‘It’s a different way of thinking about history, isn’t it?’ Student perspectives on learning dance history

Abstract

This paper considers student perspectives on the learning of dance history in a British University. The investigation focuses on the student experience. Recent researches into student learning and the idea of history provide a context for the study. A pedagogic research project in a British University sought, captured and analysed the views of undergraduate dance students. A qualitative analysis of the data, using grounded theory, was used to identify themes of importance to students themselves. The students said that dance history was a different way of thinking about history to that which they had encountered before University. Dance history, and its methods, was found to be a means through which students examined and made sense of their own experience as dancers. It illuminates issues to do with freedom, identity and self and may help students make informed choices in their own practice.

Keywords:

• dance
• dance students
• dance history
• history
• learning
• experience
• dancers
• interviews
• undergraduate

Notes

1. Whereas at some universities there is a categorical distinction between dancing and being a student of critical dance studies, this is an inappropriate distinction for most UK dance courses, especially this one, where teaching staff teach in teams and do not make a distinction between the study of dance and the learning of dancing itself and where students who dance/make dance are taught to be critical.

2. Significantly, postgraduate students are referred to more often than undergraduates.

3. Founded in 1964/1965.

4. The book went into a second edition as Adshead-Lansdale, J., and J. Layson, eds. (1994) Dance history: An introduction and Layson’s chapter on dance history sources was republished as recently as 1998 in Carter’s (1998) The Routledge dance studies reader.

5. Debates about the changing nature of the discipline have been evident in the work of UK, US and other authors, including: Berg (1999); Buckland (2006); Carter (2004a); Foster (1995); Fraleigh and Hanstein (1999); Giersdorf (2009); Koritz (1996); Lansdale (2008); Manning (2006); Matluck Brooks (2002); Sparti and Adshead-Lansdale (1996). The manifest differences in historical approach between what might be described as traditionally-based dance history scholarship and that emerging from new theoretical perspectives is epitomised in the exchange between Ralph (1995) and Adshead-Lansdale with Cave (1997).

6. Notably by Ramsay Burt, Thomas De Frantz, Mark Franko, Susan Manning, Gay Morris and Janice Ross.

7. Other significant writings that address dance history as a discipline studied by students include, variously, accounts by Dils and Albright (2001b), Tomko in Chazin-Bennahum’s (2005) Teaching dance studies and Järvinen (2009).

8. In the USA, the new history might be said to have begun with James Harvey Robinson, for example. In the UK, the discussion has included EH Carr (1961), RG Collingwood (1946), Richard J. Evans (2000), Keith Jenkins (1991) and John Tosh (1991, 2008)..

9. In the UK, teaching and learning in Universities has been profoundly affected by, and improved by, a number of national initiatives. The most significant ones have been: The Fund for the Development of Teaching and Learning, 1995–2009; The Subject Centre Network (originally LTSN), 2000–2011; The Institute for Learning and Teaching in Higher Education, 1999–2003; the National Teaching Fellowship Scheme, 2000–present; the Centres for Excellence in Teaching and Learning, 2005–2010; and the Higher Education Academy, 2004–present, which has effectively subsumed all the others.

10. First published in 1984 and best known in the 1997 revision, which is now available as the 3rd (Internet) edition.

11. Their work forms part of a recent consideration of the teaching of history, including work by Arthur and Philips (2000); Booth (2003); Booth and Hyland (2000); Booth and Nicholls. (2005) and Hunt (2000).

12. Morgan and Beaty (2005) have considered how students experience their learning; Goodyear and Ellis (2007) have explored the ways that students learn to think from the context within which they are situated; Lindblom-Ylänne et al. (2006) have shown how learning is affected by the discipline being learned; Eraut (2000) has shown the importance of learning and knowledge acquired outside the formal curriculum; Wenger (1998) has shown the importance of students learning within communities of practice.

13. The Department had contributed to the PALATINE day ‘Dance History Matters’ (2006) and contributed material to the ensuing research that resulted in Carter’s (2007) article on these lines.

14. There are, of course, external indicators of student satisfaction. The 2011 graduating cohort, who formed a major part of the project, reported 94% satisfaction with their course in the 2011 UK National Student Survey.

15. In the UK, a new system of designating levels of achievement has been introduced. Years 1, 2 and 3 of a typical Honours Degree Programme are now designated Level 4, 5 and 6, respectively. This use of Level should not be confused with the A(Advanced)-Level examinations referred to elsewhere: A Level examinations measure achievement at Level 3.

16. The option module recruits on average 24 students a year, evidence in itself of a continuing interest in dance history as a discipline.

17. A total of 166 students were involved in the modules. Of these, 28 undergraduate students and 2 postgraduates volunteered to be interviewed. These were, respectively, 25% of the first year (L4), 12% of the second year (L5), 20% of the third year (L6) (with 100% of students studying the third year history option module in 2008/2009). Two students from six interviewed at the start of their course in 2008 had opted to do the third year history module in 2010/2011 and were interviewed again for the longitudinal study: here they comprised 10% of the module.

18. I am indebted to Professor Murray Saunders, Department of Educational Research, Lancaster University for his advice and support for this project.

