical, psychological, and social benefits. Participation motivators included personal enrichment, opportunities to socialize, and physical health. Participants overwhelmingly wanted an opportunity to challenge themselves and form new relationships while staying active. The group dynamic fostered a sense of community and facilitated coping through enhanced self-esteem and social support. Participants’ high attendance rates and responses indicate that the dance workshops successfully met their goals. Practitioners can use this information to adapt pedagogical strategies for community-based arts programming to support successful aging.

Körtánccal és táncterápiával a hátrányokkal küzdő tehetségekért

At the meeting points of different cultures, a unique quality is born. That is what we can experience when sacred round dance, dance therapy, and talent development meet and overlap. The study aims to present a project operated by the Budapest 10th district Educational Consultant Team with the support of the Hungarian National Talent Program. The program, named Square-Dance-Theatre-Scene, was started as an experiment, integrating 12–14-year-old students, including psychologists, drama experts, art therapists, dance therapists, and dance teachers. In the paper, a sacred dance therapeutic workshop is described and analyzed, which was a part of this broader talent management program. The workshop was preceded by an outline of the underlying tripartite theoretical background: The sacred dance workshop’s group dynamics are analyzed with dance and movement therapy methods. The archaic roots of sacred dance related to the therapeutic approach are also displayed. Finally, a SWOT-type summary of the work process is given, including both the project’s strengths and weaknesses.

Changes of temporospatial orientation in persons with intellectual disabilities who participate in modern dance workshops

Background: The aim of the study was to identify whether participation in a short series of modern dance (hip-hop) workshops could improve the level of temporospatial orientation in persons with moderate intellectual disabilities. Material and methods: The group consisted of 10 persons aged 14-23 (M=19.5, SD= 2.87). A quasi-experiment was prepared in a one-group plan which consisted of a series of nine modern dance workshops lasting 60 minutes each and held twice a week. The following test layout / testing regime was used: pretest–posttest to check the temporospatial orientation level of dance workshop participants before and after the workshop. A “ball run” spatial orientation test was used in the study. The test was adapted to the cognitive abilities of the subjects. Results: Student’s t-test for dependent samples showed that the mean level of temporospatial orientation in persons with moderate intellectual disabilities before their participation in nine hip-hop dance workshops (M=32.32; SD=3.98) is significantly higher than the mean level of temporospatial orientation (M=29.74; SD=5.45) after completion of workshops, t(9)=2.61; p<0.05 Conclusion: Modern dance (hip-hop) classes improve temporospatial orientation in persons with moderate intellectual disabilities.

Community Arts Programming Supports Personal Growth and Well-Being in Older Adults

Our research study examined how taking part in the arts compared to control affects older adults’ health and well-being. 64 older adults took part in dance, music, or control workshops 2 times/week for 10 weeks. We examined participants’ psychological health, social engagement, and personal growth outcomes using mixed methods during pre- and post-workshop assessments. Focus group and arts survey results revealed that participants felt ownership of new skills learned and felt engaged. Participants, especially for those in arts workshops, described having increased self-perception of creative skills resulting in a sense of personal growth, which occurred despite mind/body challenges experienced during workshops including musculoskeletal challenges, hearing impairments, and challenges retaining new information. Our observations provide avenues for future researchers to create programming that empowers older adults, as well as to utilize the participants’ ongoing feedback to create participant-empowered adaptations that transcends mind/body limitations through accessible pedagogical methods.

Dancing Right(s): Dance, Disability and Legal Empowerment in Post-War Sri Lanka

Sri Lanka's long civil war (1983–2009) resulted in large-scale personal, physical and social trauma and a high number of deaths. Furthermore, many people became disabled due to the war. Disabled people in Sri Lanka have often been marginalized and excluded from the public sphere. Whilst there are initiatives to support disabled people from both the State and Non-Governmental Organisations, support often adopts a charity-based approach which has been criticised for contributing to marginalisation and the dependency of disabled people on others. Performing Empowerment (2016–18) was a research project that responded to this context by seeking to examine whether combining dance workshops with human rights education might lead to greater legal empowerment for disabled people in Sri Lanka. In this paper, I reflect on the experiences of five Tamil women who took part in the project, outlining how they gained confidence and rights awareness which enabled them to self-advocate and make changes to their everyday lives, demonstrating increased legal empowerment. I argue that this change arose in part through different forms of performance that they experienced within the workshops, which enabled a series of transportations from their daily lives.

