Welcome to this special issue on the independent sector in dance education. According to NDEO’s website, as of 2021 there were 66,266 independent sector dance studios in the United States educating dancers in a wide number of disciplines and practices. It is not an exaggeration to say that most dancers in the United States get their start in dance through these studios, which means that the pedagogy and values that manifest in this sector are critical to the entire ecosystem of dance in the United States. College dance students, professional dancers, and the next generation of dance teachers, who began their dance education in this sector, carry with them expectations about who is a dancer, what foundational study in the field looks like, and what kinds of dance should be taught that were formed in these studios. The students in this sector range in age from toddlers to seniors, at all levels of experience and ability. For many young dancers, the private studio is their home away from home and their studio director is not only a mentor but a role model for their careers. The independent sector in dance has a significant impact on dance education, and Dance Education in Practice is proud to offer a special issue dedicated to this important area of our field.
The authors writing about this sector are as diverse as the field, representing four different geographic areas of the United States and one author abroad in India. These writers come from studios in rural, suburban, and urban areas, and their research methods range from personal narrative to structured research paradigm to reports of practices and reflections on the field at large. Their articles concern youth and adults, in-person and online learning, as well as practices in the studio, the business office, and beyond the studio walls.
The issue begins with a guide for business owners on how to hire staff and faculty for your school or studio by Julie Holt Lucia and Karen White entitled “Best Practices for the Hiring Process in Youth-Serving Organizations.” They clarify what administrative structures to put in place and what legal issues with which to familiarize yourself, particularly when dealing with children and youth. This is followed by three articles addressing specific dance practices. Thelma L. Goldberg, in “Tap Dance in the Private-Sector Dance Studio,” shares her research work on the status of teaching tap dance in the independent sector. Her study shows a number of significant findings including that teachers in this practice tend to teach as they were taught, prioritizing choreography over an understanding of tap history, music theory, and improvisation. Next is “Approaches to Teaching a Bharatanatyam Class for Adults,” a report of an innovative practice teaching the classical Indian dance form Bharatanatyam to adult beginners in an online studio setting, by Bhargavi Gopalan. She reports on her changes to traditional practices to make the form accessible to a wide range of adults by adding collaborative learning methods. Christi Camper-Moore and Angelica Bell follow with “Power of the Pillow: Three Models to Support Student Creativity,” which reports on their experiences in enhancing student creativity through informal choreographic showings and composition classes and capstone projects for high school seniors. Joyce Lo, spanning both the independent sector and the postsecondary world, shares advice on ways studios can introduce students to practices in colleges and universities to help their high school dancers transition smoothly to the next phase of their dance lives in “Aging Out of Studio Dance: What Happens Next and Transitioning to Postsecondary Education.” The issue concludes with a motivating article by Jesse Katen, entitled “Performing Leadership: The Pedagogical Impact of the Studio Owner as Community Leader” on the positive influence dance schools and studios can have on their local communities. He reframes the studio owner job as one of business leader and shares his personal journey to become an organizer and elected official in his own community.
I hope you see yourself and your connection to the independent sector in their scholarship and gain both practical techniques and inspiration from their ideas. I would like to extend special thanks to Deborah Black, graduate intern from the master’s program in dance education at New York University, whose work on this issue contributed to its clarity and depth.
Drexel University, Philadelphia, PA, USA
Address correspondence to Miriam Giguere, Drexel University, Philadelphia, PA, USA. E-mail: [email protected]
Disclosure Statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).