Voices of Young Women Dance Students: An Interpretive Study of Meaning in Dance (1990)

Abstract

This frequently cited work was one of the earliest examples of research in dance education that draws on qualitative data from dance students. The researchers observed seven 16–18-year-old participants in their dance technique classes and conducted extensive interviews following the classes, seeking to understand how these young women were making sense of their experiences in dance; the analysis drew from procedures in participant hermeneutics and phenomenological inquiry. They found that, for these participants, the meaning of dance was intertwined with the identity of the students; the students perceived dance as either discipline and structure, with a goal of “getting it right,” or else as a transcendence of structure, a release and/or an escape from the everyday world. At the same time, the students saw themselves as outsiders in terms of the professional dance world, perceiving it as consisting of fixed values with little chance for change. The researchers discuss their findings in the context of socio-cultural structures and draw implications for teaching young women dancers.

The research presented in this chapter was supported, in part, by a grant from the Research Council at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. It was initially presented at several conferences; earlier versions appeared in the 1988 CORD conference proceedings and in the proceedings of the 1988 Conference on Dance and the Child: International.

Appendix: Sample Interview Questions

1.1 Initial Interview

• 1. Background information:

• Years of instruction

• Age when started instruction

• Frequency of class

• Time away from dancing

• Forms of dance studied

• Age now

• Why did you start to dance?

• 2. Try to describe for me what it is like when you take a dance class? How do you feel when you dance in class? (Is it different when you dance different styles?)

• What is it like when you perform dance?

• Is it different for you when you dance in a group situation and when you dance alone? If so, how? Is it different when you dance with or without a teacher present? If so, how?

• Are you different when you’re dancing compared to when you’re not dancing? If so, How?

• 3. How important is dance to you? Why is it important/not important? What does your dancing mean to you?

• 4. Tell me about the kind of adult you want to be and/or think you will be (including career plans, if any). Tell me about your family.

• 5. What things do you like to do when you are not dancing? Can you tell me some words that describe you as a person? How would others (parents, teachers, friends) describe you?

• 6. Can you describe yourself as a woman? (Do you think women are or ought to be different from men? If so, how?) Has the fact that you are a woman and/or your feelings about it made a difference in your choice to dance? If you had a daughter/son, would you like her/him to dance? Why/why not?¹

• 7. Can you describe a very favorite experience you have had in dance?

• 8. Is there anything you do not like about dancing? Have you ever wanted to stop dancing? If so, why—and what made you continue?

• 9. Is there anything else you would like to tell me about yourself and dance?

1.2 Second Interview (Following a Class Observed by the Interviewer)

• 1. Is this class like most you have taken? What characteristics make it similar to or different from other classes?

• 2. How were you feeling (or were you thinking about anything) during specific parts of the class)?

• 3. Is there anything you have thought of since our first interview that you would like to tell me about yourself and/or your dancing?

• 4. Do you have any comments to make about the interview process in which you have participated?

Commentary

Soon after completing my doctoral defense in spring 1984, with the tenure clock starting up again, I was anxious to implement a study using more of the range of methodologies about which I had spoken at the 1985 daCi conference (see Chap. 11). I had gotten excited by a paper I had heard at the 1985 AERA conference by Valerie Polakow, in which she remarked that the voices of children were absent from the literature about how children learn reading. It was a transformative moment for me as a budding researcher. Recognizing that the voices of dance students were similarly missing from the literature, I was launched on a path which continued throughout my career. I invited two dance colleagues, who were still enrolled in the same doctoral program I had just completed, to join me in this initial venture; it was the first experience for us as novices in collaborative research. Writing the extra lengthy section on methodology and procedures in this chapter helped us better understand what it was we were trying to do, in the way that writing so often creates understanding.

Some years later, another colleague challenged me on our stated assumption herein, that “all meaning in dance is, ultimately, personal meaning.” Of course, personal meanings cannot be constructed outside of a cultural context, something I wish we had stated at the time.

This work seemed to resonate deeply with the dance audiences to whom we/I presented it prior to its publication. Although most of the presentations were juried, I also was invited to present it at the Tenth Annual Dance Ethnology Forum, UCLA Graduate Dance Ethnology Association, in Los Angeles (1989) by Allegra Fuller Snyder, then chair of the program. I was amazed and deeply honored when this renowned dance ethnographer mentioned in her introduction that this was one of the best pieces of dance ethnography she had ever heard. At this event as well as the others, hearing the stories of the young women dance students brought forth the stories of many in the audience, affirming for me the power of this kind of work. It was cited extensively for a number of years and stimulated other studies by dance education scholars.