Teaching dance

A Tribute to Robert Osmotherly’s inspired intellect and vision for dance and dance education in Australia.

Dance, Young People and Change brought together young people, parents, educators and others from around the world to share and consider the role of dance in young people’s lives. It provided critical evaluation and reflection on approaches to dance learning, teaching and curriculum for young people and offered opportunities to critique the relevance of dance for young people within education and community contexts.

These safe dance practice guidelines include how to set up a safe learning environment, what makes a practice or performance venue safe, the importance of cater for physical different bodies and abilities, how movements might impact on the body, and simple injury prevention and management strategies.

A checklist of skills, knowledge, considerations and practices that form the basis of good teaching methodology. Some are generic and apply to good teachers of any discipline, while others are specific to dance and artistic instruction.

Some general advice for studio teachers and/or managers about meeting OH&S requirements for maintaining a safe dance environment and for caring for the participants in a dance class.

Traditionally, teaching and training concentrate on technique, alignment, flexibility and aesthetics. With advances in sports medicine and dance science research, there are easy-to-apply techniques to evaluate strengths and weaknesses.

Dance historian and scholar, Garry Lester continues his discussion of Margaret Barr's achievements at Dartington Hall in Devon during the 1930s.

This is a working paper in process. It is concerned with the changing status of disciplinary knowledges, in dance and performance, in Australian universities. Although I have been working as an academic within the fields of dance and performance studies for some twenty years, it is only relatively recently that I have begun to reflect critically upon the disciplinary identity of dance studies and dance research, and with some more concrete sense of how these endeavours might be engaged differently.

This information is intended as a guide for teachers or arts workers in an educational context who are presenting a dance or theatre production for the first time.

The NAAE affirms that learning in and through the arts is crucial in any learning environment designed to develop a culture of innovation.