19. The data, analytical categories and themes are a substantial document in itself.

20. The four main sources were:(1) Student volunteered descriptive terms for dance activity:Students, when trying to describe to the interviewer their own experience, what they had seen, their understanding of what is ‘out there’ or what has happened in the past, used a broad range of terms of a stylistic nature, typically ballet or contemporary. Terms used by students themselves, collected from the data, include at least 33 ‘descriptive’ stylistic terms. These range from the obvious — ‘ballet, jazz and tap’, descriptive of their ‘training’ to ‘combined’ – struggling to describe contemporary work, to ‘minimalist’, ‘pure’ and, of course, the obviously historically based ‘early-modern’.(2) Researcher generated terms to identify use of ‘historical’ practices/ understanding, e.g:Historical as a termDiscussion of sourcesSensitivity to ‘strangeness of the past’ (Anderson and Day 2005a)(3) Researcher generated terms to ‘place’ students’ response with respect to other dancers and practices, e.g:DissonanceCongruence(4) Student volunteered terms for their understanding, e.g:‘Evolution’ as a narrativeDance? The extent to which an example given is thought of by the student as not being ‘dance’ but ‘movement’ or ‘art’ or ‘performance’.

21. In dance, there has been research conducted into student writing, and what it reveals, by Mitchell et al. (2000) and Feck (2002), in particular. Whilst this approach is acknowledged, it was not employed here.

22. I am most grateful to my colleague Gwen Goodman,who not only undertook the interviews and transcriptions, but who discussed the project throughout the year of data collection and beyond.

23. For instance, the questions asked of students in the set of first term interviews were:Year 1 (week 1 term 1):Can you just talk about your experience of dance.Just tell me very briefly of performances you have seen that have meant something to you.How do you see the world of dance today?Do you see any developing trends?Do you have any ideas about how the dance world got to be as it is now?Year 2 (November term 1):Would you be kind enough to tell me a bit about your experience of dance history?So could you just think about dance as it is now in 2008 and how do you go about making sense of it?So are there any aspects of history that might help you to develop a clearer picture of how dance develops?After you’ve had one year here, and I think I know a bit about the courses you’ve studied, can you say if your historical studies influence what you do in the studio?Year 3 (November term 1):Why did you opt to take this module Dance as History?What are you particularly interested in?When you come back after your independent study, what sort of input do you think might help develop your historical understanding?Do you feel confident to interpret dance in history?

24. In the 2009 specification the unit contains a choice of three periods of study:The three areas of study for examination 2010–2010 are:(1) Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes 1909–1929(2) Modern Dance in Britain 1965–1985(3) Dance in the American Musicals of the 1930s and 1940s.

25. Characterisation of cohorts:Year 3:Of 54 students who began the course, 2 had studied History at A-Level and 32 had studied Dance at A-level.Of the remaining 42 students in the year three cohort, 2 had studied History at A level and 28 had studied Dance at A-Level.The year three dance history option group of 12 single honours students included 1 who had studied History at A-Level and 7 who had studied Dance at A-Level.Year 2:Of the 50 students who began the course, 3 had studied History at A-Level and 28 had studied Dance at A-Level.Of the remaining 47 students who went into year three, 2 had studied History at A level and 26 had studied Dance at A-Level.The eventual year three dance history option group of 32 students included 29 single honours students, of whom 2 had studied History at A-level and 15 had studied Dance at A-level.Year 1:Of the 41 students who began the course, 2 had studied History at A-Level and 17 had studied Dance at A-Level.Of the remaining 35 students who went into year three, 1 had studied History at A-level and 15 had studied Dance at A-Level. The eventual year three dance history option group of 21 students included 15 single honours students of whom 1 had studied History at A-Level and 8 had studied Dance at A-Level.

26. Student dancers reconstruct reflexively on themselves by looking at disciplinary heroes or heroines. For instance, gay and lesbian students frequently choose particular dancers – notably Ted Shawn or Emilyn Claid – to study, as a way of exploring and developing their own sense of self. Studying dancers with a particular identity (gender, sexuality, religion) is something that many students seem to do in contemporary dance. Such a study, with historically located dancers allows a different emphasis for the student who understands the historical distance involved. Thus there is a difference between a gay male student identifying with a gay male dancer of his generation and considering the question of gay male identity at a time when it was not a cultural given, as in Shawn’s case. Such historical study could be investigated further in terms of how it might be part of a beneficial learning/reflection strategy.

27. Previous accounts by Carter and others have tended to compare dance history with history teaching at school level, rather than at degree level.

28. The students on the modules studied all completed strictly anonymous module evaluations at the end of the module as part of the University’s standard procedures. These evaluations have formed part of the data available for the project and this article. They have not been quoted extensively as their purpose is evaluative of the module and, as I have said, this is not the purpose of this article. However, these two quotes have been included because they make direct and creative reference to the relationship between the learning of dance history and dance practice.

29. This is in marked contrast to the negative features they identified that were exclusively operational. For instance, when asked for negative features of the module, one student said ‘None. Only negative was that people didn’t turn up to all the presentations – this was negative for all the people presenting.’