A dança costurando saberes sociais na educação

Dançar é linguagem cultural humana de composição social que revela a organização do sentir e pensar humano, especialmente na educação. O objetivo deste estudo busca compreender a dança no enredo social da criança, na educação inscrita no percurso expressivo do desejo de ser, aprender e conviver. Foi desenvolvido um estudo de abordagem qualitativa, com base na hermenêutica fenomenológica, a partir de 10 oficinas de dança, com interação das crianças entre 5 e 11 anos de idade, de ambos os sexos, que frequentam instituições educativas formais e não-formais, do Brasil/Itajaí/SC e de Portugal/Braga, e integram os projetos de atenção socioeducativa. A dança agregou oportunidades de criação artística e interação social no encadeamento expressivo; possibilitou a apropriação da diversidade cultural em relações educativas que permitiram a emancipação humana, como sujeitos criadores do complexo mundo vivido, da cidadania atrelada à dança como patrimônio cultural; dançar envolveu o reconhecimento do ser humano de direitos e deveres que na convivência fortalece sua identidade cidadã.

STRUKTUR GERAK TARI LURAH KINCIA DI SANGGAR TARI LURAH KINCIA NAGARI SITUJUAH BATUA KECAMATAN SITUJUAH LIMO NAGARI KABUPATEN 50 KOTA

This study aims to describe and analyze the structure of the dance movement of Lurah Kincia dance in Situjuah Batua village, Situjuah Limo Nagari district, 50 Kota regency. This study belongs to a qualitative research using analytical descriptive method. The data used in this study were primary and secondary data. The main instrument used was the researcher itself and was assisted by supporting instruments such as writing instruments, cameras, and flash drives. The data were collected through literature study, observation, interview, and documentation. The data analysis was conducted by collecting the data, describing the data, analyzing the data, and making conclusions. The results showthat the movement structure of Lurah Kincia dance has basic elements related to the attitude and movement of the body parts starting from the head, body, hands, and feet. From the relationship system between those elements, it produces motive forms in the form of turn taking, and are related to each other like a chain.The hierarchical grammatical relationship system contained in Lurah Kincia Dance consists of 37 motifs, 6 phrases, 4 sentences, and 1 cluster. Lurah Kincia dance belongs to a syntagmatic relationship system. It is a system whose relationship is like a chain and cannot be separated or exchanged between one another.Keywords: Motion Structure, Lurah Kincia Dance, Lurah Kincia Dance Workshops

Dance as a social practice

This article explores an ongoing group dance improvisation practice which, while primarily an artistic practice, could also be considered a social practice which is brought about by the physical, embodied and intersubjective environment in which it exists. Among others, the ideas of Tim Ingold, Hannah Arendt and Hanne De Jaeghar are used to explore the implications of what happens when individuals share a dancing practice. The article will also describe how the ongoing dance practice has been drawn upon to develop dance workshops for children with disability. The workshops were developed to include a variety of dance activities such as learning movement material, dance improvisation and supported group movement generation (choreography). Through the principle of intersubjectivity, described by cognitive science philosopher, Hanne De Jaegher, as ‘perspectives that are influenced by and co-created by more than one subject,’ dance will be discussed as a social practice as well as a situation in which one participates physically and creatively.

