Dancing national Identity: The evolution of meta-narratives in Colombian and Filipino Folk Dance

The Philippines and Colombia share a history of colonial conquest from the same country, Spain. This shared history has influenced the ways in which folk dance has developed. Both countries have a wide folk repertoire, some of which reflects the different ways in which Spanish source material has been processed, adapted, and fused with local material to represent ways in which the past is remembered. Despite the apparent disparity, two dances in particular, the Cariñosa in the Philippines, and the Bambuco in Colombia, share similar features in terms of their choreographic material and narratives. This article explores several meta-narratives in both sets of dances, and the politics of memory behind them, through an interdisciplinary approach, intertwining cultural representation and choreographic politics. Included in this comparative exploration are the choices towards reflecting local identities through folk dance and some of the implications of these representations in both physical and political terms

Sensuous tracings and ecologies of connection

This article began its life as a presentation at the Leap Dance Symposium at the University of Otago in November, 2019. It is an autobiographical and auto-ethnographic tracing through a life of moving and dancing that has become an eco-somatic sensing, searching, surfacing, spiralling and intertwining of actions and ideas. There is a deliberate focus on my own personal story, and while I acknowledge that there are many others in the field working in a similar manner, this article does not set out to examine the work of others in any depth. Mention is made of artists and students who have influenced the direction of my life in dance. Although the length of my involvement in dance has seen me engage with a wide range of aesthetic, educational and philosophical concepts over more than five decades as an artist and educator, the focus of this article traces an eco-somatic journey

Of daughters, dreaming and dust: Reflections on ecofeminism and contemporary dance making.

This article reflects on the making of ‘Daughter, there will be no home,’ a solo dance choreographed for my master’s degree in Creative Practice which sought to understand how contemporary dance making can express ecofeminist perspective. Ecofeminism is a theoretical perspective which argues that the oppression of women parallels and mutually reinforces oppression of the environment. Protest against nuclear technology was a galvanising issue for many ecofeminists. In this way, a suitable topic for my dance making was the activism of the women of Greenham Common, who formed a peace camp in order to non-violently resist the presence of nuclear weapons at an air base in Berkshire United Kingdom (UK). Based in the methodology of creative practice as research, specific methods used in my master’s research were improvisation, choreography and journalling. This article will discuss the theoretical and methodological framing of the dance and give a brief description of poetry, soundscape and costume used for the dance. Then, in detail, I will offer reflections upon themes that arose from the dance making

The power of reflection in the creative process of making a new site-specific dance work.

This article focuses on feedback given by dancers and invited critical peers as part of my choreographic process for creating a new site-specific dance work Curiously Quirky Invasion, from March to May 2014 in the grounds of the University of Waikato, Kirikiriroa Hamilton, Aotearoa New Zealand. In particular I focus on an analysis of the feedback, and interrogate the complex ideas and multiple dialogues generated from the ways dancers and peers responded to what they had seen and experienced in the work. More specifically I examine how these responses filtered through my reflections, influenced and affected my pedagogical practice and the development of the choreography going forward, and how meaningful engagement with this feedback was embraced in relation to the development of this site-based dance. Finally, the surprises and sense of empowerment this feedback engendered will be highlighted, concluding with how this translated into the final dance piece

Breaths and beats: Vibrating at the borders of memory

Writing out of dancing how do I address the dynamic, troubled, testing, transforming, vibrant and inventive work of dance through a dialogue with the past?  How might the inter-corporeal transmission of learning to dance from a renowned teacher of a European style of modern expressive dance in Ōtepoti, Dunedin, Aotearoa instil lifelong values and principles of practice that can be returned to and reworked across times and places to reinvigorate dancing in the present? Informed by Luce Irigaray’s ontology of breath, in this writing I attend to the foundational practices of respiration and expressivity in the teachings and choreography of modern dance pioneer Shona Dunlop-MacTavish

Environmental and site dance in Aotearoa New Zealand: Tracing the legacy of Alison East

Tracing lineages of dance practice and research has provided much insight into the growth of dance internationally. The focus of this paper is to extend the identification of lineages in environmental and site dance research in Aotearoa New Zealand, and particularly to consider the ways in which dance artist Alison East and her students have acted to embody relationships with land. This consideration of relationships with environment, site and land through dance weaves interdisciplinary understandings of deep ecology and environmentalism with somatic pedagogies and phenomenological research in ‘the-more-than-human’ world. In tracing a lineage from Alison East, I share my own embodied experiences of this socio-cultural context through an autoethnographic methodological approach. This methodology integrates empirical evidence collected as a member of the dance community, with embodied lived experience and research literature. In tracing lineages in environmental and site dance practice, I consider the work of Origins Dance Theatre and evolving practices that develop relationships with land. In this tracing I aim to contribute to documentation and discussion of dance history in Aotearoa, to honour Alison East’s legacy and to share insights into living in dance in relationship with this land

Dance teaching pedagogy: A time for change

The dance world has a dance teaching pedagogy problem. The typical dance teaching model follows an authoritarian approach, which is increasingly criticised for causing more harm than good to our developing dancers. It is contended that this is not a necessary element of the equation of creating a competent dancer. Our experiences as developing dancers, and now as emerging dance teachers, ignited a desire to seek change. This desire to improve our own teaching led us to explore our own pedagogies and identify the need for increased pedagogical knowledge in dance teachers. Through research and practice, we have come to embrace a combined pedagogy that incorporates somatic and student-centred approaches as an alternative approach to dance teaching. This approach to pedagogy has the potential to create not only dancers but choreographers, teachers, creators and critical thinkers. The opportunity to protect the rights of young dancers is present and must not be ignored

Dancing in public – Weekly ticket footscray

This article describes a durational dance performance at Footscray Train Station, Melbourne, Australia, and the methods used to research and understand the relations created between performer and audience in this context. As performance dramaturg and researcher I participate in each weekly performance, remaining open and mindful of the myriad disturbances and effects of a dance performance in a public space. I have become more and more interested in how audience and performer negotiate physical space and how this effects understandings and a sense of participation. I outline my background as artist and researcher in order to give a context to my understandings and describe the performance, research methodology, and my analysis of two different proxemic zones between performer and audience

An agent for change: A legacy of dance education in Aotearoa

Thirty-one years on from the founding of the National Diploma of Contemporary Dance (which is currently the Unitec Bachelor of Contemporary Dance – School of Performing and Screen Arts) this reflection celebrates the legacy of dance educator and eco-choreographer Alison East. Initiated by a panel presentation at the Leap Symposium held at the end of 2019 at The University of Otago, in Ōtepoti/Dunedin, the panel also marked the thirty years celebration of the Unitec Bachelor of Contemporary Dance and the cessation of the Dance programme within the School of Physical Education, University of Otago. My input to this panel focused on the unique contribution to dance education that Alison East fostered in Tāmaki Makaurau, Aotearoa in the late 1980s and early 1990s. This personal written reflection delves into the currency of East’s pedagogy in today’s context; its beginnings, the position and relationship of the school to the global scene, its visionary concerns for land, place and a more than human and more than dance positioning, with vanguard approaches to dance education and the embodied legacy of dance training that survives in a community of practitioners touched by East’s pedagogy over the years.&nbsp