Male Dance Educators Living With/Through Cancer : Duoethnographies on Disease and Dis-ease

Using an autoethnographic approach, this article focuses on the experiences of two male dance educators/researchers living with/through terminal cancer. Autoethnographers analyze their ‘unique life experiences in the context of the social and cultural institutions that have shaped the world the researcher inhabits.’ Drawn from a larger research project, Dance Educators Living With/Through Cancer (DELC), this collaborative duoethnography comprises the co-authors’ self-narrative accounts of life with cancer, which were analyzed thematically. The themes presented center on the public and private aspects of living with/through cancer and reflect the authors’ cancer experiences along with their social, emotional and physical dis-ease arising from living cancer lives. Explication of resultant impacts on both personal and professional identities seeks to support others with terminal disease in order to lead reflective and meaningful lives while dying

Editorial, special issue: dancing, parenting and professional challenges

Editorial

Negotiating Cancer and Masculinities in Dance Education: Narratives of Discovery from Recovery

This collaborative duoethnography explores autobiographical accounts of two male-identifying dance educators living with/through cancer. The authors generate and analyze two dominant themes—of cancer-specific recovery and life-centered discovery—in relation to their embodied and discursive constructions of masculinity and their shifting identities as male dance educators confronting and resisting societal gender norms. These shifts include the recovery of health and the recovery of perspective in which the authors also elucidate the discovery of previously unacknowledged and unknown aspects of self, the discovery of new avenues of professional fulfillment, and the adaptation of working practices. The article reveals that male dance educators engage in a range of complex negotiations with their masculinity, which is variously shown to be, at times, diminished, fragile, reproductive, recuperative, and subverted, as well as contextually contingent. Calls are made for greater support for dance educators living with/through cancer from formal institutional assistance provided by conservatories, universities, dance studios, and organizations, as well as informal networks of well-being support from the dance education profession itself

Attracting and Retaining Boys in Ballet: A Qualitative Study of Female Dance Teachers

Dance provides both psychological and physical benefits, and yet many boys miss out due to societal perceptions surrounding the feminization of dance. These perceptions can lead to the bullying of boys who dance. Because dance teachers are in a unique position to engage boys in dance, it is important to investigate their perceptions. This article reports the experiences of ten female dance teachers from the United Kingdom vis-à-vis attracting and retaining boys in dance, especially ballet. Here we focus on three salient themes that emerged from the data: dancing boys in social context, parental and teacher support, and improving the dancing boy’s milieu. The dance teachers identified a number of strategies for engaging and retaining boys in ballet, such as privileging boys within the dance studio and improving opportunities to dance in schools. This article posits potential strategies to engage boys in ballet that could potentially empower all genders within the dance world