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ABSTRACT
Different types of dance initiatives are being designed for people across their entire lifespan, and implemented in a wide range of health and well-being settings. The aims of these initiatives are to improve their physical and mental conditions. Research on the use of dance for health and well-being is also rapidly gaining momentum which suggests a need to value and assess the process (the dance intervention) as much as the product (the results of the research). In this position paper, I critically examine some of these issues from my own research experiences anchored in a feminist poststructuralist perspective. Using the apparently simplistic WH questions (what, where, who, when, whose) and examples from my own research, I present an overview of the field and propose some directions to take for the future. Despite the fact that the paper is anchored in the Canadian society, I believe it can find resonance in many different other cultures since the questions being asked are generic and therefore invite for contextual answers.
Acknowledgments
I am grateful to the Chaire de recherche en pratiques innovantes Art-Culture et Mieux-Être and to the Dance Department of the Université du Québec à Montréal for their support. I am also thankful to Dena Davida, Linda Rabin and Warwick Long for their help with this paper.
Notes
1. For instance: What is Dance? (Copeland and Cohen, Citation1983), Off the Ground: First Steps to a Philosophical Consideration of the Dance (Sparshott, Citation1988), Homo Aestheticus: Where Arts Comes From and Why (Dissanayake, Citation1995).
3. Lucie Beaudry, Dance Département, Université du Québec à Montréal.