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ABSTRACT This narrative study traces the development of a dance curriculum as it unfolded in an inner city public school. It examines the curriculum emergence through intersecting worlds of artistic practice, improvisation, lived experience and context. These worlds were organized and explored through themes of gender, emotion, longing and intersections and examined through lenses of critical theory, aesthetics and currere. It examines the interior dialogue within one individual educator who is both a dance artist and a teacher and reflects the differing and at times conflicting perspectives within those two positions. The curriculum acquired the name "curriculum by accident" because several highly unexpected events contributed to its development. The students were initially suspicious and hostile and presented significant resistance to classical dance as an artistic form. This resistance was circumvented through creative process and improvisation. The act of improvisation became both a way to approach teaching and curriculum development and as an artistic process. Improvisation courts chance, the unplanned and the accidental through a structure in which the unknown is as valued as the known. The school setting is one full of known subjects; curriculum, settings, procedures, people and expectations. Curriculum by accident was a circumstance in which a known (school) and an unknown (the evolving curriculum) melded. The development of curriculum by accident was a response to an array of intuitive and serendipitous cues. The curriculum seeped through the cracks of school experience and transmuted into a curriculum that was very successful.
ContributorsBendix, Susan W. (Author) / Blumenfeld-Jones, Donald (Thesis advisor) / Barone, Thomas (Committee member) / Jackson, Naomi (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2010
Description
The Bharata-Natyam student in the United States (US) is challenged by how to effectively translate their dance into contemporary lived experiences. Research reveals that this dilemma is sometimes addressed by transplanting learnt choreographies into a new theme, sometimes adding verbal text to connect learnt choreography to contemporary issues, or sometimes simply giving up the dance form. Years of training in prevalent Bharata-Natyam education methods make students proficient in re-producing choreography but leave them without the tools to create. This is due to emphasis on guarding traditions and leaving interpretation for later stages that never arrive or get interrupted, because students leave their spaces of Indian-ness for college or a job. This work considers how Bharata-Natyam teachers in the US might support students in finding agency in their dance practice, using it to explore their lived experiences outside dance class, and engaging meaningfully with it beyond the Indian diaspora. The desire for agency is not a discarding of tradition; rather, it is a desire to dance better. This work reinforces the ancient Indian tradition of inquiry to seek knowledge by implementing the principles of Bharata-Nrityam, somatics and engaged pedagogy through the use of creative tools. This took place in three stages: (i) lessons in the Bharata-Nrityam studio, (ii) making Kriti with non-Bharata-Natyam dancers, and (iii) designing a collaborative action dance project between senior Bharata-Natyam students and community partners who are survivors of sexual/domestic violence.
The results, in each case, demonstrated that the use of creative tools based in the principles above enriched the teaching-learning process through deeper investigation and greater investment for both student and teacher. Students in the early stages of learning thrived, while senior students expressed that having these tools earlier would have been valuable to their practice. These results suggest that when Bharata-Natyam education in the US is refocused through the lenses of Bharata-Nrityam, somatics and engaged pedagogy, teachers can access tools to empower their students in their practice of Bharata-Natyam not only within the context of the Indian diaspora but also beyond.
The results, in each case, demonstrated that the use of creative tools based in the principles above enriched the teaching-learning process through deeper investigation and greater investment for both student and teacher. Students in the early stages of learning thrived, while senior students expressed that having these tools earlier would have been valuable to their practice. These results suggest that when Bharata-Natyam education in the US is refocused through the lenses of Bharata-Nrityam, somatics and engaged pedagogy, teachers can access tools to empower their students in their practice of Bharata-Natyam not only within the context of the Indian diaspora but also beyond.
ContributorsMANDALA, SUMANA SEN (Author) / Jackson, Naomi (Thesis advisor) / Dyer, Becky (Committee member) / Durfee, Alesha (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2020