Sensation, Perception, and Choice in the Dance Classroom

ABSTRACT

There are many reasons to teach dance as part of the broader curriculum. This article focuses on using dance as a way to foster critical thinking. In this conceptual article, I draw from the National Standards goals that were in line with my own framework of dance as uniquely engaging the three different sensory systems of exteroception, proprioception, and interoception and how attention to these systems can ground critical thinking in embodied experience. I review how this framework has been addressed either in part or whole by the existing literature on dance. Examples are suggested for how this type of thinking could be developed in the dance classroom. Critical thinking grounded in the body supports a more integrated intelligence necessary for creative leadership in the 21st century.