Dance as a social practice

This article explores an ongoing group dance improvisation practice which, while primarily an artistic practice, could also be considered a social practice which is brought about by the physical, embodied and intersubjective environment in which it exists. Among others, the ideas of Tim Ingold, Hannah Arendt and Hanne De Jaeghar are used to explore the implications of what happens when individuals share a dancing practice. The article will also describe how the ongoing dance practice has been drawn upon to develop dance workshops for children with disability. The workshops were developed to include a variety of dance activities such as learning movement material, dance improvisation and supported group movement generation (choreography). Through the principle of intersubjectivity, described by cognitive science philosopher, Hanne De Jaegher, as ‘perspectives that are influenced by and co-created by more than one subject,’ dance will be discussed as a social practice as well as a situation in which one participates physically and creatively.

TEACHING AND PRESENTING ASEAN FOLK DANCES IN THE PHILIPPINES

The study described how the physical education teachers teach and present ASEAN folk dances in the Philippines. ASEAN folk dances are luminous in Physical Education subject and commonly used by the teachers as dance presentations in different occasions. Mixed research design was utilized in the study wherein descriptive statistics, transcriptions and coding were employed in gathering, analyzing and interpreting the data. The result showed that physical education teachers have minimal knowledge on teaching ASEAN folk dances. The prevalent factors in the lack of knowledge were due to unavailability of seminar workshop in the country, limited opportunity for international dance workshop and the lack of printed dance literature available in published books. Moreover, the PE teachers were aware on how to teach these ASEAN folk dances in its authentic way through following the dance literature. In the same vein, there are four (4) emerging criteria that comprises different constructs/concepts in teaching and presenting an ASEAN folk dances: (1) authenticity which contains interpretation of the steps based on literature, history of the dance, musicality and cultural, and religious aspect (2); performance which encompasses proper execution, dance artistry and coordination (3); choreography that covers staging and floor patterns; and (4); visual impact that includes the costumes, accessories, facial expressions and general effectiveness. In conclusion, physical education teachers need to have proper knowledge and training in teaching ASEAN folk dances. Furthermore, standards, measures and norms are deemed necessary to set and practice by PE teachers in teaching and presenting ASEAN Folk dances. Therefore, it is recommended to the Department of Education (DepEd) and the Commission on Higher Education (CHED) in putting vision accounts on ASEAN folk dances to be part of the educational activities such as seminar dance workshops and strengthening the inclusion of these folk dances in Physical Education curriculum. Article visualizations:

What More Do Bodies Know? Moving with the Gendered Affects of Place

This article focuses on what bodies know yet which cannot be expressed verbally. We started with a problem encountered during conventional interviewing in an ex-mining community in south Wales when some teen girls struggled to speak. This led us to focus on the body, corporeality and movement in improvisational dance workshops. By slowing down and speeding up video footage from the workshops, we notice movement patterns and speculate about how traces of gender body-movement practices developed within mining communities over time become actualised in girls’ habitual movement repertoires. Inspired by the works of Gilles Deleuze, Felix Guattari and Erin Manning, a series of cameos are presented: room dancing; the hold; the wiggle; the leap and the dance of the not-yet. We speculate about relations between the actual movements we could see, the in-act infused with the history of place, and the virtual potential of movement.

Dancing with the spirits, Act 1: ‘Being grounded and being able to fly are not mutually exclusive’1

This article is the first of a diptych, to discuss a particular approach to dancing with the spirit world, from a contemporary shamanic perspective as taught by the Scandinavian Center for Shamanic Studies. It emerges from my participation in the Spirit Dance Workshop from 24 to 29 June 2012 in Sweden with Jonathan Horwitz and Zara Waldebäck, which in turn led to interviewing them over Skype on 9 August 2016. After methodological reflections on source justification, personal immersion and embodied enquiry, this article introduces the concept of spirits in (this) shamanic context and discusses the possibility and etiquette of relating with other-than-human-beings through dance. It contemplates the notion of power and empowerment, drawing from three concrete examples of dancing with the spirit of a tree, the spirit of the night and the spirit of a power animal. Instead of a conclusion, I offer an entr’acte as an in-between, linking this first Act/Article/Acticle of the diptych with the second to come, which will focus on community, ceremony and performance.

