Ingeborg’s choreography https://vimeo.com/40075211

Embodied teacher-thinking investigated through choreography as artistic research - A dialogue with two contemporary dance teachers Tone Pernille Østern (Dr. of Arts in dance) Dance artist and Associate Professor in Arts Education, Norwegian University of Science and Technology tone.pernille.ostern@plu.ntnu.no

!!!!!!!

In what ways does the practical-pedagogical

knowledge of the dance teacher have a

bodily character?

TTheh!

BODILY'LISTENING''

Teaching'through'touch!!

Own'bodily'participation''BODILY'TUTORING!

The'body'as'manipulator!!

The'rhythm,'time'and'flow'of'the'body!

The'skin'as'a'transparent'surface'that'transmits'energy!

Focusing'on'own'breath!

The'voice'as'an'extension'of'the'body!

The'body,'thoughts'and'language!

The'body'and'the'gaze!!

Explaining'with'the'body!!

BODILY'AMBIGUITY!!

The'feedback'of'the'movement''

Kinaesthetic'empathy''

The theoretical output led to two new research questions:

a) How can two dance artists-teachers who participate in the research project actively be brought into the analysis of the empirical material?

b) How can the tehoretical results of the analysis of lived material (dance teaching) be brought into contact with the dance teachers’ bodily understanding again?

èled to the dance teachers’ choreographies about their teaching experiences based on the choreographic maps.

ENVELOPES

INTERVIEW WITH THE DANCERS ABOUT THEIR CHOREOGRAPHIC PROCESS – ANALYSIS IN PROGRESS

-  Reacted with surprise and joy when they received the choreographic maps.

-  Strange feeling of recognition ”Verfremdung” – like the themes are mine, but not completely mine.

-  The ”Verfremdung” created the necessary distance for creativity to grow è the choreographic map gave impulses to create choreography

- 

MARI •  Improvisation around the map as such, with no selection of

specific theme, improvising without exactly knowing why

•  Not able to chose, did not feel the choreographic power to make chocies if to perform/create something live

•  Needed the distance from the lived, embodied teaching experiences themselves which the film media gave

•  Filmed rather intuitively, guided by the memories og body tunes (feelings) that the map sparkled, and ”as I started editing and seeing it afterwards, then it gave a lot of meaning and it kind of ’came to me what’ it needed to become like” (quote Mari)

INGEBORG •  Wanted to work in the dance studio where she had been

teaching, because all the memories dwell in the space

•  Started with writing quite a lot, based on the choreographic map

•  Chose themes that seemed extra relevant to me or which had a more obvious ’physical’ side to it

•  ”I improvised, and tried to find that ’being’, that sensation that an aspects was affected with in my memory” (quote Ingeborg)

•  The most important for me was to be in that sensation, that body tune (quote Ingeborg)

WHAT DO THE CHOREOGRAPHIES CONTRIBUTE WITH? è RESEARCH ASSEMBLAGE

Artworks:

”… an appropriate way of not only reckording events or thoughts but interpreting them in a way which exposes a greater number of realities” (Hickerman 2007, in Torres de Eca 2015))

The theoretical publications and choreographies (art works) function as an assemblage (Sharma 2002; Torres de Eça 2015; Wise 2005) together, communicating different modalities. (Or montage, as used by for example Kaihovirta-Rosvik, 2009)

Theory: article 1

Theory: article 2

Art work: Choreography

1

Art work: Choreography 2

Theory: article 3

Maxine Sheets-Johnstone (2009): Essay On the Challenge of Languaging Experience ”Bodily feelings are not easily or readily describable, especially when it comes to affectivity and dynamics” (p. 363) What is experientially felt in the dancers teaching bodies in an affective and kinesthetic sense, is more easily communicated and understood through the choreographies. The theoretical publications manage to theorize about how their ”teacher-thinking” is embodied, but they fail to get through the affective and dynamic sides of their thinking-in-movement as teachers

WHAT DO THE CHOREOGRAPHIES CONTRIBUTE WITH? è AFFECTIVITY AND DYNAMICS

THE CHOREOGRAPHIES COMMUNICATE HOW THEIR TEACHER-THINKING IS THINKING IN MOVEMENT (SHEETS-JOHNSTONE, 2009)

•  è the choreographies communicate how they think in movement, and how this thinking is always affectionated, dynamic and constantly on the move

•  ètheir teacher-thinking-in movement is warm and alive, shifting and fluctuating. It is a felt dynamic moving through their bodies, moving them to move-think-act as teachers.

•  èthe choreographies show that the teacher-thinking is not some-THING, even though it has been languaged (”fixated”) through the theorization, but a dynamic way of teacher-thinking in movement

Mari’s choreography https://vimeo.com/40433953

EMBODIED NARRATIVE INQUIRY – A METHODOLOGY OF CONNECTION (LIORA BRESLER)

•  Narrative is one contemporary grande idea, embodiment another.

•  Artistic research is, if not a ’grande contemporary idea’, a forceful epistomological challenge on the resarch field

Juxtaposition of these three; narrativity, embodiment and artistic research

ècreates a methodological field that allows for a connection between different and more empathic ways of understanding

ècan illuminate the fluid, embodied nature of lived experience which informs and creates teacher-thinking

References:

Bresler, L. Embodied Narrative Inquiry: A Methodology of Connection. Unpublished paper presentation.

Ingeborg’s choreography: https://vimeo.com/40075211 Kaihovirta-Rosvik, H. (2009). Images of imagination: An aesthetic approach to education (Doctoral thesis). Vasa: Åbo Akademi University Press.

Maris choreography: https://vimeo.com/40433953

Sharma, M. (2012). Indian art education and teacher identity as Deleuzo-Guattarian Assemblage: Narratives in a postcolonial globalization context (Doctoral dissertation). Retrieved from http://etd.ohiolink.edu/view.cgi?acc_num=osu1339617524 (20.05.2015)

Sheets-Johnstone, M. (2009). The Corporeal Turn. An Interdisciplinary reader. Exeter: Imprint

Torres de Eca, T. (2015). Artistic Ways of Inquiry in Arts Education Research. In S.Schonmann (Ed.), International Yearbook of Research in Arts Education (pp.467-471). Münster, New York: Waxmann.

Wise, J. M. (2011/2014 online). Assemblage. In C. J. Stivale (Ed.), Gilles Deleuze (pp. 77-87). Acumen Publishing (University Publishing online). Retrieved from http://universitypublishingonline.org/acumen/chapter.jsf?bid=CBO9781844655526&cid=CBO9781844655526A017 (20.05.2015)

Østern, T.P. (2013). Th Embodied Teaching Moment: the Embodied Character of the Dance Teacher’s Practical-Pedagocial Knowledge Investigated in Dialogue with Two Contemporary Dance Teachers. Nordic Journal of Dance, Vol. 4 (1) 2013.

Østern, T.P. & Engelsrud, G. (2014). Læreren-som-kropp. Kontakt, kommunikasjon og ledelse som lærer-kropp. I A-L. Østern (red.), Dramaturgi i didaktisk kontekst, (pp. 67-85). Bergen: Fagbokforlaget