Pedagogical Growth
University of San Jorge
Dance Paradigms: From Traditional to Contemporary and Beyond View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session James Robey
This paper aligns Clare Graves’ Emergent, Cyclical Levels of Human Existence conceptual theory of developmental psychology with the evolution of dance from traditional to classical to modern, postmodern, contemporary and beyond (tribalistic and egoistic state; absolutistic state; multiplistic existence and subjectivity; relativistic state; and systemic state respectively). I suggest that applying this framework to dance offers dancers an “organizational structure” for applying conceptual theory to their craft. I further suggest that college dance programs are sometimes not successful because of misalignments of psychological perspectives on the part of faculty and students. I cite the failure of my own experience teaching in a particular recreational dance studio because myself and the studio management and the students were operating on different psychological levels.
Fully Awake Active Learners: Black Mountain College of North Carolina and Its Implications for 21st Century Education View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Siu Challons-Lipton
What distinguished the teaching methodology advocated at Black Mountain College of North Carolina (1933-1956) was the level to which the arts were elevated and the idea of using creative experiences to enhance all areas of academic interest and create active learners who were “fully awake”. Every student experienced the arts, whether they were an aspiring artist or scientist. John Andrew Rice, one of the founders of the college, identified with artists whom he felt sought to expand understanding with creativity and experience, rather than to ascertain knowledge through control and experimentation. Art was a discipline that helped one to see, to learn, to listen, to fail, and to make choices. Rice’s strong methodological bias for experience in and out of the college classroom was summarized in a later statement: “To read a play is good, to see a play is better, but to act in a play...is to realize a subtle relationship between sound and movement.” The college’s faculty, students and speakers included some of the greatest artists and thinkers of its time: Anni and Josef Albers, Merce Cunningham, John Cage, John Dewy, Buckminster Fuller, Walter Gropius, Langston Hughes, Elaine and Willem de Kooning, Robert Rauschenberg, Charles Olson, and Albert Einstein. Black Mountain College positioned all life as art. The 1933 college catalogue described how the individual was fostered: “The student...by being sensitized to movement, form, sound...gets a firmer control of himself and his environment.”
JoyMobile Case Study: The Joys and Challenges of Spreading Hope Amidst Uncertainty View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Karese Kaw Uh
Laughter, joy, community, and connection; these are the things we need most after COVID-19 devastatingly swept across the nations. Mark Branner, professor and head of the Theatre for Young Audiences (TYA) program at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa, responded to this need by recruiting nine graduate students and a professional musician to devise a thirty-five minute clown show that would travel across the island of O‘ahu in a short bus titled the JoyMobile. But what does it look like to create a public service centered around joy at the expense of the performers involved? My research explores the pertinence and benefits of clowning and live theatre during a pandemic, as well as the challenges of burnout and the tolls this responsibility has on actors.
Sensory Arts-Based Storytelling as Critical Reflection: Feeling Social Justice
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Mark Winkelman, Christine Chateau, Tye Strachan, Mihaela Slabe, Alison Grittner
Drawing upon Heron and Reason’s (1997) participatory inquiry paradigm and extended epistemology, we explore sensory arts-based storytelling as an affective pedagogical strategy for learners to unpack social location, identity, social justice, and social policy. We share our process for creating sensory arts-based stories within a Master of Social Work curriculum, screen four story examples, and contribute pedagogical reflections from both the instructor and graduate student perspectives. Together, we elucidate how sensory arts-based storytelling allows learners to draw upon their strengths, unique perspectives, and experiences in the world, generating transformative understandings of social justice. Our work positions sensory arts-based storytelling as an interdisciplinary mode of critical reflection, generating inclusive learning environments oriented towards social change. Ultimately, we demonstrate how critical reflection pursued through sensory art develops complex understandings of personal identity and social justice in both creators and audiences. Thus, sensory arts-based storytelling offers a potent means of cultivating empathetic understandings of power, privilege, and justice, as learners and educators co-create art to disrupt the growing global inequity.