Enfermement carcéral, confinement socio-sanitaire et moyens d’évasion. Danser sa peine et au-delà…

Jail incarceration and social confinement due to a sanitary stay-at-home law against the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic are compared to the introduction of dance workshops for imprisoned women charged with long sentences, then followed by an outside performance Soul Kitchen. The whole experience, organized by a famous contemporary choreographer Angelin Preljocaj, is filmed by Valérie Müller, producing Danser sa peine (To dance her sentence/her sorrow), nominated for an award. The sessions are planned: two hours and a half, 2 times a week, for four months, no technique required. A group of five women start with ordinary easy functional movements, gaining in innovative and expressive qualities, spatial perceptions, feelings and interpersonal interactions, lead by A. Preljocaj in a helpful and empathic mood. At the same time, he discovers the cooking authorization in their jail cell. The relevant results shift into a dynamic successful piece Soul Kitchen (2019) performed in town (Dance Festival in Montpellier, south of France) with dancing and cooking occurrences on stage. It makes sense, specially about self-esteem, body image and positive opinion from the audience. The women's physical and psychological states linked with a long lack of space and sensitivity… move to a better self-balance and feelings of well-being. In a similar state of mind, the French confined population –youth to elderly– try to find different and imaginative strategies at home as moving in a restrictive area, enjoying family cooking… through trainings provided by Internet, looking for reducing anxiety, depressive disorders and other social problems. A panel of situations goes from deleterious conflictual relationships, dramatic isolation, to funny and positive ones using creativeness to escape, facing the disruption of daily life.

Artists or Slave Laborers? Performing Uncapturability in Burkinabe Performers’ Labor Rights Struggle in South Korea

This article traces eight performers from Burkina Faso, who in 2014 protested unfair labor practices at the Africa Museum of Original Art in South Korea, where they had been hired to perform. In the process, they demonstrated political and artistic endeavors in live concerts and dance workshops to reclaim both their monetary compensation and their artists’ status. Nevertheless, public and media discourse that followed this nationwide news—no matter how sympathetic—tended to treat the artists’ experiences as merely a failed Korean dream. Using performance studies methodologies and ethnographic methods, this article uses the terms performance and performativity more capaciously to include a range of embodied acts. With this, the article argues that framing the artists’ experiences within the narrative confines of struggling migrant workers fails to capture the complex, often contradictory relationship that they have with acts of performing beyond the existing categories of migrant labor. Furthermore, the sympathetic discourse capitalizes on hypervisibility of blackness, through which the artists’ suffering becomes a spectacle. This article suggests consideration of the concept of uncapturability—the embodiment of which exposes failures of a nationalist and racialized language—as well as existing theoretical frameworks mobilized to understand the interiority of performance and the artists’ work.

Choreographic metaphors of political terrorism and counter-terrorism in Arodan Dance Theatre

In Nigeria, the deliberate intimidation and exploitation of the common man by the ruling class, for political aims, has reached endemic proportions. These strategic intimidations come in diverse forms, and clearly qualify as acts of terrorism. In the Yoruba worldview, ‘Arodan’ is a cautionary concept which is employed by the elders to curb the excesses of troublesome children. However, it has evolved to be a two-edged sword which could either be used for both corrective andcurative aims, or manipulated for punitive and evil purposes. Arodan, a dance workshop performance by the students of the Department of Theatre and Media Arts, FUOYE, is built on the Yoruba conceptual frame of ‘Arodan’. The dance theatre is a metaphor which explores the ‘Arodan’ concept to identify Nigerian politicians as the ‘elders’, and the common man as the ‘troublesome child.’ Deploying the social identity theory (SIT), this article, examines the use of choreographic metaphors to enact the forms, features, and effects of political terrorism within the Nigerian space in the Arodan performance. It finds that thedesperate yearnings which stem from selfish political interests are cloaked under terrorist acts in Nigeria. In conclusion, the paper affirms that the resolutions simulated in Arodan – national reorientation, political awareness, vigilance, and collective will should be deployed as proactive measures to counter political terrorism in the country at developmental crossroads.
 Keywords: Political terrorism, SIT, Arodan dance theatre, Choreographic images, Nigeria

BENTUK PERTUNJUKAN OPERA TIMUN EMAS KARYA JONET SRI KUNCORO

The Opera Timun Emas is an Opera-shaped dance work in Directed by Jonet Sri Kuncoro on birthday Soeryo Soemirat Dance Workshop to 34 in 2016. Problem in this research is how the process of scrattering and how Opera Timun Emas performances. Based on the object examined this research uses qualitative methods with a process approach to and shape. To know about the process of using the the thought of Rahayu Supanggah about the garrison covering the material, facilities, and furniture, and a garage, and a Working on. Discussing form issues using form concepts Suzane K. Langer which is explained by the opinion of R. M Soedarsono Discussing elements that include dance movements, formations, makeup, fashion, Dance music, dramatic design, theme, choreography group of places Staging, lighting, and arrangement of events. The results showed that the Opera Timun Emas includes in the genre of opera dance dramas, which are directed by In consideration of the garap, penggarap, facilities, furniture, and a line of Opera Timun Emas takes the basic idea of concern for a child’s world Folklore. Portrayed by the students of the Soeryo Soemirat. The Opera Timun Emas form can be seen from the existing elements Dance, formations, makeup, fashion, dance music, dramatic design, themes, the choreography of a group of staging, lighting, and The event was directed into a intact unity.Keywords: Opera, Garap, shape.

Dance as a way of knowing – a creative inquiry into the embodiment of womanhood through dance

ABSTRACT In this paper, I discuss how dance can operate as a method in the collaborative performance ethnography to explore the sensory and emotional dimensions of the embodiment of young womanhood. Drawing on one dance workshop where we explored material objects symbolic of womanhood, particularly introducing Nitika and her intuitive dance with gendered objects and her bodily ways of knowing and learning about gender, I illustrate how dance enabled exploration of young women’s identity intertwined with objects and their gendered meanings. I argue that creative embodied methods such as dance create space for working with the plurality of fleeting sensory and emotional information, not because it is more important than any other information, but because it is an alternative way of knowing about oneself, others and the world.

Meu corpo me pertence: interfaces entre psicologia, dança e gênero

Este artigo nasce da inserção da equipe de psicologia numa oficina de dança do Centro de Referência de Mulheres da Maré – Carminha Rosa. Através da exploração e (re)conhecimento corporal proporcionado na oficina, percebemos a possibilidade de o corpo da mulher se desprender de uma identidade e se abrir para novos contornos e possibilidades de ser. Assim, o artigo objetiva pensar as interfaces entre psicologia e dança, refletindo sobre as possíveis contribuições destas às reflexões e produções no campo das políticas de gênero. Para tanto, realizaram-se entrevistas semiestruturadas com participantes da oficina e análise dos relatos da equipe de psicologia que acompanhava a oficina. Ao explorar o corpo como ponto de ancoragem da atuação da psicologia e das lutas pela igualdade de gênero, o texto conclui que a conexão entre psicologia, corpo e gênero representa uma possibilidade promissora tanto no que se refere à liberdade subjetiva quanto à superação das formas de dominação de gênero e que ambas as perspectivas merecem ser mais bem exploradas.

Developing a Service Learning Project Within a University Choreography Course

ABSTRACTThis article highlights an experience of implementing service learning activities and philosophies in a university choreography class. Over the course of the spring 2016 semester, my undergraduate choreography students created and facilitated dance workshops with middle school dance students at a magnet school in Lubbock, Texas. These workshops aimed to use movement invention and dance improvisation exercises to stimulate and support individual strengths and leadership qualities in the middle school students. Dance service learning activities and the connections made between the university and middle school students heightened creative and critical thinking in both groups. By introducing service learning practices in the higher education choreography classroom, educators can support community engagement as well as prepare university students for future careers in teaching dance to children and working with their surrounding communities.

The Phenomenon of Greek Traditional Dance Workshops in Greece: The Case of the Cultural Association “En Choro”

The Phenomenon of Greek Traditional Dance Workshops in Greece: The Case of the Cultural Association “En Choro”